Being shy made me strong, and it can do the same for you
By: Onete Gabriel
Tags: Motivation, Self Improvement, Shyness, Personal Development, Self Help

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Shyness is not a behavioral characteristic. It’s an emotion that affects the way we act and behave. Shyness triggers mechanisms that lead us to feel and act in a certain way. But very often all of this is dictated by our mind.

It is a tool that defends us from feeling bad in some negative situations that appear in our life. However, if this characteristic often recurs in our relationships or habits, it means that we are depriving ourselves of events that could bring us benefits

Similarly, it is a choice, in the sense that very often our mind chooses this attitude to prevent possible negative effects. But if we learn to manage our emotions, to work on our habits and experiences we may be able to replace this response that our mind has learned to activate unconsciously over the years, with a more correct, self-confident, and positive one

As a child, I remember holding on to my mother’s leg and using her body to hide from strangers. Then, as I got older, this shy behavior manifested itself into a fear of speaking my mind, interacting with others, exposing myself, and so on.

During these years, my shyness did nothing more than prevent me from being who I wanted to be. It felt like a dark cloud looming over me and I couldn’t escape. Until one day, I realized that being shy was getting me nowhere. I refused to allow myself to be a victim of shyness. So I decided to do something about it.

There are three main reasons for your shyness:

1)You feel uncomfortable with yourself.

Shyness and insecurity, the two always seem to go together. Feeling insecure will make you avoid contact with other people because you don’t want them to see what you are unsure about and feel your discomfort

Many shy people have insecurities about their physical appearance and believe they are ugly. (They usually pick one little negative thing about their looks and then obsess over and over like that’s the one thing everyone else will notice and remember about them.)

2)You need something from the other person, usually acceptance or approval.

Here’s an easy question: Who is generally more nervous in a job interview? The employer or the candidate? The interviewee is certainly much more nervous than usual.

Especially if he needs the job, he will try to convince the other person to get it. This creates some kind of anxiety, which is why most people are scared before a job interview.

Likewise, shy people have such a strong need for acceptance, approval, and validation from other people that they often feel like someone being interviewed for a job.

3)You believe that the other person has a higher value than you.

If you feel like someone else has “higher value” than you, you will begin to be shy, nervous, or embarrassed. For example, this can happen around very attractive women, so you will be shy around girls you like.

Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl. -Mokokoma Mokhonoana

But it could also happen when you are dealing with authority, with your boss, with a very bright classmate or colleague. Etc…

Now think about people you don’t feel shy about or embarrassed about. Maybe they are unattractive or weird. Maybe they are even more shy or insecure than you. Maybe they are younger than you or very old.

These are the people you secretly think are equal or “less valuable” to you.