Practical Ways of Overcoming Shyness
Roy Thomsitt
August 03, 2006
Part 1
If you suffer from being shy, then you will not need to be told how adversely it can affect your enjoyment of life. Your social life suffers, you may have difficulty progressing in your career if it requires a lot of personal interaction to succeed, and you may dread meeting people so much that you avoid situations where you may have to do so.
If overcoming shyness is important to you, then you have already made a good start in gradually taking steps to becoming, and feeling, less shy. Translate that importance into a decision to overcome your shyness, then you are really on your way.
Much of the process to overcome shyness is replacing negative thoughts about yourself with positive thoughts. In theory and practice, that is quite simple, but simple is not necessarily easy, especially if your shyness is extreme. Professional counseling or guidance may well enable you to better structure your program of overcoming shyness. Your counselor, though, is likely to give you self help exercises, so self help is very much a part of relieving shyness problems.
Increasing Positive Thoughts About Yourself to Help You Overcome Shyness
The more positively you think about yourself, the more confident you will become, increasing your chances of carrying that increased confidence into situations where you might previously have felt shy. It is therefore a good idea to regard positive thinking as a useful tool in your overcoming shyness arsenal.
What are the positive things that you can be thinking about yourself? As every individual is different, this will vary from person to person. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, generally, shy people have some characteristics that may actually give them an advantage in life as compared to an extrovert. Your positive thinking program can begin with those positive characteristics:
1. While a quiet person need not necessarily be shy, a shy person is normally quiet. Being quiet does have some advantages that can help you to be a success; and being a success does help to increase your all round confidence, which may help you to overcome shyness in the long run.
Quiet people tend to observe, learn, and process information about their surroundings, and especially the people around them, better than an extrovert, locked in their egocentric world, would. This means that the quiet person may be better equipped to succeed in some activities and careers. It is worth considering your own life and ambitions, and find those areas where you can use this characteristic to your advantage. Think about those advantages regularly, at least daily if possible.
2. An extrovert may be uneasy and uncomfortable with a shy person, as they cannot really relate to somebody who is at the opposite pole to them. A shy and quiet person, though, may have the potential to better understand all types of characters. This increased awareness of other people, when coupled with an increased confidence, can become a powerful asset both socially and career wise. Most people appreciate somebody who is understanding, and this is a positive strength you can build on over time.
3. Recent research has suggested that shy people may be extra sensitive to a variety of external stimuli, not just the situations they fear, such as social gatherings with many new faces present.
One possibility arising from this research is that shy people may be more sensitive to reward situations. This may give a shy person an increased likelihood of success in a situation where they perceive some sort of reward at the end of it, or even close at hand.
While this research is fresh and with much to follow up, the notion that you, as a shy person, may have another characteristic you can turn to positive effect, is something you can consider as part of your positive thinking program.
Part 2 - Tips to Overcome Being Love Shy
In the first of two articles on how to overcome shyness, we looked in general at the use of positive thinking about yourself, to build your confidence and use that to start to overcome your shyness. In this article, we will consider a more specific, and very common, example of overcoming personal shyness: how to overcome being love shy.
People can suffer from various types of shyness, and being shy of one type of situation may not mean the same person is shy of another. Shyness can be a very personal matter. However, there are some common types of shyness, and one of the most common is being love shy.
Possible Causes of Being Love Shy
Being love shy can be the result of different causes. For example, one person may fear love because they fear getting hurt; they may even have been hurt before, and want to avoid it again. Another person may be shy of intimacy of any sort, and therefore have an inbuilt resistance to love due to what is really intimacy shyness. Others may be proud, so want to avoid rejection of any type; taking the first steps towards love are fraught with dangers of rejections, and those risks can be magnified as love draws closer.
If you suffer from any form of being love shy, you need to identify what the cause of that love shyness is. It may be one of the examples above, or another personal to you. Once you have identified the main cause, you can then seek to bring more positive thoughts to countering that cause.
Are You Love Shy? Tips to Overcome Love Shyness
If you are love shy, then you are far from alone. Love shyness can be very different from being a generally shy person, although some people will suffer from both. There are far more people who are love shy than you may think.
As in dealing with a general shyness, shy people can have some positive advantages in love, compared to the most extrovert of people. Shy people tend to be quiet and reflective, and more susceptible to some external stimuli; they can also be more observant.
There cannot be anything more personal and intimate than love; it is an individual experience for everybody. Through quiet observation and paying attention to another as an individual, you may get to know and understand them far more than an extrovert type who cannot see beyond their own ego.
Being understood at a deep level by somebody else can be a very intimate experience, so the recipient may feel loved and respected at the same time. You can use this to your advantage in developing a strong friendship, which may flow naturally and surprisingly easily into love. Understanding another person can be a very strong part of the foundation for love.
Fear of falling in love is a common feeling amongst people of all ages, and it is something that is worth overcoming. Nobody likes to be hurt emotionally, but it is an essential risk that is well worth taking. A human life is far more fulfilling if filled with love, both receiving and giving. If you are a generally shy person, then remind yourself often that you have a lot to give at an emotional level that less shy people may not be capable of. Imagine often how wonderful it would be to finally fall in love with the right person, who is able to fall for you in the same way.
You may benefit from using meditation and relaxation techniques, as well as understanding the powers of positive thinking in your efforts to overcome being love shy. It is always important to remember, though, that being love shy is a very common trait, and that shy people may have more potential to love and be loved than an extrovert person.
Also, remember that many of life's great experiences require some risk of failure or, in the case of love, rejection. It is true that rejection is something you need to be prepared for, and such preparation can be built into your meditation and relaxation sessions. Rejection or break up is a painful experience, one that I have personally been through many times, but through persistence and having an open heart, I have eventually ended up with the nicest person I have ever met. All the emotional traumas of the past all led to that happy relationship, so were necessary experiences en route.
If you suffer from being shy, then you will not need to be told how adversely it can affect your enjoyment of life. Your social life suffers, you may have difficulty progressing in your career if it requires a lot of personal interaction to succeed, and you may dread meeting people so much that you avoid situations where you may have to do so.
If overcoming shyness is important to you, then you have already made a good start in gradually taking steps to becoming, and feeling, less shy. Translate that importance into a decision to overcome your shyness, then you are really on your way.
Much of the process to overcome shyness is replacing negative thoughts about yourself with positive thoughts. In theory and practice, that is quite simple, but simple is not necessarily easy, especially if your shyness is extreme. Professional counseling or guidance may well enable you to better structure your program of overcoming shyness. Your counselor, though, is likely to give you self help exercises, so self help is very much a part of relieving shyness problems.
Increasing Positive Thoughts About Yourself to Help You Overcome Shyness
The more positively you think about yourself, the more confident you will become, increasing your chances of carrying that increased confidence into situations where you might previously have felt shy. It is therefore a good idea to regard positive thinking as a useful tool in your overcoming shyness arsenal.
What are the positive things that you can be thinking about yourself? As every individual is different, this will vary from person to person. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, generally, shy people have some characteristics that may actually give them an advantage in life as compared to an extrovert. Your positive thinking program can begin with those positive characteristics:
1. While a quiet person need not necessarily be shy, a shy person is normally quiet. Being quiet does have some advantages that can help you to be a success; and being a success does help to increase your all round confidence, which may help you to overcome shyness in the long run.
Quiet people tend to observe, learn, and process information about their surroundings, and especially the people around them, better than an extrovert, locked in their egocentric world, would. This means that the quiet person may be better equipped to succeed in some activities and careers. It is worth considering your own life and ambitions, and find those areas where you can use this characteristic to your advantage. Think about those advantages regularly, at least daily if possible.
2. An extrovert may be uneasy and uncomfortable with a shy person, as they cannot really relate to somebody who is at the opposite pole to them. A shy and quiet person, though, may have the potential to better understand all types of characters. This increased awareness of other people, when coupled with an increased confidence, can become a powerful asset both socially and career wise. Most people appreciate somebody who is understanding, and this is a positive strength you can build on over time.
3. Recent research has suggested that shy people may be extra sensitive to a variety of external stimuli, not just the situations they fear, such as social gatherings with many new faces present.
One possibility arising from this research is that shy people may be more sensitive to reward situations. This may give a shy person an increased likelihood of success in a situation where they perceive some sort of reward at the end of it, or even close at hand.
While this research is fresh and with much to follow up, the notion that you, as a shy person, may have another characteristic you can turn to positive effect, is something you can consider as part of your positive thinking program.
Part 2 - Tips to Overcome Being Love Shy
In the first of two articles on how to overcome shyness, we looked in general at the use of positive thinking about yourself, to build your confidence and use that to start to overcome your shyness. In this article, we will consider a more specific, and very common, example of overcoming personal shyness: how to overcome being love shy.
People can suffer from various types of shyness, and being shy of one type of situation may not mean the same person is shy of another. Shyness can be a very personal matter. However, there are some common types of shyness, and one of the most common is being love shy.
Possible Causes of Being Love Shy
Being love shy can be the result of different causes. For example, one person may fear love because they fear getting hurt; they may even have been hurt before, and want to avoid it again. Another person may be shy of intimacy of any sort, and therefore have an inbuilt resistance to love due to what is really intimacy shyness. Others may be proud, so want to avoid rejection of any type; taking the first steps towards love are fraught with dangers of rejections, and those risks can be magnified as love draws closer.
If you suffer from any form of being love shy, you need to identify what the cause of that love shyness is. It may be one of the examples above, or another personal to you. Once you have identified the main cause, you can then seek to bring more positive thoughts to countering that cause.
Are You Love Shy? Tips to Overcome Love Shyness
If you are love shy, then you are far from alone. Love shyness can be very different from being a generally shy person, although some people will suffer from both. There are far more people who are love shy than you may think.
As in dealing with a general shyness, shy people can have some positive advantages in love, compared to the most extrovert of people. Shy people tend to be quiet and reflective, and more susceptible to some external stimuli; they can also be more observant.
There cannot be anything more personal and intimate than love; it is an individual experience for everybody. Through quiet observation and paying attention to another as an individual, you may get to know and understand them far more than an extrovert type who cannot see beyond their own ego.
Being understood at a deep level by somebody else can be a very intimate experience, so the recipient may feel loved and respected at the same time. You can use this to your advantage in developing a strong friendship, which may flow naturally and surprisingly easily into love. Understanding another person can be a very strong part of the foundation for love.
Fear of falling in love is a common feeling amongst people of all ages, and it is something that is worth overcoming. Nobody likes to be hurt emotionally, but it is an essential risk that is well worth taking. A human life is far more fulfilling if filled with love, both receiving and giving. If you are a generally shy person, then remind yourself often that you have a lot to give at an emotional level that less shy people may not be capable of. Imagine often how wonderful it would be to finally fall in love with the right person, who is able to fall for you in the same way.
You may benefit from using meditation and relaxation techniques, as well as understanding the powers of positive thinking in your efforts to overcome being love shy. It is always important to remember, though, that being love shy is a very common trait, and that shy people may have more potential to love and be loved than an extrovert person.
Also, remember that many of life's great experiences require some risk of failure or, in the case of love, rejection. It is true that rejection is something you need to be prepared for, and such preparation can be built into your meditation and relaxation sessions. Rejection or break up is a painful experience, one that I have personally been through many times, but through persistence and having an open heart, I have eventually ended up with the nicest person I have ever met. All the emotional traumas of the past all led to that happy relationship, so were necessary experiences en route.
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