If you’re someone who has experienced shyness of crippling proportions, then you know how hard it can be in personal and professional settings. Perhaps shyness is preventing you from interacting and connecting as well as attaining the confidence you need to truly reach the goals you’ve set for yourself.
The American Psychological Association says this, “Shyness is the tendency to feel awkward, worried or tense during social encounters, especially with unfamiliar people. Severely shy people may have physical symptoms like blushing, sweating, a pounding heart or upset stomach; negative feelings about themselves; worries about how others view them; and a tendency to withdraw from social interactions.”
Most people experience occasional shyness, others have such debilitating symptoms that it adversely affect their quality of life and experiences.
The statistics vary, but about 40 to 60% of people report they experience shyness. If your shyness has reached severe levels, please speak to a therapist to start the journey of recovery.
If shyness has become a hinderance to your progress, use these suggestions to become a more self-assured version of yourself.
1. Keep It To Yourself
Although you may experience shyness, that doesn’t mean other people are privy to this knowledge nor should they be. I’ve heard many parents openly share their child’s shyness and this not only labels the child; it highlights a fact that the child hopes no one knows nor hold it against him.
This sets the stage for the child’s adult experiences in shyness. Shyness isn’t your name. It isn’t your sense of identity or worth.
2. Silence Your Inner Critic
We can be our worst critic. Start replacing any negative inner language and thoughts. Use your inner voice for good. Speak good of your self and get good at catching self deprecating language.
3. Bad Experiences Don’t Have to Become Patterns
Realize when you have bad experiences, it doesn’t have to become the framework for your life. One bad situation shouldn’t beget another. Create your own patterns. Ideally, learn from your experiences and create an idea map that shapes your future positive experiences.
4. Avoid The Brand
Avoid and eliminate the brand of shyness. While shyness is an aspect of who you are, it doesn’t mean that’s what makes you you. Stop saying, “I’m shy” or “I can’t do that because I’m shy”. Refuse to be known for shyness.
5. Use it to Your Advantage
One thing that shyness prevents is speaking out of turn. It also gives you an opportunity to listen more than you speak and that’s always a good thing.
Use your shyness to gather information and remember key details. You do not always have to be speaking to have an integral role in social settings.
You can still build beneficial relationships without being a bold, loquacious personality. Sometimes steady and strong just might be the person who rises to the top.
6. Shed Light on Your Strengths
The truth is, you have many strengths that can be highlighted. Perhaps, one of your strength is reconnecting online with friends you’ve lost contact with over the years. May be you understand the art of crafting great conversations online with others. Use that strength to make connections on and offline.
Your strengths need not even have a connection to improving your challenge with shyness. It could just be that you’re a reliable person. You can be depended on at home, work or any other setting. Although I said there doesn’t need to be a connection, we’ve connected the dots.
7. You’re Not Picasso STOP Painting
Shyness can be egged on when we take our imagination’s paint brush and proceed to paint scenarios that cultivate shyness. Our imagination can open up a whole world of opportunities or impossibilities.
Shape your imagination to work in your favor. If you’re going to paint, do so deliberately. Paint with intention and create situations that will lead to a prolific social harvest.
8. Don’t Be a Punchline Victim
Often times, when one suffers from shyness we can be socially awkward and that opens the floor to those who marvel in the art of sarcasm and sounding smart because ‘sounding smart’ tends to stroke the ego at the expense of others.
You need not respond. You just need to be seldom present. To dissociate. Find the company of those whose meaningful conversations encourage thoughtful banter on your part. Find the  people and places where you can truly be yourself.
9. It’s All in The Posture
Posture plays a huge role in conveying confidence. If you slouch, you tend to feel less confident, less in charge. Stand straight and sit straight and see how you possess a commanding presence.
Your eyes should be straight ahead, never on the feet of others, yours or on the ground. If you can’t speak it yet, soon or it doesn’t seem possible, you can still take control of the situations that cause you anxiety or force you to act under duress by practicing good posture.
People remember those who are good captains of their spine.
10. Don’t Compare, It Kills
When we compare ourselves to others, it kills. It kills our spirit, our hope to get better and as Theodore Rosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Perhaps, there are others you know that command a presence and language you admire.
Don’t become intimidated when others expound and display language, body language or master the art of social engagement better than you. Remember you can always expand your thinking, grow your vocabulary and educate yourself.
There’s nothing and no one holding you back. The world of knowledge is literally at our fingertips.
Taking strides to overcome shyness or managing it never happens overnight. It is a journey and it takes time to gain good results. Do a little everyday to become your ideal future self. You totally have what it takes!
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