If you tend to overanalyze everything when you interact with people, then you need to figure out how to be less self-conscious in social situations.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to discuss today.
I’m about to share with you the exact same advice that I teach to our clients in our social skills coaching program.
What You'll Learn In This Post
1. View Yourself As A Student
Most people who struggle socially have a bad habit of ruminating too much.
They’re so worried about what others think that it prevents them from being themselves when they’re around people.
If you want to know how to be less self-conscious you need to shift your focus.
Get out of your head, and put your attention on others instead.
From Shy To Social
Discover proven steps to approach and talk to anybody no matter how shy you are.
The thing is, we all have an innate desire to feel important.
That’s why if you want others to be interested in you, you need to be interested in them first.
The next time you interact with someone, remember to be present and follow your curiosity.
View yourself as a student and see what you can learn from the person you’re talking to.
By doing this, you’ll prevent yourself from overthinking so much.
You’ll also make anybody you talk to feel more seen, heard, and understood.
This will help you figure out how to be memorable in social settings and people will look forward to seeing you again.
2. Act As If You’re Confident
Your mind and body are interconnected.
When you change one, the other follows.
If you want to learn out how to be less self-conscious, you’ll want to act as if you’re someone who’s already confident.
Check out this video if you want to know how to be socially attractive and approachable.
From what I’ve noticed, those who are shy make the mistake of having a closed body language.
Because they feel nervous, they tend to avoid making eye contact and they always cross their arms and legs.
This prevents others from connecting with them because they look like they don’t want to be bothered.
If you’re doing this right now, stop it immediately.
This is where fake it until you make it comes into play.
Instead, what you’ll want to do is to stand up straight, pull your shoulders back and have your chin up.
Keep your arms to your side, maintain proper eye contact and have a genuine smile on your face.
By acting as if you’re already charismatic, you’ll begin to change how you feel.
You also signal to others that you’re not a threat and that you’re open to interacting with them.
As a result, you’ll learn how to relax around people and be able to create more connections in any social situation.
3. Question Your Limiting Beliefs
Those who experience a great deal of anxiety tend to exaggerate failure in their heads.
They always predict that something bad will happen whenever they try to put themselves out there.
That’s why they isolate themselves and avoid interacting with people.
If that sounds like you and you keep doing that, imagine what kind of life you’re going to have?
I can assure you that you’ll constantly feel bored and lonely.
You’ll hold yourself back from going for what you want and you’ll end up with a lot of regrets.
In fact, this reminds me of a previous client that I had.
He literally thought that people were going to spit at him if he tried talking to them.
As crazy, as it sounded, he believed that to be true.
Because of that fear, he isolated himself for so long until we started working together.
If you want to figure out how to be less self-conscious, always challenge your assumptions.
Question your disempowering thoughts and don’t just believe them right away.
Instead of always assuming the worst-case scenario, why not do the opposite?
That could happen too, you know?
By doing so, you’ll realize that nothing is ever as horrible as you make it out to be.
4. Practice Self-Compassion
Most people who have poor self-image speak to themselves in a very demeaning way.
If that sounds like you, let me ask you a question.
If you talk to others the way you talk to yourself right now, would you still have friends?
If the answer is no then you need to practice self-compassion.
Check out this podcast interview with Susan Campbell, Author of From Triggered To Tranquil, where she talks about how to identify and manage your emotional triggers.
Keep in mind that the way you treat yourself will determine who others treat you as well.
That’s why you should speak to yourself the same way you would to someone you care about.
Whenever you mess something up, remind yourself that you did the best you could at that moment.
If you knew better, you would’ve done things differently right?
Instead, you’ll want to view your mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow from.
By doing so, you’ll be a lot more likely to take risks.
You’ll step outside of your comfort zone instead of always playing it safe.
This will help you create more meaningful relationships instead of having no social life.
5. Keep Your Cool
If you want to learn how to be less self-conscious, you have to be able to manage your emotions.
Just know that feelings come and go.
Regardless of what’s happening, it’s important that you stay cool, calm, and collected.
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If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to adopt a meditation practice.
Every morning, I recommend you set some time to have a quiet moment to be with yourself.
Close your eyes and just focus on your breathing.
Doing this regularly will help you disassociate from your thoughts.
You’ll be able to identify the negative stories your telling yourself and change them into something that empowers you.
Having the ability to control the way you think will help you become less reactive especially during stressful moments.
When you’re able to maintain a calm demeanor consistently, people will feel more comfortable in your presence.
6. Think Of What’s Good About You
Most people who struggle socially often feel like they’re not good enough.
They’re easily intimidated by others which causes them to act timid.
If that sounds like you, let me ask you a question.
How can you expect others to be drawn to you if you don’t feel good about who you are?
If you want to know how to be less self-conscious, you have to learn how to like yourself.
To help you get started, make a list of what’s good about you and all your previous accomplishments.
When you do this consistently, you’ll start to feel good about who you are.
You’ll realize that you’re not doing as bad as you might’ve assumed and that you have a lot to offer in any interaction.
If you do this long enough, you’ll improve your self-image and raise your self-esteem.
You’ll feel more at ease in social situations which will allow you to show your true personality more.
7. Warm Up To Others Right Away
The fear of rejection holds most people back from putting themselves out there.
From what I’ve noticed, those who struggle socially tend to act standoffish to protect themselves from getting hurt.
And because they don’t look friendly to others, not many people want to interact with them.
If you want to learn how to be less self-conscious, you have to be courageous.
Take the lead and dare to be warm towards people right away.
When you assume that you’ll get along well with someone, then you’ll act in ways to make that happen.
To help you with this, just imagine how you’d treat an old friend that you haven’t seen in a while?
That’s exactly what you want to think about when you interact with people.
It’s your mind anyway, you can believe anything that you want.
You might as well choose thoughts that make you feel good and support your goals.
When you make an effort to see the best in others, they’ll do the same to you as well.
8. Embrace Your Quirks
Most individuals who struggle with anxiety worry too much about what people think of them.
That’s why they stifle their personality.
As a result, they just keep to themselves to avoid being criticized by others.
If you’re wondering how to be less self-conscious, you need to own whatever it is that you’re into.
It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do.
There’s no way you’ll be able to get along with everybody so don’t even try.
Remember, the world will be a boring place if we’re all trying to be like each other.
Keep in mind that nobody likes people who are fake so stop pretending to be someone you’re not.
Embrace your quirks and accept who you are.
You never have to compromise your values just to be accepted by others.
Your goal should be to become the best version of yourself.
And then find others who will like you for who you are.
The more authentic you are, the faster you’ll find the right relationships for you.
9. Be Empathetic
Those who struggle socially make everything about them.
If you want to figure out how to be less self-conscious, you have to be empathetic.
Put yourself in other people’s situations and try to consider where they’re coming from.
For example, I’m generally a very outgoing person.
But, I’m not in a very social mood if I’m not feeling all that great.
That’s why you have to figure out how to not take things personally.
You just have no idea what’s going on in people’s lives.
Maybe the person who turned you down is having a bad day and they just happened to take it out on you.
You can’t know for sure what they’re thinking about so avoid jumping to conclusions right away.
Not many people talk about this but good timing is a big component of building rapport with anybody.
By taking the time to see others’ points of view, you’ll become a more understanding person.
You won’t be as sensitive and you’ll get offended less when things don’t go your way.
My advice for you is to just focus on what you can control.
The rest, you just have to let it go.
10. Put Things Into Perspective
If you want to know how to be less self-conscious, you need to be able to see the bigger picture.
For example, let’s say you’re at a party and you tried cracking a joke.
Unfortunately, nobody really got it and there was an awkward silence for a bit.
For some people, they internalize that experience so much.
To avoid embarrassing themselves in the future, they just remain quiet and isolate themselves.
Check out this video if you want to know how to make friends as an introvert with social anxiety.
Whenever you feel like you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, ask yourself, “Will this matter a year from now?”
I find that whenever I ask myself that question, it quickly snaps me out of overthinking.
Believe it or not, nobody is paying as much attention to you as you might think.
Even if you do something silly or make a mistake, I can assure you that people would’ve forgotten about you at the end of the day.
By putting things into perspective, you’ll be less likely to beat yourself up mentally.
Conclusion
If you’re wondering how to be less self-conscious, I just shared with you my best tips.
Feel free to go through them again and implement them as much as you can.
And now, let’s turn it to you.
Which one of these tips are you going to implement first?
Are you going to act as if you’re confident or are you going to question your limiting beliefs?
Send me a message on Instagram and let me know.