Failure, Social Anxiety And Strategies To Cope in Effective Speaking

How many times have we seen ourselves analysing what people around us might think or say towards our actions? Our paranoid mind is always jumping to assess what our society might be thinking of us whether it's our exam results, our dressing sense or how we lead our lives.

Social anxiety and fear of failure are some common issues that people face in their everyday lives. These are common issues among people these days, especially in the corporate world. In this segment, Rakesh will give you some tips that you can follow to manage your anxiety and overcome the fear of failure. Let's get started.

With the help of a great example, Rakesh illustrated that most of the time, people are going to judge you, no matter what. This is even truer in the corporate world. Now, let's summarise the key takeaways from the video given above:

• In layman’s terms, social anxiety is the fear of being judged. It also refers to the fear of failure and others’ reaction to your failure.
• Do not ever get bogged down by what people think of you. It impedes your progress.
• To deal with failure, practise failing often. This will make you more comfortable failing and you will care less about what people think of you.
• Do not fear rejection; it is a common everyday phenomenon in the corporate world.
• Learn to celebrate your failures.

In the next session, you will learn in detail how to structure your conversations and ace your speech delivery.

Additional Resources:

• Karen Thomson Walker: Fear as a story in our minds 
• A playlist of TED Talks on overcoming fear 
• This is an excellent TED Talk by Jia Jiang where he talks about what he learnt when he started from failures.
• Patti Smith performs Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" - Nobel Prize Award Ceremony 2016