Some responses seem to be saying that a better tactic would be to train social confidence by performing smaller more manageable actions/ goals rather than aiming for insanely high goals in a very short time span. For example if you create with a graded heirarchy of situations/ actions which induce social anxiety, then you can start by performing the actions that you have rated the lowest, and once you feel comfortable with those actions, work your way up.
This is the approach I’ve been using so far. For me the method has been working ok, but the main problem I’ve found with it is that it takes a hell of a lot of time to work through the graded heirarchy to the items towards the top of the list. This is why I’m considering the idea of just starting with the insane goals. If you can do the hardest goals straight of, then it seems that you don’t need to waste time with the easier goals. The hardest goals will take a lot more motivation though, and this is where the huge commitment contracts come in.
I’m pretty confident that after doing stuff like that for say, a whole week, I would have enough social confidence for almost all normal purposes, and social confidence would no longer be a problem in my life.
Why do you believe this is true?
Good question. The reading that I’ve done around this is mostly limited to basic books on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I can’t site many specifics, but from what I’ve read so far the idea that if you force yourself into a situation, and keep yourself in that situation until your anxiety level diminishes by around half, then the next time that you are faced with the situation it will cause you less social anxiety. So far this correlates with my experience for situations that cause low or medium levels of anxiety, but I haven’t actually tried it for situations which cause huge amounts of anxiety.
Some comments have recommended seeing a professional. Really, for me this is more of a self improvement project rather than me trying to tackle an anxiety disorder. My social confidence I think is probably if anything above average, but It is still something to have more of. Professional help in a project like this would probably be useful, but my understanding is that professional help is expensive.
Sorry I don’t quite understand what you mean by “check your privilege” and how that constitutes a counter argument to the idea that commitment contracts should work all the more so if you are poorer. Could you explain?
I don’t quite understand what you means here. I’ve always thought that commitment contracts work for me because I’m generally aware that losing money sucks, and when I lose money I can’t spend it on other things.
I agree that in some situations where you have very little money financial commitment contracts may not be the best idea. What do you think about commitment contracts that are based on social incentives rather than financial ones? or any other kind of commitment contract that isn’t based around money? eg. http://aherk.com/