Should I follow my passion(law) or contract(computational work)due to social anxiety?

[Anirban657]

Background for my situation- I did the life purpose course 5 years ago and at that time I discovered that my top values is impact, awareness and service and my top strength is love of learning. At that time I was in high school and what my exact career was not clear. 
 

Now I am 22years old and I am about to finish my undergraduate course in English. And before yesterday I wanted to study Law and become a lawyer because I want to be a politician. But I have crippling social anxiety. 

And yesterday I paid a career counsellor to help me understand my career paths better. She said “because you have social anxiety, law is a big ‘NO’”. 
 

I am confused.

Till now I have been taking action like signed up for a sales insurance internships which by the way I could not even start due to social anxiety. I started an online business which only generated only $100 in a year. I started a YouTube channel (35subs) which I am not able to upload videos consistently because I don’t want to show my face but I don’t have any good content ideas. 
 

My counsellor said-

That because I have social anxiety I should not go to mainstream careers like sales or lawyer or marketing or insurance or journalism. I should do linguistics, cyber law, digital marketing or something related to computer science.

I want to be a leader in managing and moving people through movements whether political or business. 

Is it not possible to overcome social anxiety permanently?

I guess it is possible but there is a lot of inner work.

I have read How to win friends and influence people but I feel so anxious getting out of my house and so unwilling to attend social events. I feel so lonely in the crowd of “friends”.

So basically my question is should I let social anxiety be a reason to decide which career I should choose? Should I give up from social anxiety or fight it? Should I choose computational linguistics because I have social anxiety or should I try to follow my passion for law?

[Rokazulu]

You can overcome anything.

[JonasVE12]

Of course you can get rid of social anxiety. How bad do you want it though? The process is gonna be uncomfortable. The sooner you accept that and get comfortable being uncomfortable, the sooner you will get rid of it. You first need to decide in your core that you will make this a top priority for the coming years. Most people never get rid of social anxiety fully because they are not committing to the growth process that is required for healing this part of themself. It takes hard focussed work. Curing social anxiety is not something you do on the side for a week or so, or going to therapy for a year and boom, you are fixed. It is hard and smart work. More smart work than hard work though. Make a decision and commit on it. Decide that you will become confident socially. And do not stop until you are. If you are that far that you made the decision, like really, making the decision in your body and embodying it fully, now you can start. The first step is to look for teachers. And generally, do not read too much books about the topic. Social anxiety is a lack of feeling embodiment. Meaning generally, you want less thinking and intellect. Growing social confidence is all about opening the body and energetic pathways to more expansive feelings. See this path as something that determines if you are worthy of achieving your life purpose. You can never lead people if you are not healing this sense of separation between you and those people. If you want to lead powerfully, become powerful first. 

When on the path, choosing the right teachings is crucial. Having the exact right container that gives you the needed wisdom is what makes all the difference. Maybe first decide if you really want to work on this seriously and then come back for guidance on the next step. 

[Anirban657]

4 hours ago, Rokazulu said:

You can overcome anything.

@Rokazulu Can I become a master social person like Steve Jobs even if I have social anxiety from my teenage years?

4 hours ago, JonasVE12 said:

Maybe first decide if you really want to work on this seriously and then come back for guidance on the next step. 

@JonasVE12 Yes I want to work on this seriously because I have to overcome social anxiety because it is ruining my social life. 

4 hours ago, JonasVE12 said:

The first step is to look for teachers.

As you said that to look for teachers. What kind of teachers? 

[Alex_R]

There are several people who have overcome extreme social anxiety and became successful in content creating and sales while achieving high levels of social skills, Leo gura, rsd tayler (owen cook) are good examples, but there are a lot of people like that if you search them.

The only think you need to do is to grind it out and approach 100++ strangers to overcame your fears. You will build your confidence like a muscle, there is no secret.

 

Also high doses of Psychedelics will help you with this giving you another point of view about your shyness.

 

 

Remember that facing and overcome fears are mandatory to complete the maslows hierarchy of needs and having a fulfilling life, if you avoid this work you will regret it when you got older.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Alex_R

[Alex_R]

Just find another coach or cognitive therapist who encourages you and make a plan, approach 5 strangers a day and build your confidence slowly, make a goal to join a public speaking group like toastmasters and keep grinding it. 

[JonasVE12]

14 hours ago, Anirban657 said:

@Rokazulu Can I become a master social person like Steve Jobs even if I have social anxiety from my teenage years?

@JonasVE12 Yes I want to work on this seriously because I have to overcome social anxiety because it is ruining my social life. 

As you said that to look for teachers. What kind of teachers? 

Look at the fearless man youtube channel. That channel is all about overcoming your fears and limitations around social interactions. It is mostly centered around dating though, but it can be applied to getting better socially in general. Not just with women. 

 

[flowboy]

On 10/03/2022 at 1:30 PM, Anirban657 said:

My counsellor said-

That because I have social anxiety I should not go to mainstream careers like sales or lawyer or marketing or insurance or journalism. I should do linguistics, cyber law, digital marketing or something related to computer science.

Your counsellor is an idiot.

Saying this with love.

He's coming at this from what is called a "fixed mindset" - which means that you assume that you can not change.

Things are just the way they are, better accept them, and that kind of nonsense.

Whereas that's a great idea for external problems you can do nothing about, it's terrible to treat internal issues that way.

Here's my life philosophy:

1. Find out what you really, really, really want
2. Then go for that and solve any problem that's in your way

Anything else won't result in happiness. And I know this not only from my experience, but also my clients'.

Social anxiety is part of your Hero's Journey apparently. It's the monster you have to slay to free the princess and marry her!

The question is: will you accept the call?

@Anirban657

Edited March 15, 2022 by flowboy

[Ulax]

3 hours ago, flowboy said:

Social anxiety is part of your Hero's Journey apparently. It's the monster you have to slay to free the princess and marry her!

The question is: will you accept the call?

@Anirban657

This is gold

[Anirban657]

On 12/3/2022 at 2:54 AM, Alex_R said:

There are several people who have overcome extreme social anxiety and became successful in content creating and sales while achieving high levels of social skills, Leo gura, rsd tayler (owen cook) are good examples, but there are a lot of people like that if you search them.

The only think you need to do is to grind it out and approach 100++ strangers to overcame your fears. You will build your confidence like a muscle, there is no secret.

 

Also high doses of Psychedelics will help you with this giving you another point of view about your shyness.

 

 

Remember that facing and overcome fears are mandatory to complete the maslows hierarchy of needs and having a fulfilling life, if you avoid this work you will regret it when you got older.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 3:00 AM, Alex_R said:

Just find another coach or cognitive therapist who encourages you and make a plan, approach 5 strangers a day and build your confidence slowly, make a goal to join a public speaking group like toastmasters and keep grinding it. 

@Alex_R Thanks for your amazing perspective! I will definitely think about changing my counsellor.

On 12/3/2022 at 3:16 AM, JonasVE12 said:

Look at the fearless man youtube channel. That channel is all about overcoming your fears and limitations around social interactions. It is mostly centered around dating though, but it can be applied to getting better socially in general. Not just with women. 

 

@JonasVE12 Thanks! I will watch the full video. It is pretty interesting.

8 hours ago, flowboy said:

Your counsellor is an idiot.

Saying this with love.

He's coming at this from what is called a "fixed mindset" - which means that you assume that you can not change.

Things are just the way they are, better accept them, and that kind of nonsense.

Whereas that's a great idea for external problems you can do nothing about, it's terrible to treat internal issues that way.

Here's my life philosophy:

1. Find out what you really, really, really want
2. Then go for that and solve any problem that's in your way

Anything else won't result in happiness. And I know this not only from my experience, but also my clients'.

Social anxiety is part of your Hero's Journey apparently. It's the monster you have to slay to free the princess and marry her!

The question is: will you accept the call?

@Anirban657

@flowboy Your perspective makes things very clear. This is amazing. Thanks!

 

4 hours ago, Ulax said:

This is gold

@Ulax Couldn’t agree more!