The Ultimate Guide To Never Freeze Up Again

Have you ever frozen up in a social setting? Maybe you get a reaction that you didn’t want or someone appears to be disinterested in what you say and you freeze up and don’t know how to proceed in a conversation. And you seem to be stuck in a loop of over analyzing and filtering out your ideas of what to say next. Perhaps, sometimes you freeze up before you even initiate a conversation. We all have something that scares us, whether it be approaching a gorgeous stranger or sharing an exciting idea at work, but it can be incredibly frustrating to feel stuck as if we are just out of reach with those things we most want. You may even feel that your throat tightens, your body gets tense, and your mind just generally goes blank. Back when I would freeze up in conversations, even if I managed to start an interaction strong and confidently, something would happen that would cause me to start judging my behavior. Judging what I say, how I look, and ultimately how well received I am. Maybe I tell a joke doesn’t land right, or someone isn’t bantering with me like I planned… and then it’s just confusion in my mind and I freeze up filtering out what to say to continue a conversation. All of a sudden, I would end up silent and avoid talking. And it would feel immensely awkward for me… and I’m sure they could pick up on it too like, “what’s his deal?” After way too many instances of this, I started to think, “what if I could just say anything on my mind at any moment so I didn’t have to freeze up when I’d like to keep talking?” What if I’m just filtering my thoughts too much? What if it’s not I don’t know what to say, but’s it’s I’m being too critical of what I can say in the moment? After being fed up enough with freezing up, I became committed to practicing being less filtered, less judging of the ideas I did have, and share more freely the ideas of my mind. I decided it was more important to just take a shot in a conversation instead of missing my window of opportunity over analyzing what to say. So how do we accept and not filter so much of what we can say so we don’t ever have to freeze up because we’re afraid to share the ideas we’ve got of what to talk about? How do we become unstopped by worrying too much about whether we will come across as interesting or engaging for others? How can we speak more freely and feel comfortable just being ourselves? First, we gotta become aware that it’s not that we don’t know what to say, it’s that we don’t say what we can say because our thoughts are always active. Being alive means we always think and have things to say. Here are 5 steps to never freeze up again and be able to continue an engaging conversation. 1. Practice loose association. This is about practicing what you could be curious about with any random object you see. For example, if you look around and see a chair, what statements or questions out of curiosity could you make about a chair as a topic in a conversation? The point is to practice sharing your thoughts about random topics because when you get into a conversation, you do the same thing to keep a conversation going. In conversations, people will share their ideas, and then you can make comments or ask questions about what they talk about. For me, I’d like to know if a chair is comfortable because that is important to me. However, if I am studying at a desk, then I want a chair that has a straight and firm back to keep me in a more focused posture. If you see a blanket, what could you be curious about if it was a topic in a conversation? (I picked chair and blanket because I spotted those when I looked around… it doesn’t matter what you pick. Just pick something and practice talking about it). For me, I’d be curious if it is soft because I take my blankets very seriously! It is a crucial part of a good night’s sleep for me. I don’t care what it looks like so long as it is comfortable. But if it’s rough- no way! I will not let that be my sleeping experience unless there was no other way. And those are just some initial thoughts about blankets. The important note is you will have your own thoughts of curiosity if you give yourself time to think about it. Practicing loose association trains you to show yourself that you do have things you can talk aboutand don’t have to feel frozen, thinking you don’t know what to say. 2. Practice listening! When people talk, visualize what they say. Visualize the key words that are the highlights of what they are talking about, and then loosely associate with them to come up with ideas of how you can add to what they say. Listening is crucial if you ever want to be able to add relevant ideas to what others talk about. If we don’t practice listening, then, we may find it difficult to pay attention when others are talking. That leads to freezing up because we won’t know how to continue talking to someone we aren’t listening to. You can practice visualizing what people say without being in a conversation. As you go about your day, pay attention to what people are talking about around you and practice identifying key words you can loosely associate with. You can also play an audio or listen to a podcast to practice. The point is, if you are listening, you will have natural ideas of how to keep a conversation going. 3. Committing to not beating yourself up for getting a “non-perfect reaction.” We freeze up when we psych ourselves out thinking people are not going to like anything we say. However, if we avoid talking to avoid getting “bad reactions,” then we will never talk, denying all opportunities to connect with others. Instead, we want to come to terms with the fact that we won’t always get good reactions from people and that is okay because we will just focus on what we can control- showing up powerfully as our authentic selves. We will just adopt the mindset that we choose to speak up as ourselves even if others may not like itbecause that’s fully living. The alternative is cowardly- avoiding talking to avoid potential rejection. So commit to giving yourself permission to get non-perfect reactions when you are being yourself, speaking freely in conversations. 4. Elevate your energy level through a pump up ritual. Pump up to an energy level (you can play pump up music) above the energy you’d like to play at in a conversation. Jumping in cold to talk to people engaging at a higher level of energy will just freeze you because you aren’t in the mood to operate at their level. This is the quickest way to boost your energy. The way it works is you find a place- it could be in the restroom, your bedroom, your car, any private room, or even in public if you choose (good embarrassment tolerance training), and you jump around and yell encouraging words such as – “I’ve got this! I can handle this! Bring it on!” The point is to get hyped like football players when they run onto the field before a game starts. Even just imagining yourself getting hyped in your mind already shifts your energy. If it isn’t convenient to get pumped up somewhere private, you can just visualize yourself jumping around and yelling. The key to being engaging is to have slightly more energy than those you are talking to. Otherwise, they can feel a bit bored with you. That’s a conversation hack right there. So be cognizant of your energy level before you enter a conversation and pump it up if you need to. 5. Practice not freezing up through gradual exposure with social interactions that stretch you to face fears and be more energetic. Identify a confidence goal that is important to you such as becoming an engaging public speaker. Then, identify different levels of fear and energy you have to play at to go from where you are currently to where you have to be to get your confidence goal. Then, order them from least energetic and scary to face to most energetic to most scary. An example of a level 1 fear may be giving friendly greetings to 25 strangers. By the time you accomplish that, you may feel completely comfortable greeting anyone with a decent amount of positive energy. Boom. Level 1 accomplished. Then you move on to the next level you identify. And you keep doing this until you become an engaging public speaker. Build up gradually. Awesome work today! Apply this in your life and enjoy never freezing up again, always knowing what to say, and being engaging no matter who you talk to. You’ve got this, you can handle this, your success is inevitable because you are doing the inner work. Imagine your future if you don’t handle this now in your life and choose a different trajectory for your life. Choose to work on your fears and unleash your most confident self. You are okay as you are no matter how others respond to you. You always have value to give others in conversations because you can bring positive energy and loosely associate to expound on what they say. Until we speak again, you were born to be real, not to be perfect. So go out there and be who you are. I’ll talk to you soon. To maximize confidence in every area of your life at rocket speed, get your (FREE) ebook, "5 Steps To Break The Anxiety Barrier" here.