Hello. This post is about how to stop being shy and shy in a variety of situations. In this article I will explain why you should not be shy and will give a number of practical recommendations on how to get rid of this property of personality.
Practically, from early childhood, until recently, I was very shy and because of this I experienced many difficulties in interacting with other people and it was difficult for me to achieve many goals.
At the moment, I have achieved good results in the fight against my shortcoming and reap the benefits of getting rid of it with pleasure.
Why shyness need to get rid of
The fact is that shyness is very unpleasant and, moreover, a completely unnecessary quality, which you should definitely get rid of. It is unnecessary because, absolutely, it does not give us anything, it only takes it away. Let us take, for example, some other human quality, let it be fear of something, fear. On the one hand, because of fear, we risk losing many opportunities, since we will never decide on anything important because of our eternal fear. On the other hand, fear protects us from unnecessary risk: we are afraid of dangerous situations and therefore avoid them, unless we consider the risk justified. Fear has both a negative function and a positive, protective one. I wrote about this in the article how to get rid of fear.
Can not be said about shyness. If we are driven by this feeling, we simply deliberately deprive ourselves of many valuable perspectives. We are afraid to approach the person who we like and meet. We do not start an unpleasant, but important conversation with our friend and, thereby, we delay the solution of the problem and aggravate the situation. We are afraid to approach the authorities and demand a reasonable salary increase.
In general, we simply give up something: from pleasant acquaintances, from promising opportunities, from achieving our goals and realizing desires! And for what? For the sake of some feeling that sits inside us. And what do we get in return? Absolutely nothing.
Shyness does not protect us from anything bad, does not help. It only limits our capabilities and cultivates other harmful personal characteristics: lack of self-confidence, weakness of character, susceptibility to someone else's influence. Shy people are easy to manipulate, because they are afraid to firmly defend their positions, defend their own opinions and, in the face of a stronger personality, are timid, allowing the latter to impose their will on them.
Shyness has a negative effect on others
Your shyness causes in others both instinctive and conscious rejection. Moreover, you yourself may feel that you are very sensitive, polite and tactful, never allow yourself any extras and do not disturb other people over trifles and, thus, produce the most positive effect on them.
Although, in fact, it turns out that you create the opposite impression. Excessive timidity, shyness are a demonstration of some kind of weakness and, as a result, do not bribe other people. In the best case, you just form about yourself is not the best opinion. At worst - someone will take advantage of your shyness or simply will not treat you in the most polite way, as you have already shown that you can allow such treatment with yourself.
Encouraging politeness, cautious tact, excessive gentleness in communication, ignoring uncomfortable, but necessary topics in a conversation do not speak of you as a self-confident, independent person.
For example, girls and women give their preference to those of the opposite sex who show the greatest perseverance and even a little bit of arrogance in dealing with them.
Therefore, to blush in front of a girl is not only wrong, from the point of view that embarrassment does not allow you to get control of yourself, and you can blurt out something superfluous, but also strategically unacceptable from the perspective of achieving the desired result!
And this is true not only in respect of meetings with representatives of the other sex, but also in relation to communication with all people! You should not build your faults in dignity. Shyness is bad quality, it bothers you and creates many problems on your way. From how to get rid of it and will be discussed further.
Get rid of shyness
What is shyness? This is an unpleasant feeling that arises in you moments of awkward, in your opinion, situations. And, in order not to experience this feeling, you may want to avoid those situations that cause it. For example, you always set aside an important conversation with a relative for later, cannot decide to go to a girl who likes you, afraid to ask some uncomfortable questions, answers to which you would like to hear.
And all this happens because you do not want to experience the emotional discomfort that, within your consciousness, is strongly associated with such moments. That is, shyness is an inner phenomenon, not an outer one. Although not everyone fully understands and unknowingly connects their unwillingness to create uncomfortable situations with some external circumstances: what others think of them, how much is permissible in society, what they will look like, etc.
So thinking is a big mistake, and it is because of her that you can experience great difficulties. Now I will explain. First of all, in order to stop being shy, one should strive not to completely get rid of such a feeling as timidity, but to learn to tolerate it, to act contrary to it.
Shyness is just a feeling
And in order to succeed, it is necessary to learn to recognize shyness solely as a phenomenon of the emotional world, your body’s response to an external situation, the usual feeling of mental discomfort that will pass away, just as it began.
Before you are given an injection against any infection, you understand that you need to do it. You do not run and do not hide from the doctor just because you have to suffer a little, because it concerns your health. In short, the expectation of discomfort does not force you not to do what is necessary to do. Then, why can shyness make you faint and shy in front of the consciousness of an uncomfortable situation? After all, feelings of awkwardness, shame, so familiar to you are just some kind of discomfort, the same light and fast pain, only mental pain, which you must learn to endure if you want to achieve your own.
It can be difficult for you to deal with shyness, because you think of it, not as a feeling that you will experience in an unpleasant situation, but as a chain of some external phenomena: what if I seem ridiculous how I will look like, can, etc.
These external events become obstacles for you to achieve your goals. And in order for these obstacles to be eliminated mentally, it is necessary to reduce in mind the awkwardness of the situation, to a banal emotional reaction to some event!
How to stop being ashamed of girls or guys
For example, I will take a situation in which so many people may be embarrassed. You want to meet a girl or a boy, but feel free to come and talk. If you start to doubt, “what if she / she doesn’t like me”, “what if I look stupid”, “what if…”, “and suddenly…”, then never come and miss your chance.
The right attitude should be: "I will go to her / him, because I want it, and no matter how insignificant the chances of success, anyway, the attempt is not torture, and I absolutely lose nothing, I can just feel embarrassed in this a situation that is nothing more than an unpleasant emotion, but for the sake of the possibility of achieving the result I need, I am ready to suffer this feeling a little. "
Add to this more: "I should not be shy, it scares people and lowers my chances of success."
If your mind continues to doubt, continue to reduce everything only to your feelings, and not to the properties of the external world:
"I would look stupid in someone's eyes ..." replace it with "I will have the feeling that I look stupid, which is just an unpleasant feeling that will go away just as it appeared."
"They'll laugh at me" replace them with "Even if suddenly, someone finds something funny in my attempts at dating (yes, why bother?), So what, it will be unpleasant for me because of this, but it is worth suffering this easy emotional discomfort for the sake of what I want to achieve. "
Shyness is deception
Do you know what an important metamorphosis happened here? You have reduced all the variety of allegedly unsolvable problems that the rationality draws to you (the probability of looking stupid, the unfavorable views of others, the imaginary unfoundedness of your claims to someone's attention, etc.) to a single problem, which is solved simply by ignoring it!
So it's much easier to decide on something! Moreover, I did not propose here any ingenious method, which is designed to deceive your brain and force you to do what you do not want to do. Obviously, timidity, shyness, in its essence, is nothing more than a fear of unpleasant emotional sensations, disguised by reason under the fear of something external, objective.
Rather, you are deceiving yourself when you are building, on the basis of this feeling, some kind of bloated obstacles, not wanting to see this as simply reckless fear. In short, you do not act rationally and correctly when you walk in the wake of your timidity (after all, you are absolutely not in any danger in these awkward situations!) And, to calm yourself and put down the vigilance of your mind, instinctively come up with a bunch of excuses for your indecision. This is deception!
And, to get rid of it, you must perceive shyness as what it really is - an unpleasant emotional reaction to external circumstances and that's it! Always think about it in that way. I must say that in this way one can learn to control many negative feelings, and not just timidity. And I already wrote about this in my article on how to control my emotions, I stopped here again, in more detail.
Before you get rid of some feelings you need to learn to endure it. And when you will be able to tolerate some kind of emotion, act contrary to it, do not pay attention to it, this emotion will appear weaker and weaker with each new situation in which it arises, since you will not give up this feeling.
If you have always been shy before, but now you have decided to use the recommendation given by me above, then at first, in awkward situations, you can feel the difficulty and great internal resistance.
But if you, when everything inside you turns upside down, you still act contrary to your shyness and get acquainted, start a conversation, then two very pleasant feelings arise in you. The first is relief, the second is the consciousness of self-control, an understanding of what you could and did what you wanted to do against all odds! As if made a feat.
And all this happens at once: one has only to begin, and then everything goes like clockwork. It is only necessary to go over that benchmark at the beginning of an awkward conversation, an instant of pain and relief! Really "prick"! And then you realize that this unpleasant moment was just an instant, and everything turned out to be not as scary as it was painted to you at the beginning and was really worth all the effort!
If you manage to tolerate this short-term "pain", "injection", then the next time it will be much easier, because the patience of any pain increases the pain threshold. And with each repetition of this situation, it will be easier for you not to go on about this feeling, until you no longer feel anything unpleasant.
Those awkward events that could have caused a storm of unpleasant emotions in you will eventually be perceived by you in cold blood, and you will not need to make even an effort to somehow properly set up and prepare yourself.
If you cease to obey your shyness, then later, you will not have any problems to start a serious conversation with a loved one or ask something to a stranger, as now I do not have such problems.
Therefore, learn from mistakes and do not give up.
Get rid of unnecessary thoughts, tune in to your goal
Often, in situations where you just need to take and do, our thoughts are our enemies. Therefore, if you feel timidity before any responsible conversation, focus on your goal and get rid of all that is superfluous. Coupled with the previous recommendation it helps a lot in awkward situations.
For example, you want to ask for a salary increase from your boss. Thousands of despicable thoughts can creep into the head, all the notorious "what if ...". But we already know that all these "but suddenly ..." are irrational creations of the emotional world that pretend to be rational and thoroughly, these are "wolves in sheep's clothing" who live inside your psyche.
With this consciousness, of course, easier, but all sorts of unnecessary thoughts can continue to overcome you. Throw them out of your head, think about your goal. "I need to get a salary increase, I'm sure there are chances, the rest does not bother me." And about anything, except for this, without thinking, feel free to enter the office of the chief. Just clear your brain. It helps a lot.
Get rid of excessive politeness and introductory phrases, be sure of yourself
In conversations do not need to be more polite than the situation requires. Avoid any phrases that are overloaded with excessive turns of politeness, like "sorry, please, but could you, if it does not make it difficult for you to answer the question."
You should not think that people provide you with a huge service, answering your question or satisfying your request. Often, they just do their job ("And could you please, be so kind, do your job" - you will agree, it sounds funny), and often it just doesn’t cost them anything. Be polite, but in moderation, excessive tact speaks not about good parenting, but about self-doubt, which can only push people away.
You kind of tell everyone "I am meek and do not know how to resist and demand what I really deserve." Rest assured, some people will definitely take advantage of this.
The same applies to the introductory phrases: "But I have one question here, I don’t even know how to start, it’s just such an inconvenient thing, the situation is ...".
No need to overdo it with introductory phrases. Always go to the most important thing quickly, but at the same time, and not too dramatically. To do this, prepare in advance for an important conversation, to know what to say and not mumble.
Be confident in yourself or, at least, portray this confidence, do not give others a reason to think that you doubt yourself. In all uncomfortable situations, act in the opposite way to the behavior that shyness sets up: meek and uncertain. This does not mean that you need to be impudent and rude.
Just do not hide your eyes, sit and talk calmly, do not make unnecessary, nervous gestures. Always take care of yourself, look at yourself as if from the outside, pay attention to how calmly you say, whether you allow for intense gesticulation. (At this point, I stopped in more detail in the article how to stop being nervous.)
Final comments
If, all of a sudden, things did not go as you expected. Maybe during some meeting, you were not as confident in yourself as you wanted to, said something wrong and now you are ashamed. Do not bother yourself with this, just tell yourself that you will continue to work on yourself and learn not to follow the emotions that are born in you in all difficult situations.
No need to be ashamed and lament, remember, shame is just an unpleasant emotion that you need to endure, and this phenomenon is internal, not external, and, therefore, you need to perceive it accordingly.
So all that I mentioned earlier is also true here: get out of your head all the unpleasant moments of communication, do not think about them. What happened, happened.
When you learn to act against your shyness, you will take a decisive step towards meeting the awareness of the nature of your emotions and their management. Your character and willpower will also be developed, since you have to go overboard yourself, not paying attention to what is happening inside.
I want to say that the way to get rid of shyness and timidity is an effective exercise for self-development, which will help you to get rid of not only the above-mentioned disadvantages, but also allow you to strengthen and develop many useful life skills! Starting with something, at first glance, small, you will achieve a lot.
One has only to begin work on oneself and make the first successes in this matter, as new horizons of self-perfection immediately open up for you, which you even had no idea before. Я надеюсь, что, с моей помощью или без нее, эта истина откроется и для многих моих читателей, если уже не открылась.
Читайте мой блог и удачи вам!
