There could be many beneficial factors for a person to become less shy. The point isn’t to change your personality per se but to offer you a way to become more open to people and thus open to more opportunities. These opportunities could be related to career, business, friendships, romantic relationships, etc.
I had been the shyest person in class growing up for most of the classes I attended but years later now as an adult in my early 20s, I’m much more confident and less shy. I can now talk to anybody I want without feeling nervous or uncomfortable.
In many ways, I’m still the same person but much more able to exert myself without feeling self-conscious. I guess you can say that I’m an extroverted introvert.
Many people would falsely assume that I’m an extrovert, so that’s how good I am at being “not shy” while still keeping my personality intact and I’m going to share my secrets with you in this blog post.
This article isn’t written with the purpose of changing your personality but to teach you how to become comfortable with interacting with the world and thus, less “shy”.
Here’s what I did to become less shy.
Table of Contents
1. I stopped caring what people think of me
The goal isn’t to completely not care about what people think of you because reserving a bit of care for how we may be perceived by others can clue us in on how to behave when with other people.
However, caring too much about how other people think of us is not good. One of the biggest regrets people have when they die is caring too much about what other people think of them and it makes them lose their voice. They let others’ opinions of them determine what they do in life and they ended up not really living for themselves.
When you stopped caring what people think of you, you may become bolder with your actions and that makes you appear less shy.
2. I changed my social circle
Your social circle is kind of a lottery that you drow out of a potential set of trillions. It’s impacted by the place your parents decide to raise you, where you choose to attend college, and who happens to go to that event and meet you.
If your lucks isn’t good, you may find yourself among a group of people who aren’t good for your growth.
I used to be much shyer when I was younger. When I went to college, I became less so. It was a summer while in university that I met up with my friend from high school and immediately realized something. People want you to be who they have known you to be and if you have changed for the better, they don’t always like that.
The cues are subtle but it’s observable. My “friend” seemed to be more open to interacting with me if I acted less certain, shyer, and less confident.
When I got a job after graduating, I was spending all my time at work away from everyone else that I was in contact with. I’ve since quit the job but it was one of the largest companies in the world currently and they have more than 2000 employees. I found a new group of people who are interested in the same thing I was.
I started being treated in a way that I wanted — with respect, no patronizing, and condescending behavior.
If you want to become a newer, better version of yourself, you should experiment with a different social circle. Perhaps you may find yourself becoming better person. You see, it can be hard to shake the expectation others have of us based on who you were before and that can limit your potential.
3. I become extremely focused on my goals
Being extremely focused on my goals gave me less space in my head to focus on being shy.
When I have a package that hasn’t been delivered and I need it for my business, I found myself being very brave on the phone with customer support. In my head, all I wanted was my package, and all of a sudden, my shyness disappeared.
It’s all about context. You may just need the right scenario to bring out that inner tiger in you.
4. I realized that life is short and I don’t want to have regrets
We lose so much of our lives not being truthful about how we feel and not being bold enough to pursue something either that’s standing up for ourselves or something as simple as telling the waiter that he’s got your order wrong.
If you realize how short life is you may realize just how much bolder you should allow yourself. If you know you are going to die tomorrow, would you tell the waiter you ordered something else? I bet you would because it’s your last day on Earth and you want to get your soup. There’s no way you should let your shyness prevent you from enjoying your last bowl of favorite soup.
5. I realized that others can judge you just as much as you can judge others
One of the reasons that many of us are shy is that we are afraid of judgment from other people until we realize that we can judge other people just as much as they can judge us.
Who cares what someone thinks of your outfit? You can think the same thing about their outfit. You hold just as much judging power compared to someone else.
Someone else can decide that they don’t like you and you can decide the same thing about them.
Not caring about how people think of you can be such a liberating feeling. Of course, it doesn’t mean you should go run around naked because you don’t care what people think of you.
The goal here isn’t to act like you don’t care and do something extreme to prove that you don’t care but to take the proper steps to realize how vulnerable everyone is and how common the fear to be judged and disliked are. Remove yourself from that chain and realize the power you hold in not letting others decide for you who you are as a person based on how they perceive you.
6. I developed the attitude of either they like me or they don’t and either it’s fine
Part of our shyness may come from the fact that we are afraid to put ourselves out there. What if our true selves won’t be accepted? What if someone doesn’t like us? So we shrivel up into our little cocoon and refuse to let anyone see our bolder side.
When I realize just how much power I was giving to people for merely deciding whether they like me, I remove them from their throne of power by deciding that I don’t care. They can like me or they can not like me and it doesn’t faze me.
Someone liking or disliking me has less to do with me as a person and more to do with them. All I can do is try and be a respectful person and if they don’t like me, it’s not my business. I couldn’t care less. I’ll go hang out with people who do like me for who I am.
7. I took up some light exercise
When I was in my early years of college, I noticed that I was running out of breath a lot and it was worst when I had to talk to people. It made me super nervous and my shyness would flare as everyone struggled to understand me.
So I took up some light exercise to train my breath intake. It made me better able to control my breathing and thus less shy. I no longer get nervous when talking to people because I wouldn’t appear out of breath every time I open my mouth. Of course, other things on the list also helped me combat shyness.
8. I talked to more people
When you have only interacted with a few people, your sample size is small, and thus how you think others perceive of you is likely to be biased based on the first few that you interacted with.
If the first three people you interacted with at a new place aren’t very nice or welcoming, it can make you feel like you aren’t well-liked despite that not being the case.
There’s a different atmosphere in different social settings and the people also acts differently. For instance, I can go to a Discord for a specific NFT and the people may seem rude while another Discord for another NFT project has very nice welcoming people. If I just stop at the first discord I’d think that people aren’t very welcoming and I should therefore not bother with NFT anymore.
You need to talk to more people to get a more accurate view of how the general public acts so you become less influenced by the few that you do interact with.
Talk to those who aren’t in your school, talk to those in other age brackets, talk to those in different occupations, talk to those with different hobbies, talk to those with different religions, talk to those who are of different ethnicity, talk to those who do share the same interest as you, etc.
The more people you talk to, the better you tend to get with your interpersonal skills. No doubt a useful skill to cultivate.
I also notice that I get less shy with each person that I talk to.
Final thought
Some part of me loves the shyness that I still find myself exhibiting from time to time. It’s a defining personality trait for me but I have learned so much in the past few years that now I’m able to strike up a conversation with anyone without being labeled as “shy”.
It’s never about changing your personality but it’s about making you feel more comfortable by introducing you to different perspectives. It may make you appear so much more comfortable with people despite still keeping your “introverted” nature intact because let’s face it introverts are awesome too.
We don’t all have to become an extrovert to become successful or to be well-liked.
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Thanks and have a great day, bye! 🙂
