Overcoming Shyness In Meeting New People
Do you want to overcome shyness? This article might make you think …
© David Newton
Friday, April 02, 2010
Here’s a confession – well I’m a shy guy myself.
Do you find that hard to believe?
You know the picture of a guy who talks about how to strike up a new conversation and makes new friends everywhere he goes, and some people are totally miffed by the fact I tell them I’m a shy guy myself.
Well let me explain,…
You see, I’ve still got all the traits of shyness in me, BUT I’ve learned how to work with it and attain some goals in my life surrounding meeting people. When people come up to me at a seminar and say things like “Hey David, if you’re so shy why are you a public speaker?”
My answer is this, my shyness is a part of my natural self – I can rise above it to get what I need to get done and I’ve engineered my life to work within my own limits, however I’m always pushing my own boundaries all the time. Im not alone in this, many actors, key note speakers, television and radio personalities are also shy too.
So What Really Is Shyness?
Shyness is form of apprehension towards others, a way of acting in the world in a reserved and measured way. Shy people tend to be less outgoing and more inclined to be thinkers and dreamers. They are just simply less inclined to take risks with talking to other people due to a fear of rejection – or that of looking silly and out of place. They tend to care more what others think of them – and are careful to watch for reactions from others on how they are doing.
What people often don’t realize is that extroversion isn’t necessarily what they think it is. Just because someone can speak in public and be a leader of a corporation doesn’t really mean they are an extrovert. You might need to look closer in reality. An extrovert is a person who is outgoing – but they tend to not care what others think.
They can be easily detached from the outcome of doing a daring act, like asking a stranger at a party a daring question and not even worrying if it upset that person. A true extrovert, doesn’t even care what others think of them after a bad night out on the town. They bounce back like a rubber band after the tiniest setback, whereas a shy person would analyze their mistakes for hours, days or even years.
Is It Possible To Switch From Shyness To Extroversion?
Yes, it defiantly is!
The key proviso is this; that you create a FRAME OF MIND that gets the results you want to enjoy.
You could spend years in therapy “analyzing this and that” from your life back to childhood and for some this might work, or you can learn to develop a new way to engage with the world and others that has a results focus.
Speaking from personal experience it can take a short time – or a long time – depending on how much you want your goals in life to meet new people and enjoy a better life
If you want to speak German go to Germany
Ok here’s a way to look at this.
My late father once said to me, if want to learn a new language go to live where they speak that language. He was speaking from real life. He said that if you have to eat or find a train station, you’ll soon learn the words when your life depends on it happening.
The Same Is True With Overcoming Shyness
I moved from a small town of Wagga Wagga in the early 1980’s to the big city of Melbourne. I can still recall the taunts and fun the staff at Myers Lonsdale Street store gave me over my long and drawn out country drawl I had back then. They jibed me over my shyness and my trusting often naive country ways. It was a huge growing lesson for me.
Yet in about 2 years time, I had learned to be and think like a big city person. I lost my drawl and began to speak better and attending Toastmasters Speaking Clubs helped me a real lot in that time. I also figured that in a big city I could try out new things without the smaller town fishbowl – looking at my every move – as in smaller towns you are always under the microscope, in a bigger city people give you a lot more leeway.
By moving city, it forced my hand in making changes that were needed to get a better result in my life on many levels. Now I’m not suggesting that this is your own solution. But what you can learn from this is that by making radical changes around your life in any form you chose will result in you testing out new limits for attaining results.
As they say if nothing changes, … then nothing changes
And things must change either fundamentally or in raw practicality for you to see results. This is the opposite of analysing your way to overcoming shyness. Theorizing an outcome is way too slow and way too safe. And it gives you no real quantifiable challenges. If you want results, you need to take action, that’s the way you’ll get what you want.