The Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook
132never experience the beneﬁts of taking social risks, including improved relationships, a 
better job, and other possible rewards.
In the spaces below, imagine and record some experiments you could try in order to 
test out your particular anxious thoughts. In the ﬁrst column, write down your anxious 
belief. In the second column, design a small experiment that will provide a good test of 
whether your belief is true.
Anxious Thought      Behavioral Experiment
              
              
              
              
The next few chapters discuss strategies for confronting the very situations and 
feelings that you fear. As you will see, exposure to feared situations is actually a type 
of behavioral experiment. By repeatedly exposing yourself to situations that make you 
anxious, you will learn that your fears often don’t materialize.
USING A THOUGHT RECORD OR  
COGNITIVE DIARY
Throughout this chapter, we have included various forms and diaries to be used for 
challenging anxious thoughts. In this section, we now provide a more general Social 
Anxiety Thought Record that can be used whenever you experience anxiety in a social 
situation. Unlike the other forms in this chapter, which are each designed for use with a 
particular technique (examining the evidence, overcoming catastrophic thinking, and so 
on), the Social Anxiety Thought Record is designed to be used with any of the cognitive 
 strategies. At the end of this chapter is a blank form, as well as a completed sample.
It really doesn’t matter which form you use to record and change your thoughts. You 
can use the forms provided in this chapter, or you can design your own. The diaries in 
this chapter are only suggestions. The main point of these diaries is to get you into the