Ultimately the reason so much of this post is autobiographical is that while I suspect the mechanism of social anxiety that I posit is generally correct, the method by which I am resolving it is probably somewhat specific to me.
I have different challenges than other people, and so different kinds of explicit goals might work for me than you, in terms of threading the needle between “resolves anxiety by giving me explicit internal standards by which I can judge my behavior” versus “enables me to function happily as a social being without an unacceptable probability of unpleasant blowback.”
I think the important thing is to have standards of behavior for yourself that are fundamentally objective (ish) and totally under your control. I don’t necessarily know what that looks like in your case, though.
Ultimately the reason so much of this post is autobiographical is that while I suspect the mechanism of social anxiety that I posit is generally correct, the method by which I am resolving it is probably somewhat specific to me.
I have different challenges than other people, and so different kinds of explicit goals might work for me than you, in terms of threading the needle between “resolves anxiety by giving me explicit internal standards by which I can judge my behavior” versus “enables me to function happily as a social being without an unacceptable probability of unpleasant blowback.”
I think the important thing is to have standards of behavior for yourself that are fundamentally objective (ish) and totally under your control. I don’t necessarily know what that looks like in your case, though.