Wear mismatched socks for a day. At first, you may feel conspicuous. After a while, you may no longer worry what others may think about the socks. In fact, few will notice or care. Ask yourself, "What did I learn from the experience?"

Ask 20 people for the time of day. Go to a mall at a busy time of day. Take off your watch. Use three minutes between requests. This is a great exercise for addressing fears of stranger rejection. Statistically, a small percentage will ignore you. Some may be people with their own self-consciousness problems. Can you emotionally survive a stranger passing on your request for the time?

You may find that you start nervous. You give yourself excuses to delay. Nevertheless, you push yourself to do the exercise. You log the results of each encounter. You later look at your findings. Here is what you are likely to find: Most will give you the time of day. Some will walk past you as though you didn't exist. A few may engage you in a brief and pleasant conversation.

If you feared rejection before you began the experiment, what might the results tell you about how a sample of strangers responded to a simple request? By engaging what you know or suspect is a foolish social fear, you put yourself on the path to confident composure.