Although it feels like it, you’re not alone. For every 15 people you know, one will be living with social anxiety disorder. Not the entirely natural pre-presentation or first date nerves, but the life-altering anxiety that comes with everyday interactions.

It’s probably unsurprising that it takes us an average 20 years before we ‘do’ something about it. We start to adopt ‘safety behaviours’ such as avoidance, keeping quiet in group settings or over-preparing for interactions. These give us a short-term relief, but soon subside to feelings of guilt, low self esteem and act as a slow puncture to our confidence. It becomes hard to get out of the hole. Saying no to life means missed opportunities. Relationships can suffer, earnings can take a hit and joy and meaning can be sucked out of life. But the good news is, it’s entirely reversible.

I’m Tom, founder of WalkTheTalk. Like many others, the pandemic was a turning point and I went from not thinking twice when presenting to large audiences to getting anxiety attacks in ordinary conversations. It’s rubbish, but getting frustrated didn’t help, and the more I dwelt on it and the greater expectation I heaped on myself, the more I fretted.

One day a little after the pandemic I decided to stop beating myself up about it and the why me? and came up with a sort of ‘workout’ plan for myself. I started to throw myself into daily interactions outside of my comfort zone. Each time I dialled up the fear factor a little more. For example, making the audience size a little larger. Fast forward to today and I’m a lot more accepting, confident and comfortable than I was in those dark days.

I started WalkTheTalk to help people come together, share experiences and ‘practice’ socialising. It’s evolved significantly over the last three years. We’ve had hundreds of attendees and witnessed extraordinary success stories of people reintegrating back into life and ‘graduating’ the group.

I know that anxiety won’t go away, but I do know that I enjoy the days when I remember when something used to trigger a spiral of anxiety. And I’ve gone back to presenting to large audiences, even though I still feel nervous. I no longer avoid situations and it’s not down to any silver bullet, rather a belief that confidence is a muscle. WalkTheTalk is about giving you an easy way to train yours.

I’ve also learned better ways to approach social anxiety that accelerate progress and provide long-term benefits. Together with the help of leading psychologists and resources from organisations at the forefront of social anxiety research, we’ve captured the essence of what our original members found most beneficial and mapped a gold standard process into a group format.