Welcome to the New Year! For me, this week marks the beginning of it because the kids are finally back in school after 2 weeks of destroying the house and breaking routines. Now, the last time I published an episode was on Dec 2nd. I didn’t plan on being gone for this long, but life seriously got in the way, a couple of depressive episodes hit me, and now here we are! I’m keeping this episode under Season 2, and hopefully, I can keep the frequency of one episode per week at least until Spring. I still have a lot to say!
Let’s discuss this week’s topic of setting a social anxiety goal.
New year, same social anxiety? No, we are going to change that in 2024! Whether you subscribe to New Year’s resolutions or detest the idea of having to sit down and write out goals you know you’ll forget about in a month, like I usually do, you’ll benefit from having at least 1 social anxiety goal this year.
What do I mean by that? I want to introduce you to the impossible list. And once I introduce you to that, we’ll dive deeper into the social anxiety section of it.
Have you heard of an impossible list?
I don’t know about you, but I stopped making New Year’s resolutions long ago. Not only did I never follow through on them (on average, people stick to a resolution of 36 days), but I felt super shitty at the end of the year. I never seemed to accomplish them, and it made me feel like a weak person.
That’s not how I want to start any year again. And I will forever fight against the fresh start effect, but that’s a discussion for another day. An impossible list is an ever-evolving list of goals you want to accomplish.
The beauty of this impossible list is that you can segment your goals into different areas of your life to track everything that matters to you constantly. The best part is that you can change it as often as you change yourself.
Not only do you NEVER have to think of a New Year’s resolution again, because ta-da! You know exactly what you want to check off in your life, but it will always stay in the back of your mind as time goes on.
And this is super freeing because you’re not tied to making any of these happen THIS YEAR; you can tackle them as you move through the different seasons of your life.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t set some achievable goals this year if you want to, but if you lay them out this way, you know what you’re working towards.
And as you go about your days and you cross items from your list, you’re going to feel more content about the direction you’re going in.
Here’s what this looks like in practice: you create different sections, for example, life goals, professional goals, creative goals, skill goals, experience goals, travel goals, and social anxiety goals. Feel free to get as creative as you want. Now, within each section, outline ALL the things you’d love to do, see, achieve, etc., and break each one of those down if you can.
For example, my life goals are: to write a book (and under that, I can put the goal of “starting to write”, “finishing first draft”, “editing first draft”) and so on up until the book is published, and as I hit each milestone, I cross it off the list.
Under Skill goals, I have become fluent in Dutch, and I can break that down by passing level 1, then 2, then 3.
Then I have my social anxiety goals such as participating in an improv class, singing at karaoke, taking a dance class, and doing a YouTube live. So these I can also break down. The cool part about adding social anxiety as a section is that you’re always aware of what you’d love to do if it weren’t for social anxiety. You can visibly see where and how social anxiety is holding you back, and you can start tackling some of the things. Literally just dump everything that comes to mind as it relates to activities, events, and actions you’re unable to take or do because of social anxiety.
It’s super powerful and easy to manage. I have the list on a notion board and always look at it to see how I’m tracking.
You can start with whichever one you fancy, whether it’s going for the hardest beast of all or the easiest bug to squash. Not that I promote squashing bugs, but I make sure my kids know that every creature is sacred and has their value. But anyway, you know what I mean.
I’ll be working on getting more comfortable speaking my opinions online and being a more visible activist for the causes that matter to me. So, let me know what it will be for you! You can always send me an e-mail at rox@honestrox.com.
If you want to sprinkle in some social anxiety tasks this year, be sure to check out my social anxiety challenge workbook or you can do the free 5-day social anxiety challenge to warm yourself up!
You can find the details of both of those in the show notes.
See you next week!