Social Anxiety Narrative Essay

All my life I have been plagued with the unfortunate condition of social anxiety. I have seemed to have it for the majority of my life. Since elementary school, I have always been the shy, quiet kid in class who does her work and keeps to herself. It was always hard for me having to speak in front of the class or even to another person whom I didn’t know well. Every new conversation that I was engaged in gave me copious amounts of anxiety. I would stutter, blush, and when the whole ordeal was done I was embarrassed looking back on how I had acted. It would haunt me for days afterward thinking to myself, “you shouldn’t have laughed so loud” or “why did you say that? They probably think you are so weird now.” However, as I have grown up and matured

into the adult I am today, I realized a very important lesson. Self-efficacy is an important thing to have and to develop. Ever since I started believing in myself and not caring what other people thought of me, I have gained so much more confidence in who I am as a person. I don’t stumble over my words anymore, I make conversation with people I don’t even know, and I am so much more confident in what I have to say and how I express myself. It’s all about having that self-efficacy. If I didn’t, my self-esteem would still be low and I wouldn’t have made all of the friends I have now.
One situation that I was recently put that helped me gain self-efficacy was when I got my first job ever. A month ago I got called in for an interview. Being the anxious person I always am, I was obviously very worried and nervous for the interview. I kept thinking if I looked nice enough and kept wondering if they would like me. Putting myself in that situation where I would have to talk to somebody who I didn’t even know was a very difficult thing for me to do. However, by building up my self-efficacy, I was able to make myself look great and I instantly got hired. Marcus Garvey once said, “With confidence, you have won before you started.” By having that confidence in myself before going in for the interview, I was able to help myself believe that I would do well. And I did just that.
Speaking in public or in front of classrooms is another big fear of mine.

My heart races really fast and I stammer over my words. It’s really nerve-racking for me. Back in the seventh grade, I took a public speaking class to try and help me get over this fear of talking in front of people. The whole class was dedicated to helping you believe in yourself and help you believe that what you have to say is important. The last assignment that we had in the class was a big speech that we had to write and present in front of our peers and the principal of the school. I was completely terrified as one can assume. Nevertheless, my teacher encouraged me and told me that what I had to tell my peers was important. It really helped me build up that courage that was pent up inside of me, and I ended up doing amazing on my speech. It made me feel so much better about myself, and from then on I was so much more confident in what I had to say to people. In the book, Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelly said, “but to act, most of us must first overcome the fears that have blocked our creativity in the past.” This reigns true for many people in the world, including myself. We have to block out that negativity that we keep telling ourselves over and over again., like when I told myself that what I had to say wasn’t important. We have to believe in ourselves; we must have

self-efficacy.
That being said, it is okay to fail. In this society, failure is looked down upon and thought of as a bad thing. That is far from the truth. Without failure, there would be no success. Many famous people have failed in life. For example, Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest directors of our time, was rejected by the University of Southern California of Cinematic Arts not just once, but several times. He is now known for his movie Jaws, which was and still is a very popular movie, and he has won three Academy Awards. If he had given up on his dream of becoming a famous director after being rejected, we never would have been able to witness these amazing movies that he created.
A part of life is failure. It’s going to happen to everyone. It’s how we handle it that defines who we are as a person, and if we let that failure stop us from having confidence in ourselves. We can do anything if we put our mind to it and if we believe in ourselves. Don’t let your failures and insecurities become blocks in your path. Make them the things that build you up to your tallest and most possible height.