Personal Essay: The Importance Of Self Monitoring

I struggle with social anxiety. Sometimes it is only a minor hindrance as I go about my day, while other times I am mentally crippled by my fear of judgment by those who are around me. This fear is a driving force in my life and it makes me hesitant to walk into new situations and to meet new people. This on its own is hard enough, but when I do overcome the fear and step out into new situations with new people I am greeted by a new struggle: communication. I try to communicate and there is a dissonance between the words in my head and the sounds that come out of my mouth. In order to thrive in an era where successful communication is a central emphasis, I know that I must fix this problem and learn to verbalize my thoughts as clearly as they are reverberate in my head. My goal is simple: I want to overcome this fear that I have and learn to communicate in an effective manner regardless of the newness of the situation. On an ordinary Thursday about a year ago this communication deficit was exemplified. My Dad ordered pizza from our favorite pizza …show more content…
Looking at different psychological treatment practices we can see that “self-monitoring” can be an effective form of changing perspective. “Self-monitoring may take the form of diaries or logbook”, which is useful because it “helps a child recognize important antecedents and consequences to episodes as well as anxiety sequences that are specific to different situations.” (Kearney, 110). This has never been something that I had considered doing but I can see a lot of benefit from digesting my experiences. I think that metacognition is a great way to change your attitude so having a planned and organized way to do that is a great way to make sure that the mental lucubration is happening. I want to start to keep a diary so that I can see what is happening throughout my day and see just how irrational my fears are when looked at from the new context of a new