No one looks forward to awkward moments, as they can be panic-inducing. So we end up desperately following certain social rules to minimize awkwardness, like ensuring conversational silence isn’t more than four seconds or having certain formulated ways to end a phone conversation.

• Being nervous and anxious makes us turn our attention inward, thus becoming extremely self-conscious of what we say and how we appear.
• Social anxiety also makes us become increasingly nervous when we notice the subtle audience reactions or the body langua...

When we focus on others during a conversation, we shift our attention outward and become at ease, relatively. Our exaggerated self-consciousness is gone and we become less awkward.

Keeping our mind on the goal and not on the process makes us avoid the self-focus vortex, a...