Keeping a journal is a powerful tool for working with your social anxiety. It can help you to track your progress, stay open and curious, identify opportunities and reflect on the progress you’ve made.
What to track in your journal
When you join WalkTheTalk you’ll receive a journal filled with templates for planned experiments and unplanned opportunities. We recommend completing one for as many experiments and opportunities as you can. The template is designed to close the feedback loop and rewire deeply ingrained beliefs, so it’s always worth completing one – every little will help.
In your journal, you can track the following information:
- What I’m planning to try/What happened (describe the situation you are experimenting with and how you plan to drop your safety behaviours – or the situation you approached differently)…
- Why I’m doing this/Why this was important to me (this connects with your goals and gives you the motivation to carry it through)…
- What I think will happen/What I thought would happen (your thoughts, feelings, behaviours – be specific like before)…
- What actually happened was…
- A note to myself about what I learned from this (the wisdom you’d like to take away from this moment)…
- I challenge my future self to now try (what you believe you’re capable of doing right now)…
Remember: the key is to drop your safety behaviours and focus outwardly.
Looking for ideas for experiments?
Using your journal to reflect
The journal emphasises continual and progressive feedback and rewiring deep-rooted beliefs. But it’s also a powerful tool for reflecting on how far you’ve come. Try flicking back a few pages, reading entries and getting a sense of where you were at a given point in time. It’s easy to forget how much progress we’re actually making on our journey.
Finally – bring your journal along to group sessions and share your achievements, your struggling moments and learnings with the group.
