You can do a social anxiety test to learn if you have a disorder, but it’s likely you suffer from a social anxiety disorder having tried to treat it for years. Your infatuation with anxiety and curing it go hand-in-hand. What you resist persists making problem-solving ineffective.

Watch the video above for the start of this article and the only social anxiety disorder cure

From a young age we’re tricked to believe in emotional regulation. We believe adults are mature, stable, and happy because of emotional control. “Stop crying and being a baby.” “Don’t be angry.” And of course my dreaded, “Don’t be a scaredy cat.” Emotional regulation has lead to your search here today as you try discover the cure of your social anxiety.

What are the affects of battling your anxiety? What’s the secret to better socialize and start living a meaningful life?

The Hidden Danger of a Social Anxiety Disorder

Cowards die many times before their deaths.William Shakespeare

To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.Albert Einstein

Social anxiety affects you on the outside. You’re in a conversation looking at someone, but really you’re looking within, monitoring what’s going on. “Am I getting more anxious? Is my nervousness dropping? What do they think of me?”

A battle with a social anxiety disorder is life-limiting. Imagine yourself at a banquet of delicious meats and foods on the table with anxiety sitting beside you. If you battle anxiety, both hands grasp the knife and fork for weapons as you focus on slicing anxiety to death. Anxiety sometimes gets hit yet morphs into a more intense form. You swing harder only to tire yourself out – all the while you miss a delightful moment of treats.

Your battle with anxiety consumes plentiful amounts of energy that diverts your mind and body from activities, daily tasks, and relationships meaningful to you. If someone was to choke you right now, of all the things you could do (look out the window, scratch your head, laugh), you’d be obsessed with one: breathing again. Fighting anxiety is like being choked as it narrows your repertoire of behavior. There’s a banquet to enjoy in life instead of fighting anxiety.

In conversation you can focus on learning what someone does for a career, how your friend spends free time, or listening to make someone feel heard to live out a value of being friendly. At the moment though, you fight anxiety. This makes a social anxiety disorder an awkward problem. If you have the disorder as characterized by a resistance to anxiety, you’re not present in the conversation and people notice it.

I created an anxiety video and infographic to help you better understand what it’s like to have an anxiety disorder in today’s world:

How Anxiety Experts Cure a Social Anxiety Disorder

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.George S. Patton, World War II general

Fear is natural. Be with it.Thomas Leonard, founder of CoachVille

I picked up a social anxiety disorder at 14 years old. I’m now 27 years old and don’t consider myself cured. “What?! You can’t teach people then you jerk!”

The moment you consider yourself treated from social anxiety or other forms of anxiety is when you’re vulnerable. It’s the same mind-trap as wanting to banish anxiety.

Stephen Hayes, co-creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), was a psychologist when he developed a panic disorder. In an interview I did with him, he applied advice from cognitive therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), but they felt to him as if he had spat into a hurricane.

Here’s one example. CBT uses the term “cognitive restructuring” to be more rationale about anxiety-inducing situations. Shifting a thought of “I’m going to look like an idiot at the party” to “I’m extremely nervous at this party, but I’ll leave in one piece tonight and probably make some new friends!” wasn’t very helpful for him. You may have tried the same restructuring that helped in the short-term only to find the spit flying back at you soon after.

The problem and infatuation with removing anxiety go hand-in-hand.

One day Dr Hayes became an assistant professor when he was in a department meeting watching the professors angrily fight with each other. He raised his hand to ask a question, but couldn’t make a sound come out of his mouth. After 30 seconds, no sound was made and the meeting resumed.

“That event,” says Dr Hayes, “is not what created my anxiety disorder.” If you get humiliated talking to a hot blonde, it doesn’t mean anxiety will be with you for the remainder of your life. It can start an internal battle where you fight the internal experience of anxiety. You start to project the experience where you see yourself fainting and dying in the future.

Imagine a young boy freely running around a playground. Suddenly he falls into a dark, dirty hole called “anxiety”. It’s not his fault he fell into the hole. How the hole got there doesn’t matter because it’s just there.

The child is scared of the black ditch because one day he heard bad creatures live in the dark. Afraid of this, he quickly decides to escape by digging. 10 minutes later he looks up to see no progress so he digs more dirt out and digs faster. Sweat beads down his forehead.

One hour of strenuous digging later, he glances up with his glassy eyes only to see he’s further from freedom. He is more afraid than before.

Has digging hard (attempts to conquer anxiety) freed you? I doubt it has because you’re reading this article hoping to cure a social phobia. Have a pad and pen handy because in this article I’ll ask you to do a lot of tough and fulfilling work that’s counter-intuitive to what you’ve done most of your life.

How to End Suffering Forever

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.Seneca, 1st century Roman philosopher

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr

Anxiety sufferers believe anxiety causes pain and must be gone before they can live a meaningful life. Self-talk of social anxiety sufferers include: “Before I can talk with that girl, I need to feel confident”, “I need to be comfortable to get on stage and speak”, and “I can’t make friends as long as I’m a nervous wreck”.

Anxiety sufferers believe anxiety causes pain and must be gone before they can live a meaningful life.

You may believe you can’t make friends or chat with cute girls until this yucky thing that is anxiety disappears. That’s what you’ve been lead to believe by self-help gurus who pronounce you have to think and feel a certain way to achieve a goal. Georg Eifert and John Forsyth, co-authors of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, wrote something worth burning into memory: “Feeling good is not a requirement for living good.”

When you believe you must feel good to live good, you battle anxiety. The truth is: anxiety doesn’t cause pain – your struggle with anxiety creates undue pain.

Suffering forms from pain and nonacceptance according to Linehan, author of Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. Ultimate suffering is suicide, an attempt to end pain from nonacceptance. You suffer when you don’t want to be hurt, when you don’t want to be anxious, when you don’t want to fear.

Fearless is unnecessary to have a great social life. You don’t need to be fearless to contribute. You can be fear-ridden and live a meaningful life. “You don’t need to think this way or feel that way to be free of social anxiety,” said Dr Hayes. “Instead of wanting social anxiety to disappear and then you can be with yourself and others, it turns out you can go directly and quickly to the end if you compassionately hold your insides.”

Anxiety does not mean something is wrong you – it’s the approach of battling anxiety that causes suffering. Sexual abuse is one unfortunate event in life that causes trauma yet it doesn’t always lead to being broken or living a sexually suppressed life. Victims of sexual abuse can feel anxiety in sexual situations yet live as they please. Psychological health is not the absence of trauma, pain, and negative experiences.

The difference between a free outgoing person and someone shy is not the experience of anxiety, but if the anxiety is held onto, battled with, and pushed away. Escapism constricts your social life because your internal experiences are inescapable. You cannot run from yourself. Drop the mindset of “curing anxiety” altogether. “I’ve learned to never say no to anxiety,” said Dr Hayes in my interview with him. “If anxiety wants to show up, it’s perfectly welcome to do so.”

My question to you is: are you willing to make room for anxiety to be in your life?

Why Doing What You’re Anxious About Works

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytical psychology

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.Fr. Alfred D’Souza in Happiness Is A Journey

Do the thing you’re anxious about and anxiety will rot away. That’s a truth of fear and a better lesson self-help teaches. The underlying message is to conquer fear and anxiety, which contradicts what you learned so far.

Firstly, fear and anxiety differ. Fear promotes action in the present while anxiety anticipates the future. You can fear being punched in the head by a muscle-jacked boyfriend if you approach a hot girl and he pushes you, but worrying about being punched by that guy before you approach is anxiety.

Fear and anxiety reduce when you experience what you’re afraid of. Neither emotion is worse than the other. A skydiver will likely fear his tenth jump less than his first and a guy who approaches a hundred women will be less anxious than if he approached none. This is exposure and it works at living with anxiety.

You didn’t learn to ride a bike by reading or thinking about it. You crashed, you fell, you got hurt. There’s no other way than direct experience to ride a bike.

“Exposure therapy” has you repeat contact with what you fear in a safe environment until the fear is extinct or minimized. If you’re petrified to leave the house, it might begin by putting your head out the window, sitting on your verandah, or walking around the garden. If you’re afraid of cafes, day one could be to order a coffee, day two is to order a coffee while holding eye contact, while day three also gets you to ask how the barista’s day is going.

How can you use exposure to step into your social phobia? List three steps on a pad. It could be: 1) go to a mall and sit down, 2) make eye contact with 10 people who pass you, and 3) say “Hey” on the tenth person.

You may feel your heart increasing right now with just the thought of exposure. Don’t battle it. The battling is what causes suffering. Be mindful of your increased heart-rate and shallow breathe. Be okay with it. Continue to write your three steps.

The discomfort experienced signals your evolution. Something different is happening in your life right now! Remember Jung’s words: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Whenever I feel discomfort, I acknowledge a transformation – an evolution – is occurring inside me that’ll produce a different a result to what I’ve had in the past.

Be careful making exposure another cure to social anxiety. Cognitive therapies use exposure to reduce anxiety and treat symptoms, but ACT uses it with the purpose of getting you to be okay with feeling anxiety. That’s a big difference.

Make doing what you’re anxious about a feeling experience that enriches life.

Anxiety is natural so it makes sense to not suffer with attempts to conquer it. Bootcamp students get a great feeling experience from exposure therapy. We might go to a bar or club with no intent but to be there. The student says “Hey!” to a group and keeps walking. The goal is to be okay with feeling afraid of meeting people so you can live a purposeful life. The belief you shouldn’t be afraid of new people only increases suffering.

If you do what you worry about to remove anxiety, is that another short-term tool to battle anxiety? I suggest you use exposure not to reduce anxiety, but to experience anxiety, feel how it’s normal, and believe a purposeful life is possible with it. Anxiety is natural so be with it.

Lesson: make doing what you’re anxious about a feeling experience that enriches life.

How to Free Yourself From the Fight with Social Anxiety

One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.Albert Einstein

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War

Creatures relate to things based on their attributes like speed, color, and size. Humans do too but we can abstract these perceptions. We often do not take a fast beating heart for what it is: a fast beating heart. If your heart thumps hard, you may infer you’re about to have a panic attack. Once you learn to categorize something within, it seems like a thing. Anxiety to you seems real and dangerous.

In the past century since Darwin’s work, we’ve categorized anxiety as an unhealthy emotional affect of worry. Anxiety is seen as bad due to the surge of pop-psychology books in the 80s, positive-thinking tapes in the 90s, and now blogging in the 21st century where anyone can chant self-help advice. Western society teaches you to master your emotions, control your thoughts, and move from unpleasant states through manipulation.

Answer these questions to do with categorizing emotions:

• Is “joy” good or bad?
• Is “sadness” good or bad?
• Is “anxiety” good or bad?

You probably answered “good”, “bad”, and “bad”. But is it bad to be sad when your friend dies? Is it bad to be anxious when you’re in a new environment and meet someone you don’t know?

The self-help myth and belief that anxiety is bad cause you to try cut it out like a parasite from your body. You read endless articles on dealing with social anxiety, post in forums desperately seeking help, and beg for anything to alleviate you of this disease. All this makes you more anxious.

You fight anxiety because of the belief and categorization it’s bad. You can also take this control approach because it’s an adaptive method to survive in the external world.

You fear climbing a high cliff for survival and pain reduction. Bruce Chorpita, Professor of Psychology at UCLA, and David Barlow, Professor of Psychology at Boston University, in a 1998 study called The Development of Anxiety confirm a control approach to make life right is important to healthy well-being. Nothing is unhealthy about avoiding an unchained dog growling loudly or taking an aspirin to alleviate a headache.

Problems arise when control is used at an extreme level as rigid thinking and behaving do not work. Not approaching a cute girl because you’re nervous does not work. Calling in sick because you’re afraid to give a presentation does not work. Saying you’re not in the mood to go to party does not work when you’re really staying home to avoid your fear of dancing. It’s once you avoid crossing a bridge because your friend jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge that control doesn’t work.

Anxiety and other feelings like anger typically understood as “bad” are not bad. They typify human experience. The belief you need to think and feel positive all the time is inhuman. Emotions don’t have an off and off switch. Our emotional spectrum of fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust (Darwin’s five emotions) makes you human. Those who accept and experience the five emotions and their lesser ones without defense are healthy.

Anxiety and other feelings… typify human experience.

Here’s a quick exercise to do in this moment. Try to make yourself happy. Give yourself a minute. Now try to make yourself anxious. Give yourself another minute to create this state.

Did you make yourself happy or anxious? You didn’t directly create the emotion. You induced either by remembering a happy or anxious memory, which created the emotion. You experienced something that triggered happiness and something else that lead to anxiety. Emotions like anxiety naturally arise from experience and cannot be easily controlled like a power switch.

One point I must make clear is regulating actions of an emotion is completely different to emotional regulation. It’s okay to accept the one second of anger when your son doesn’t wash the dishes, but it isn’t okay to abuse him about it. You have the power to control the action-side of anger by breathing to gain clarity, thinking about the need that caused your anger, and being assertive.

A Breakthrough Model for Social Freedom

He who is brave is free.Seneca

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.Voltaire, 17th century writer on social reform

You now know to not resist anxiety. If you try to not think of a pink elephant, you’re stuck thinking about a pink elephant. What should you do instead of obsessing about the pink elephant that is anxiety?

Before we can answer this, let’s first understand what you were trying to achieve by removing anxiety. Here’s a quote from my special member’s only report The Only Cure to Social Anxiety, available in part three of Big Talkers, where for the first time this breakthrough model of social freedom is revealed and simply applied to socializing:

You’ve heard the terms “social anxiety” and “fear”, but what words are their opposite? You probably think terms like “calmness” is the opposite to “social anxiety” and “confidence” is the opposite to “fear”.

You’ve been “working on yourself” for a few years now and banish fear in pursuit of confidence. You try to erase anxiety in pursuit of calmness. Such actions are driven by the belief that an opposite – more ideal – state of anxiety exists. This belief drives your fear in social situations.

You can see this traditional model to deal with social anxiety below:

Continuing on in the report:

What if I told you an opposite term didn’t exist? What effect would that have on your belief system and actions?

If social anxiety and fear had no opposite, you wouldn’t pursue another state. You wouldn’t seek out calmness to move away from it’s polar opposite of social anxiety. You wouldn’t seek out confidence to move away from it’s polar opposite of fear.

With anxiety and fear being their own states with no opposite, you couldn’t make them transform or disappear into another state. They would simply exist because it’s natural.

What does the new model look like then?

If anxiety is a natural experience to be held, the other end of the “confidence spectrum” becomes freedom. You’re free to experience what you feel!

The problem is not anxiety, but the desire to avoid anxiety.

Freedom is not an alleviation of barriers, but complete acceptance of them. You don’t have to like the barriers. You don’t have to like anxiety. It’s your choice if you drop the tug-of-war rope with anxiety and allow it to be there.

The problem is not anxiety, but the desire to avoid anxiety. Attempts to move from social anxiety towards confidence, calmness, even freedom – whatever it maybe – snares you in the same trap of fighting anxiety. This new model of socializing and living happy aims to not push you from social anxiety towards social freedom, but to move you to accept social anxiety, which is freedom.

You can quickly comprehend how free you are by asking: “Where’s my focus when anxiety arises?” The free person sees what’s important to them (value-based living) while the anxiety sufferer battles with anxiety (desire to avoid social anxiety).

A girl who thinks everyone analyzes her is not socially free – she will be afraid to speak and socialize. Another girl who says what she feels and speaks her mind even when she’s afraid is socially freer than the first girl. Social freedom is therefore the absence of a desire to avoid social anxiety. The later girl lives a freer social life because she knows anxiety and fear is okay to exist. How can you too live a free social life once and for all?

How to Live a Meaningful Life and Treat a Social Anxiety Disorder with ACT

Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted?George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.Ambrose Redmoon, rock band manager and writer

You don’t decide to feel anxiety – you decide to live a meaningful life. Pain exists either way. The push-pull of fear and love is expected if you move towards what you care about like friends and social freedom. Your decision is not whether you feel anxiety, but if you want to reflect on your past and feel proud. How do you go about this? You use the ACT formula.

The ACT formula below is part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. CureTogether.org, a place where patients of almost any health problem come together to share their self-experiments, found Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to be one of the most effective yet hidden solutions for anxiety treatment.

Three components exist to start living a meaningful life when you suffer from social anxiety: Accept, Choose Directions, and Take Action.

Accept. Follow the serenity creed by accepting what you can and can’t change. If you get anxious around attractive women because you’re short and you think women find shortness unattractive, as erroneous as that belief is, you can’t change your height and need to accept it.

Your decision is not whether you feel anxiety, but if you want to reflect on your past and feel proud.

By accepting your height, you don’t resign to the thought you’ll forever suck with women. It means you end your struggle with what is. This creates space for you to do something productive like learn the many other things women want in men.

Acceptance is your willingness to openly live. It is not resignation to your anxiety, a feeling, or one decision. It is a choice you make to approach life each day. There may be a law you hate, but you accept it and openly live with it. Acceptance transforms your suffering into plain pain. Acceptance ends your battle with social anxiety.

Besides, how has resistance to anxiety gone for you? You struggle with the internal battle doing things like screen phone calls, skip parties, and shop at the least busiest of times. The anxiety temporarily subsides then explodes in another situation.

You’re not a bad or messed up person because of your battle with anxiety and use of strategies to deal with it. You’re just using ineffective methods. Can you see how resistance is not working for you and why this first step of “Accept” is important for you?

Choose Directions. Where do you want to be one year from now?

Viktor Frankl was a man confined to life-threatening barriers yet used choice, acceptance, and values to survive then live a valuable life. Frankl was a prisoner of war transported between Nazi camps relentless as the other. Prisoners were stripped naked, called a number instead of their name, starved, placed in gas chambers, and put in dehumanizing moments.

Fellow prisoners committed suicide to avoid the suffering of another day with the Nazis. Some prisoners lay in bed refusing to get up as they submitted to Nazi beatings. Statistic experts estimate there was a 3% chance of survival.

Frankl noticed a common thread amongst those who endured the pain: they had reason to live. What did Frankl do? He stood outside to give a psychotherapeutic speech on concentration camps, studied and helped fellow prisoners, and did what he could to give life purpose. Surviving prisoners imagined reunion with families or completion of a valuable project back in their home country. No Nazi could steal a prisoner’s vision.

Freud said man is driven from sexual instincts. Frankl developed Logotherapy and says your deepest desire is purpose. Carl Jung echoed similar sediments saying, “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Again I ask you… Where do you want to be one year from now?

You may struggle to head in a direction because of your language that describes anxiety. It’s typical for anxiety sufferers to be low on life consumed with the anxiety battle. I’ve heard and said things like, “I can’t go to parties until my anxiety is fixed”, “I’d do public speaking, but I’m afraid”, and “That girl is hot and I’d like to talk to her, but I don’t want to embarrass myself”.

Why have you previously wanted anxiety to be gone? To be less anxious? How uninspiring! You know at some level that less anxiety through techniques, anti-depressant medication, or some other remedy doesn’t create a richer life.

How would it feel if your tombstone had written on it:

[Your name] battled anxiety for 14 years. He dedicated each day to researching techniques, taking medication, and doing what’s possible to dodge anxiety-inducing situations. He had few friends, never volunteered to help the less fortunate, and never married. He was never able to lie down on the beach with the sunset and cool breeze blowing through his hair because he never conquered anxiety.

Write your tombstone if you died today. We’ll get to the second part of this tombstone exercise soon.

Do another useful exercise for change to this new model of social anxiety. Spend five minutes now writing your list of Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance. This list is to include the costs of what you have missed in life because you avoided anxiety. Common life costs of my students battling social anxiety include:

• No partner, ever
• No fun at social events
• No promotions at work from weak behavior
• Abuse from strangers for awkwardness
• The frustration from not voicing needs
• A disbelief great goals can be achieved

To further help you choose directions, ask yourself,“What values do I hold?” These values can be outside of relationships because anxiety affects your entire life. You can avoid going to university from your anxiety of being afraid to meet fellow students.

Values are different to goals because a goal can be achieved while a value may never end. You achieve a goal of making friends but you can’t complete the value of being friendly. Values are a path you go on. You may like to think of a value as an intention.

Example values are below along with questions to stimulate value-extraction and the problem of anxiety avoidance to show its affect on what’s meaningful:

1. Example: Loving brother/sister and parent. Questions: What type of brother/sister/parent do you want to be? How do you want to be around family? Problem: I’ve avoided talking about the elephant in the room (what everyone knows is there, but ignores) and prevented a deep connection with family because it’s scary.
2. Example: Great friend. Questions: What does it mean for you to be a great friend? What is it about friendship that’s valuable to you? Problem: Skipped my anxiety by not approaching people and accepting invitations to events that’s lead to few friends and low-quality relations with current friends.
3. Example: Help people with my career. Questions: What do you care about with work? What work do you like? Problem: I’ve stayed at home to avoid my anxiety that comes from meeting with clients and co-workers.
4. Example: Learn new skills. Questions: What would you like to learn? Why learn or undergo training? Problem: Stagnation and unfulfillment from a non-acceptance of anxiety to do with failure.

Take 10 minutes to list various values. Your answers are extremely important and guide you to purposeful living. Don’t let the importance of values bog you down because you can shape your answers later on. Hold values playfully to do this exercise because life and purpose is fun!

If you’re yet to locate your values, go inside the pain where you struggle the most then flip it over by saying, “What would I have to not care about to not have this pain be hurtful?” If your pain is social anxiety, you may not have to care about being with people, contribution, and loving others. Values reside in fear.

Your Life Costs of Anxiety Avoidance list motivates you to step into anxiety while your list of values motivate and direct you where to go.

Take Action. Once you accept what you can and can’t change and choose directions valuable to you, action is the last step. Act on your values.

You likely already act on your values. Your values are better clarified by what you do. If you avoid your anxiety, you probably value avoiding anxiety. With anxiety, however, it muddles what’s meaningful to you.

A commitment to take this third and last step of action is itself a value that shows you care about your life.

Spend 10 minutes now to build an action plan that puts you on a path aligned with your chosen directions. In your action plan, list the first action-step to get you started. This is critical to build momentum and meaningfully live.

Behave aligned with your values and meaningful goals.

If you value family, a step could be to phone family members to organize a date for dinner by the end of next month. If you value being friendly, maybe a step for you is to get How to Win Friends and Influence People and Big Talk. Put together a concrete action plan to get going.

Unless you do something different, whether it’s follow ACT or some other treatment plan, you will not generate different results in your life. When you follow these steps, you shift from emotional regulation to emotional acceptance. You go from anxiety reduction to a fully functional being with values and goals meaningful to you.

The “cure” to social anxiety disorder isn’t accepting anxiety to remove it. That’s the same trap. Forget curing anxiety altogether. Behave aligned with your values and meaningful goals. It’s not easy. You either be friendly or you do not. There’s no “I tried to socialize” or “I tried to be nice to people”.

Your willingness to live meaningfully is a choice you make through action. Feelings and thoughts come and go, but where you travel is a daily-decision acted out with your feet. Will you join me at the banquet beside anxiety?

Recommended Resources About a Social Anxiety Disorder

1. Free test to see if you have SAD.
2. Fellow Aussie Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, has a good overview of ACT I recommend you read if you want to further explore this therapy.
3. For a complete step-by-step guide to effortlessly make friends when you’re shy and quiet, get my Big Talk course.
4. Another good resource (saying so myself) is Big Talkers, particularly part three where you’ll access my interview with Dr Stephen Hayes quoted in this article.

Question of the Day

What will you do this week to live a more meaningful life instead of trying to cure a social anxiety disorder?

He feels less than the executives who are dressed in suits while he wears a basic business shirt and slacks. He poorly knows the executives and finds it hard to socialize with them making him feel even less as a person. Regardless of the superficial reason for his difference, the real problem is his inferiority complex.

What is an Inferiority Complex?

A psychologist in 1912 by the name of Alfred Alder wrote a book titled The Neurotic Character. His research in the book founded a popular area of psychology known as the inferiority complex, a term that describes a sense of inferiority an individual feels about oneself towards others. It revolves around social status, power, ego, and dominance. You have an inferiority complex when you feel less than people. You think other people are better than you.

An inferiority complex can arise when you experience an imagined or conditioned feeling of inferiority. For most people it is a combination of imagination and subtle conditioning. You feel inferior when an event takes place. This makes you feel less than others (conditioning aspect). Your mind (imagination aspect) blows out your understanding of the event beyond what seems reasonable to another person.

Mitchell in our example feels inferior because he thinks the executives are better. His inferiority has nothing to do with not knowing the executives, being dressed differently, or having a less prestigious job. His interpretation of the situation makes him feel below standard and creates inferiority.

The conditioning aspect in Mitchell’s example is his actual differences to the executives. He is wearing different clothes to the executives and he is not “a part of the group” based on his employment status. The imagination aspect for Mitchell is his clothes fall below standards (if there was a dress code, it would be part of conditioning), the executives are better than him, the executives want nothing to do with him because of his difference, plus other irrationalities he thinks make him less of a human. The big difference between conditioning and imagination hold the answer to cure your inferiority complex.

How Your Inferiority Started: Conditioning

“The inferiority complex is all in the mind. Simply stop thinking you’re inferior because you’re not.” That is a lie. If it were that easy, millions of people at sometime would not experience feelings of inferiority. The inferiority complex is society’s psychological black plague that devours too many lives.

My main motivation for writing this article is to give you accurate information to overcome the problem based on what works. This is a collection of the most useful advice on the inferiority complex I synthesized over the years, along with specific lessons I developed to overcome my inferiority complex; unlike personal development teachers I know of who solely emphasize positiveness to overcome feelings of inferiority.

I did some brief browsing on the web to see what information was available on the inferiority complex, and most of the advice offered is harmful. “Experts” were telling people “things will get better”, “be more positive”, or “it’s not so bad”. If you have the inferiority complex and someone says similar things, you understand the massive frustration caused from the misunderstanding when someone gives you such poor advice.

Positive thinking can be nicely understood through an analogy in a Bible verse. In Luke chapter five (NKJV), Jesus was talking to complaining Pharisees. Jesus replied to them in a parable so they would be more likely to understand:

No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.

The garment and the wineskins examples are what positive thinking does to our self-image. A new patch over the bad garment improves the garment a little bit, yet it is still its same old self. If new wine (positive thinking) is poured into old wineskins (your poor self-image of feeling inferior), then nothing good will result. It is a battle of willpower and what is known as creative imagination.

Positive thinking can slightly improve the situation, but in the end it usually results in frustration as your willpower becomes exhausted. Willpower results in an oscillation between the problem and an absence of the problem – failing to create a permanent solution. You cannot use self-determination to cure feelings of inferiority. Whenever willpower fights creative imagination, creative imagination is the victor. I repeat for emphasis: Your creative imagination, which consists of images and feelings, will always conquer your willpower.

From personal experience and coaching others, I know first hand that a better self-image where you do not feel inferior cannot be achieved through positive self-talk, affirmations, and the like. It is unfortunate that people continue to teach positive self-talk to overcome feelings of inferiority. Positive self-talk is often nothing more than an attempt to live deliriously from reality, ignoring what really takes place.

When Doing Becomes Being – How Failure and Criticism Fuel Inferiority

Everyone has heard “you suck”. Some individuals are abused so much yet they are confident with high self-esteem. What makes high self-esteem people different to those who feel like others are better?

Primary factors of conditioning that determine whether you become inferior or rise above the circumstance is your attitude towards criticism and failure. Do not forget about the creative imagination component – the stronger influence of feeling inferior – yet criticism and failure most powerfully influence the conditioning component.

Criticism and failure will always bang at your door to success – more so as you achieve your goals. I have noticed that as readers of my newsletter (ToP Tips) and articles increase, so does the criticism. I get excited with this because I know the criticism signals achievement. Any criticism and failure has nothing to do with me – in fact, it usually has more to do with the other person.

Inferiority arises when doing becomes being.

You and I will always have our critics if we avoid mediocrity. Anyone that has achieved anything notable, sooner or later receives harsh criticism. Find a dark corner where you can hide from the world if you want to avoid criticism (but then again, you will be criticized for hiding). The Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

People criticize you because they either want to improve your life, desire to release their frustration, or have their own problems. Failure and criticism say nothing about you; rather, let them signal personal growth. You can take criticism as a sign of progressing in life. If I had not experienced feelings of inferiority, I would not have worked on myself and personally grown. No way would I be writing this article today. I am certain I would not teach any communication skills.

You will never eliminate criticism or failure. The conditioning aspect of inferiority will never vanish. This means to overcome the inferiority complex you cannot expect to avoid failure, dodge criticism, and achieve perfection. You must learn, move on, and maintain a goal-focused attitude to overcome an inferiority complex.

Criticism and failure will never stop as long as you pursue goals. Problems arise when you let the two burglars get a foot hold within your life. You come to feel inferior by associating criticism and failure with how you see yourself. The thieves steal valuable mental goods important to your success.

You will always do things in an inferior way to what other people can do – there is no ignoring that – but a secret to overcome your inferiority complex is to stop associating yourself with your actions. Stop letting failure and criticism form your identity. Inferiority arises when doing becomes being. When you associate what you do with yourself, actions of doing become actions of being.

A young guy gets poor results at school. He associates his grades with his intelligence – leading him to believe he is dumb. Is he really dumb because he was too lazy to study? No. A guy who gets poor results at school and does not feel inferior, dissociates himself from the result. He does not let his lack of study and effort over the school year make him feel he is the outcome.

When you feel criticism is a signal of your unworthiness, only then does it stimulate inferiority, shame, and failure. Do not take criticism personally and think of yourself as a failure. Just criticism can be used as feedback to adjust what you do on the path of your success. Criticism can actually make you thrive.

The Three Factors of Criticism – Don’t Let These Get You Down

The reason some people feel inferior from criticism and failure, while other people flourish, is how they react to the three components of criticism: the power of the sender, intensity, and frequency. You cannot control the three components of criticism – as is true for any conditioning aspect of inferiority – but you can control your reaction to them (the imagination component).

If you are passionate about boxing and Muhammad Ali said you are a hopeless boxer, his power and status intensifies the criticism. If his criticism was delivered in an intense outburst, the criticism would make a bigger impact on you feeling inferior as a boxer. If Ali also constantly reminded you how hopeless you are at boxing, this would stimulate further inferiority. The sender, intensity, and frequency of positive and negative messages impact how we feel about ourselves.

What matters, however, is your reaction. Think of a time when the power of the sender, intensity of the criticism, and the frequency of criticism made you feel inferior. If you can – and I suggest you do – make your selected memory one related to your current feelings of inferiority. If you are a shy person, perhaps think of a time when someone told you to stop talking because you have nothing good to say.

Once you remember one or several experiences, ask yourself these questions:

• What were you thinking when the person made you feel inferior?
• What emotions did you experience?
• What self-talk followed the person’s negative feedback?
• How long did these feelings and thoughts last?
• How intense were these feelings and thoughts?

The thoughts and feelings you experience after the event determine whether your inferiority grows or dies.

After answering these questions, if you reacted poorly to the negative feedback given to you in these situations, you should now be aware of how your feelings of inferiority develop. This is big. If you have the inferiority complex or know someone with it, I hope you’re getting excited about this insight.

The powerful lesson to learn from this is that people’s criticism and other types of negative feedback have no power over you. Events do not make you inferior – it is your reaction to the events that do. The thoughts and feelings you experience after the event determine whether your inferiority grows or dies. The conditioning aspect of inferiority partly manifests through the criticism of others – if you let it. Your reaction to the event determines how you feel about yourself.

When you believe criticism signals your unworthiness, your self-worth plummets. You train yourself to feel inferior through self-criticism. You become your worst enemy. The failed events and experiences shape your identity, making you appear a failure.

Harmful feelings trail behind harmful thoughts. You start to feel inferior. You use your creative imagination poorly to evoke images of failure, misery, shame, unworthiness, and low self-esteem. All the negative messages you accepted over time mold your self-image to make you feel inferior. You eventually believe you are inferior. That is essentially how an inferiority complex develops – through poor use of your creative imagination.

How Your Inferiority Grows: Creative Imagination

Animals are preprogrammed with a set of functions for survival. I am amazed at the simple yet effective preprogramming given to birds. When the season changes, some birds fly thousands of miles straight to a destination they have never visited. Birds build nests without ever attending “Nest Building 101” or taking a course in materials engineering.

Like animals, we are preprogrammed with a set of functions that enable us to survive threats, gather food, and procreate. We have one huge difference to animals: we are goal-driven. Humans have the option to select goals while animals do not have this ability. Animals are preprogrammed from birth to live a certain life. They survive and procreate. Humans are different. We can create goals and set out to achieve them with our creative imagination.

I feel this to be the greatest part of all personal development. My creative imagination is something I get excited about. It gives me the ability to literally become who I want and so yours can with you.

The creative imagination is not so much about idea generation – though it is a wonderful technique to generate ideas. Your creative imagination gives you the ability to dream goals and visualize them so vividly that your nervous system cannot tell if the visualizations is fake or reality. You make your entire body think that intense visualization from your creative imagination is realism.

People unknowingly use their creative imagination to create their inferiority complex. They create scenarios and thoughts of inferiority from their imagination.

Unfortunately, many people waste their creative imagination. It is as if they have a billion-dollar check in their wallet and they do not cash it in at the bank. In fact, it is more like they have a billion-dollar gold nugget they do not convert to cash so they are burdened with the impossibility of getting through life by carrying it around. They let this great opportunity go to complete waste. Unless you awaken this inner giant, it will lie asleep, dormant, and do nothing productive.

The first common way your creative imagination is wasted is through aimless daydreaming and fantasizing. This lets it go to complete waste. Your mind aimlessly wanders off into a fantasy that cannot be created or which you have no desire to experience.

The second common way your creative imagination is wasted is using it to create bad events in your life. This is where the inferiority complex is derived. People unknowingly use their creative imagination to create their inferiority complex. They create scenarios and thoughts of inferiority from their imagination. They imagine rejection, failure, criticism, shame, hatred, scarcity, and loneliness; instead of acceptance, lessons, love, abundance, and togetherness. A huge difference exists here in the parallels of thinking.

The images you evoke of failure, unworthiness, and shame wastefully use your creative imagination to bring further bad events into your life. If you have fear, anxiety, or worry about what others think of you, you make this common mistake and waste your creative imagination.

There are three common ways psychologists say the creative imagination is wasted contributing to an inferiority complex: napoleon complex, cultural cringe, and superiority complex. Many more ways of waste exist yet these will help you understand the problem and how to better your self-image. Though a problem may not apply to you, learn from it.

1. Napoleon Complex (and a Sad Email)

A part of Alfred Alder’s work of the inferiority complex developed the Napoleon complex, which is a specific feeling of inferiority about one’s height. Alder named the Napoleon complex after the great military leader Napoleon Bonaparte who was said to be motivated in battle from insecurities about his height.

The images you evoke of failure, unworthiness, and shame wastefully use your creative imagination to bring further bad events into your life.

People with a Napoleon complex make up for their “inferiority” through aggressive behaviors. They feel handicapped because of their smaller stature and attempt to counter this perceived problem through aggressive behavior and a superficial layer of toughness. A smaller stature is not a true handicap as it just a perceived handicap made from the creative imagination.

Diagnosing this type of inferiority lies in identifying overcompensating behaviors from a perceived inferiority. You would have the Napoleon complex and demonstrate overcompensating behavior when you aim to put-down others who are taller than you. You would have that little extra desire to do better than those who are taller than you. You would try to make taller people look bad. The worst possible symptom of this feeling of inferiority is physically hurting taller people because of their stature. This specific Napoleon complex is derived from one’s personal feeling of inferiority and fear that taller people are better than shorter persons.

I received the below email in response to an earlier version of this article from a lady who lost her son to the Napoleon complex. The email is unchanged and used with her permission:

I am married to a wonderful man and I am a mother of three beautiful teenage children. Last October 31st, 2008, my 17 year old son committed suicide. It has been the most devastating experience of my entire life. I would like to stress first of all, that our home life was not what you would consider tumultuous. We had and still have a very loving home life. I would like to share with you my son’s story:

Jacob’s childhood was truly an awesome experience for a typical boy. He played hard and got dirty. He and Joel (our eldest son) with help from their father would pitch tents, dig tunnels, and build forts. As Jacob grew up, it became abundantly clear that he was very concerned over his spiritual affairs. I had the opportunity to teach him in Sunday-School classes and later on in his teens I would assist in teaching Confirmation classes. He was keenly aware of the many blessings we enjoyed being a Child of God. He wanted to understand the works of our Heavenly Father. When we would pray together as a family, he was very earnest and sincere for such a young man.

When Jacob turned 13, things started to change in him. He was unusually short for his age and it bothered him tremendously. I had initially thought that the “teenage idiot gene” had kicked in because he had become very short tempered, easily agitated, and extremely defensive. Because of his stature, Jacob had developed an inferiority complex. Because he was now attending middle school, I noticed he had also developed a chip on his shoulder and would easily get in anyone’s face if they picked on him. His coping methods made me uncomfortable and we constantly tried to coach him and teach him to accept himself for the talents he had. At one point, one person asked Jacob what was he worried about…many great men in history were short. He very quickly responded with the comment, “Yeah…that is because they all had to prove themselves.” In spite of his quick wit, Jacob dealt with the day to day stress of school by becoming a ghost. He rarely spoke to many kids and kept to himself most of the day.

Jacob went into the ninth grade at High School with the same issues he had in middle school. He was embarrassed at how short he was and the chip on his shoulder seemed to get bigger. Fist fights between Jacob and his brother seemed to be increasing in frequency too. The hardest part about those sibling fights was the fact that even though Jacob was considerably smaller than Joel, he would go into the fight with absolutely no fear of getting hurt. Ninth grade was very hard for us as parents to stand by and watch our son mentally mutilate his self-esteem. No matter how hard we tried to turn that tide, he would never allow himself to be consoled.

Eventually, Jacob did become taller. By the 11th grade he had filled out into a very good looking young man. He was extremely comical and made many people laugh. However, he never truly learned to like himself. He had a hard time talking to people unless he was using humor as his shield.

Ultimately, his low self-image got the better of him and he ended his life. He was more afraid of living than he was of dying.

I cried when I read the email. Inferiority is a real emotional problem not corrected by the physical defect or positive self-talk. People return to plastic surgery not to remove physical defects, but because they have emotional defects.

2. Cultural Cringe (a Worldwide Problem)

The cultural cringe is an area of the inferiority complex where people feel inferior due to their culture. Genetic appearance, pronunciation of words, or other factors of the human body vary between cultures that make the individual feel less than people in other cultures.

A few days ago I came across a lady who was experiencing the cultural cringe about her physical appearance. She had a poor self-image as she complained about the unusual features of her body. She loved how Asians looked. “If only I could look like an Asian lady,” she said. Her idea that other cultures are better than hers made her feel inferior.

Feelings of inferiority damage your communication with yourself and others. The cultural cringe makes you hate certain people, cultures, situations, and events. Your subconscious will be so poisoned with imaginary beliefs that are powerful enough to destroy your happiness and relationships.

3. Superiority Complex (and the Biggest Myth About Fixing an Inferiority Complex)

The superiority complex is a feeling of superiority over other people. Some experts and bloggers dangerously suggest it is the solution to an inferiority complex.

Let’s return to the scenario where Mitchell is in a room full of successful executives. If Mitchell had a superiority complex or attempted to feel superior, he would criticize the executives to pull down their status to feel better. Another form of the superiority complex is demonstrated when Mitchell tries to lift his status by portraying how better he is than the executives. Both of these techniques attempt to lift his status relative to the executives and fail to overcome his inferiority complex.

I was tricked to believe from books and blogs that feelings of superiority were the secret to overcome inferiority. After years of frustration, I can tell you feelings of superiority cause you more pain than what it removes.

You fail to overcome feelings of inferiority by becoming superior. You try to feel bigger, faster, smarter, wiser than peers. This only leads to frustration and inferiority. This solution is a temporary patch on a wound too big. It takes most people an experience of significant superiority, such as earning a million dollars or being popular with the opposite sex, to realize they still feel inferior.

If you try to feel superior, you still compare yourself to the false measurement stick that judged the inferior you.

If you try to feel superior, you still compare yourself to the false measurement stick that judged the inferior you. External validation is required to prove your superior self-image. If you are put out of place through ignorance or you are made to feel less superior, you attempt to grab back your non-existent podium of superiority by criticizing others and using similar behaviors to lift you status.

If a person’s need to compete against another is driven from insecurity to feel superior, does a superiority complex exist? I think it does exist, but an inferiority complex can be used to explain someone with a superiority complex.

What is Your Perception of People You Aspire To?

Everyone is superior to you in some way, but they are not superior in who they are. There is no question people are better looking, more popular, and wealthier than you. The problem is the transition from doing to being. Sufferers of the inferiority complex overcompensate for these differences.

Referring back to the Napoleon complex, most of us tend to be controlling or aggressive beyond height. All of us have our own – often strange reasons – for feeling inferior that we dare not share with anyone.

A common example of overcompensating behavior is when an attractive lady feels insulted purely because of another woman’s looks. Women are very competitive in dating and can feel inferior to a more attractive lady so they criticize, tease, and display other insecure behaviors. A shallow woman tries to raise her self-esteem by being better than other women.

It disgusts me to hear both men and women pull another person down. I too often see unsuccessful, unhappy people criticize a successful, happy person. These critics are no better or inferior than the people they criticize.

What is your attitude towards people who are better than you in certain areas of your life? How do you feel towards people who are more attractive than you? How do you feel towards people who are your superiors at work? Do you feel inferior? Do you feel they are better than you? Do you need to pull them down from their podium by criticizing? Are you inspired, excited, and thrilled to see others succeed?

Take your time to think of and relive relevant experiences. Your recollections hold important understandings of your inferiority complex.

How to Accept Yourself No Matter How Much You Suck

A secret to overcoming the inferiority complex is accepting who you are as a person. When you accept your uniqueness, you no longer compare yourself to mystical standards. I estimate 50% of people have the inferiority complex. Our perceived standard is a joke! You are not inferior or superior to anyone nor is anyone inferior or superior to you. We are ourselves. You are you. Mitchell is Mitchell.

People say, “Just be yourself”. That is awful advice. If you continue to be yourself, you continue to have poor habits, thoughts, feelings, and results.

Being yourself is different than accepting your uniqueness. A guy who knows he is unique can grow as a person and “not be himself”. He accepts his uniqueness and still becomes more than he was yesterday. He becomes his best self. No matter what he does, he will always be unique. When he accepts his uniqueness, he does not compare himself to other people.

Next time you feel inferior, challenge those thoughts by investigating why you feel inferior. You will realize your comparison is based on a mystical benchmark. The people you measure yourself against are not the true measurement stick. They are not you. You are your true measurement. Compare yourself with the person you were instead of contrasting you with other people. Neuro-linguistic programming calls this technique a “self-to-self comparison”.

If you are shy in conversations, do not compare yourself to the extrovert, blabbermouth, social butterfly. Compare your present shyness to your shyness one month ago. Get satisfaction from knowing you’re becoming a better person. Many variables make you unique – your family, friends, co-workers, upbringing – the list goes on. It is foolish to compare yourself to others.

You can enjoy your journey of personal development without realizing your ultimate goal by seeing progression in bettering yourself. When you make your past the benchmark, you begin to heal. (Read Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within to learn more about enjoying your journey. Robbins teaches you how to adjust your values so you become happier and self-motivated on your journey instead of relying on an end result to be happy.)

Self-Image: The Human Thermostat

The core secret to overcome your inferiority complex is changing your self-image. The self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a mental picture of who you are. It does not have to be truth as you have seen in the inferiority complex where you are not inferior. The self-image is your image of yourself.

The great Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-cybernetics, was a plastic surgeon in the mid 1900s. He operated on many individuals who felt inferior due to their “unusual” looks. Most of the individuals did not look unusual; it was their self-image that blew their looks out of proportion. They had used their creative imagination to create a dangerous false image of their physical appearance.

Dr. Maltz operated on many who despite successful plastic surgery remained feeling inferior. They returned to him requesting more surgery as they sought to look like famous individuals. He would again operate on them only to have the clients still dissatisfied with their appearance.

For some of his patients, this was not the case. Some individuals’ feeling of inferiority disappeared after plastic surgery while others even had their emotional scars cured without ever going under the knife. This made Dr. Maltz curious. Why did some people with healed “outer scars” like facial deformations that were successfully operated on still have “inner scars” of inferiority? From his research emerged modern self-help psychology. He is the founder of visualization, creative imagination, self-talk, and changing the self-image.

Your self-image… controls what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others, this self-image ensures you remain inferior.

Dr. Maltz discovered that each hurtful word, thought, and experience over a person’s lifetime accumulated to form a poor self-image. He began to teach people how their self-image was shaped and how they can be more careful with their own words in shaping another person’s self-image. What mattered most was what he called the “creative imagination” that contained the self-image. He discovered a person’s creative imagination shaped one’s self-image to determine feelings of inferiority. We have been working on yours throughout the article.

Your self-image has tremendous powers. Your self-image controls what you can achieve. It controls what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others, this self-image ensures you remain inferior. No amount of positive thinking, willpower, or self-determination cures a feeling of inferiority when an inferior self-image exists. Dr. Maltz in The New Psycho-cybernetics, profoundly explains the power of the self-image to shape our behavior and achieve what we desire:

The self-image controls what you can and cannot accomplish, what is difficult or easy for you, even how others respond to you just as certainly and scientifically as a thermostat controls the temperature in your home. Specifically, all your actions, feelings, behavior, even your abilities, are always consistent with this self-image. Note the word: always. In short, you will ‘act like’ the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

A person that weighs 250 pounds can drop to 210 pounds through willpower and determination. If the weight-loss took place out of willpower, however, the person will return to his true self-image weight of 250 pounds. You can decrease the girth of your stomach through grunt force, but if your self-image has not adjusted to your new weight, your old weight will return. The room temperature can fluctuate a few degrees depending on who enters and leaves the room, yet the thermostat always returns the room to its set temperature. (For more discoveries on this fluctuating problem, read this article titled “Why Problem Solving Doesn’t Solve the Problem and the Real Solution to Permanent Change”.)

The same rule holds true to become more muscular. If your self-image is a thin-body, you will have a tough time packing on muscle. Arnold Schwarzenegger at 15-years was thin. What set him apart from other bodybuilders was his self-image. He would visualize his new muscular body each time he performed a rep at the gym while other bodybuilders would fantasize over bikini models. In 1980, Schwarzenegger claimed his seventh Mr. Olympia title and become the icon of bodybuilders.

A person that aims to lose weight through willpower uses forward goal-setting. If you use forward goal-setting, where you set a goal to achieve and work towards it, you will fail. As I have repeatedly said, positive willpower cannot overcome a negative creative imagination. Your creative imagination will always win.

Apply this to other areas of your life. Stop trying to use willpower to overcome your inferiority complex or to achieve some other goal. It cannot be done for permanent results. What you need to do for all your goals is use backward goal-setting where you set a goal to achieve and begin doing the things now that you would do upon achieving that goal.

To do this you need to awaken your creative imagination by immersing yourself in an imaginary environment where you achieved your goal. Your aim is to visualize yourself immersed in an environment so real that it feels like you achieved it.

I will run through a complete exercise you can do right now to overcome your inferiority complex. You are to primarily rely on this technique to overcome feelings of inferiority. When the technique is used over time on a frequent basis, your inferiority complex will evaporate.

Exercise to Cure Your Inferiority Complex and Boost Your Self-Image

The exercise is an intense visualization. The nervous system cannot tell a real event from a fake event. Studies have repeatedly shown that when we visualize, the body experiences physiological responses that mimic action. The mirror neurons in the premotor cortex of the brain become activated from visualizations in the same manner as doing the action.

This is not the exercise, but imagine you are in a real fight. Hear the yelling, swearing, and abuse. Feel the air. Taste the blood. See the people gather around you. Look at your angry opponent. By immersing yourself in the environment your physiology will appropriately respond. Your body will release doses of adrenaline as your heart rate increases along with a heightened awareness. The more real your visualization is, the more your body responds as if it were a real experience.

To demonstrate the exercise I encourage you to use on a daily basis, I will walk you through what I would do in Mitchell’s situation.

I firstly slow down my breathing. Notice present tensions in my body and make a conscious decision to relax that part of the body. Next, I visualize myself walking confidently into the room full of executives. Shoulders are back, posture is erect, neck is straight, and my strides are slow. I make strong eye contact when others look at me. I smell the champagne and hear the chatter and smile at hearing the occasional loud laugh. I see the gray walls and people’s black shoes.

I feel the wrinkles around my mouth as I smile when greeting an executive. I feel a person’s hand as I give them a firm handshake. People are warming up to me as I communicate complete comfort with myself. I am poised. I love myself and have no need to compare myself to other’s standards. I am proud in knowing that I am becoming a better person. I am a unique individual.

That is a brief example of what I would feel and see in my mind’s eye. I encourage you to go into more depth. Create more details. Visualize what it is like to not worry what people think of you. Smell the air and touch the surfaces that are around the non-inferior you. Thorough details are extremely important. Make it so vivid that it becomes real. Use your five senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. These focused visualizations will give you a new self-image.

Run through constructive visualizations everyday. It may seem like a lot of effort, but this is your life we are talking about. You are important. You run through visualizations everyday. The exercise has you control imagery you would otherwise waste.

I also encourage you to use positive thinking, which I earlier “bashed”. Positive thinking is a valuable tool when used in conjunction with your creative imagination. Combine these two great tools together with the many other tips in this article and you will soon overcome your inferiority complex. After all, your inferiority complex developed by using these tools in a negative fashion.

You will never eliminate all thoughts of inferiority because it is human nature to think the occasional demeaning thought. You do not need to feel inferior, however. The difference is whether you let the occasional thought and feeling grow.

If you still feel helpless from feelings of inferiority, please book an appointment with a therapist. I don’t want you to end up like Jacob.

(Please post a comment or story about your inferiority along with how this article has changed your life. You are by far from alone in experiencing inferiority. I could have easily charged for this report, but decided not to. I want as many people to read this as possible. This can be more easily accomplished with your help by telling your friends, family, and co-workers about the article. You do not know the feelings of inferiority someone could have that is damaging their life. Do them a favor. They could be forever thankful for your thoughtfulness. Email them by clicking the social media buttons below.)

(I have reposted people’s comments below from an older version of the article.)