Managing Social Anxiety for Networking Events

Social anxiety – a feeling of tension, self-doubt, and stress emerging from actually interacting with people and the idea of interacting with people. This can amplify knowing that you are walking into a room full of successful people and those who seek them out (and a few impostors, maybe).

Social anxiety, not necessarily in its clinical sense, but as a regular human feeling, is a form of anxiety that manifests more in social situations. So, by nature, it has emotional components, feeling judged, feeling uneasy about people you like or dislike, overthinking about the right way to obey social norms (clothing, mannerisms, style of talking), discomfort regarding making small-talk, and self-doubt about having adequate social skills.

In therapy, this anxiety is predominantly addressed on 2 fronts. First, talking about the “source” of anxiety and discovering why there is anxiety. And Two, gradually learning social skills and implementing them in real-life situations.

I’ll talk about a less discussed aspect of social skills training in the context of professional networking – How do you begin to implement your social skills in real life, particularly in networking events where you will meet some familiar faces and many unknowns?

Overall any approach that does 2 things will help with Networking Anxiety:
1. Going from Easy to Difficult
2. Going from Familiar to Unfamiliar

Once a person with SA finds their own “easy”, it’s about entering situations that are just slightly more difficult.

The same goes for familiarity. Once their baseline “familiar” is understood, it’s about exposing oneself to slightly more unfamiliar situations.

This approach is based on a classic behavioral psychology technique called graded-exposure, which is used to reduce people’s phobias.^[1]

The overall mechanism here is that when exposure to something frightening increases, a person begins to find it less frightening. To achieve this, psychologists do 2 things. They gradually increase the intensity of the thing that scares, and they introduce the frightening thing when clients are in a relaxed state.

If we apply the same process to networking anxiety, we need to do 2 things, similarly. Gradually increase the intensity of your engagement in networking events, and ensure you are relaxed during those. For relaxation, deep breathing, or going with a peer, or being well-fed can help. Here are some easy ways to manage emotions, and here are some ways to manage work stress.

A bonus benefit also occurs – people start liking things that are familiar, dubbed the “mere exposure effect“. This begins to happen for people you start encountering in these events. The same faces, or even the same type of people, become familiar over time, and the whole situation becomes more likable once that comfort sets in. The mere exposure effect occurs because repetition makes processing the repeated thing easier. Here, processing the people in networking events and the typical formats and the typical conversations becomes easier to process. This processing fluency increases the potential to like the events. In a way, a lot of familiarity with them becomes a comfort zone.

A few more things help to make this graded-exposure work better.

1. Emulating how others behave and talk in a situation. Like someone in a TV show or a socially skilled friend. Just copy it. Humans learn by mimicking others.
2. Visualize how you would behave in a situation and mentally sound out the words you would. This reduces uncertainty. Anxiety is a classic response to uncertainty ,and a lot of social anxiety boils down to 2 things – fear of judgment and the stress of dealing with unknowns. Researchers have used visualizations along with relaxation^[2] as a way to reduce fear. So, to take a lesson from their work, visualize when you are relaxed, like sitting on a sofa just having scrolled through Instagram.
3. The fear of judgment can also be managed if it is the fear of looking like a misfit or the fear of not having enough skills/success. For this, you can steer a conversation to topics they are fluent in. Another technique is to “belong” to a group. For example, wear clothes similar to what others are wearing. This usually increases a sense of belonging^[3] and communicates that you are similar to others. And, it makes blending in easier.

Then, some supporting techniques help. Like learning to look between the eyes and not in the eyes. They just make practicing social skills easier.

Here are some useful techniques to build some familiarity with the event:

1. Studying the speakers on the panel or products being advertised or the general theme of the event.
2. Dressing according to the typical clothes worn at networking events – so you don’t draw too much attention.
3. Looking between the eyes to ease the discomfort of making eye contact.
4. Quickly mentally reviewing people you might meet with a colleague (that’s what LinkedIn is for, right?)
5. Noticing people’s name tags and the companies they work for.

Another skill is to summarize what others are saying, so it creates empathy. This makes others comfortable and they generally take control of the conversation. When this happens, its very likely that the burden of conversation is no longer on you. This reduces stress for the anxious person.

The great equalizer – Hobbies

Talk about hobbies. Hobbies remove power dynamics and make it very easy for a fresher to interact with a highly sought-after CXO. Since hobbies are about joy and many other positive emotions, people are naturally excited to talk about what others do in their hobby. Maybe someone used to be in a band and sing. Maybe someone loves cooking exotic foods. Maybe someone likes trekking. Try discovering if someone is into running, trekking, or making music. In most cases, you’ll find a hobby to talk about.

In case you have none, find one. Hobbies improve overall well-being^[4] by being a low-stakes package of positive emotions and achievements that give us satisfaction. And, discussing personal shared interests makes social bonding easier, which, again, improves well-being.^[5]

The thing about hobbies is that they don’t just create a positive thing to talk about. (That is, by default, exciting to both parties). People feel good about their hobbies and people generally like to talk about things that make them feel good. They allow people to remember a positive version of themselves based on the experiences they have while doing their hobby. It affirms their identity as something more than just the professional aspects that can get mundane in a networking event.

Takeaway

Get familiar with the events little by little, mentally prepare what you can or should say, prepare yourself to recognize people, and repeat again.

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