Finding it difficult to overcome your social anxiety? Are you tired of how it is affecting you and your life?Inaction only fuels your social phobia. In this article, I have included 4 tips that helped me get out of my own social anxiety that had me feeling hopeless a lot of the time. So are you ready to put this in your past and get on with your life?

1) Be persistent in taking action. Social anxiety likes to take a hold of you whenever it can. It especially likes to attack you whenever you are doing nothing and begin to think. You begin to obsess over minimal things and wind up in fear and worry. The best way to beat it is to get yourself busy. Schedule your day and include some mini-challenges. Challenge and courage are the antidotes to anxiety. It took me a while to learn that, but I eventually accepted it. So go focus on more doing and less thinking. I know it is difficult, but it is the quickest way out.

2) Start making small smiles at people. For those with social phobia, facial expressions seem to be high on the list of fears. So in order to get over the bulk of this, start out small. The next time you go to the store, make eye contact and a small smile at the cashier. If you struggle with eye contact like I did for a long time, just focus on that without the smile. Just doing this consistently will help to break the associations in your mind about fear and interpersonal interaction.

3) Begin doing good things for yourself. Write down 3 areas of your life that you are neglecting and make a commitment to improving each within the next month. For me, I was eating unhealthily, not exercising consistently, and not making time to do something I enjoyed everyday. Doing this will help to reinforce the belief that you are valuable and worthy while raising your spirits at the same time. This leads to self-respect, which is one of the pillars of a strong social life.

4) Practice making intentional mistakes. Disclaimer: be smart with this. For example, my social anxiety was closely tied to perfectionism, so I decided to intentionally make a few grammar mistakes or state something that obviously wasn't factual on my Facebook or a friend's. I was terrified at first, but once I did it, the sense of freedom and pure joy was indescribably - a feeling that will last longer and longer the more times you start acting against your fears.