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Reasons Why People are Shy/ Causes of Shyness
Most people spend their day feeling like talking to people but having a particular feeling holding you back from doing it, it could also be that you want to express your opinion about a topic in public but you just can’t stand up to do so because you have the feeling that your opinion might be wrong. We’ve explained few of the symptoms, reasons, and characteristics of shyness below. (Read an interesting article on social vices here)
The reasons and causes why people are shy are much, But the most common ones are;
- Self Consciousness: Being very self-conscious of oneself often make you compare yourself with others forgetting the fact that what you are comparing yourself to is the best you are seeing of others not what they are, since confident people portray their best, what you see in others are their strengths and not their weaknesses, anybody comparing him or herself to this is over judging themselves because you will see others as perfect and this will make you feel negative about yourself.( read about how to deal with insecurities in your relationship here ).
- Worrying About What Others Think About You: When you worry about what people think of you, you tend to be sensitive about yourself, this makes you withhold yourself more because you are worried people will mock you.
- Fear of Failure: Most people are shy because they are afraid of losing or failure. For some people, each time they fail they feel less confident about themselves, Shyness hinders them from trying more and new ventures because they do not want to experience failure.( read on the importance of parental support on academic performance here)
How to Stop Being Shy or Overcome Shyness
Firstly, getting rid of your shyness is not related to other people, if you think that confident people were born that way, you are wrong. Everybody has been shy at one point in their life before, the difference is that those confident people really don’t care about how they are behaving, they don’t give a thought and do not worry about their actions. what they focus their energy and thought to is the outcome of whatever they are doing, when a confident person is selling a product, he doesn’t worry whether you will laugh at him that his product is stupid, what he worries about is how many sales he can make.
If you want to stop being shy, you should focus on other things and not yourself, focus on what your venture is going to yield and not on whether you will fail or not. Although getting rid of shyness is not a one day project, the major problem is the lack of energy and willpower to reverse shyness.
A Chinese proverb says ” a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
The best approach to overcome shyness is to take things step by step, you start by doing small actions and you gradually build confidence and get better for the next step. Below are tips for overcoming shyness
- Learn How to Understand Body Language: experts and professionals are of the opinion that most communication between people is non-verbal. when you learn how to interpret body language it does not only help you to understand what the person is sending, it also makes you aware of your own body language and sends the right information to the other person. become aware of body language to ensure you send friendly signals out and to be aware of when other people are sending open signals to you that they are ready for conversation. when you do this you are one step less to overcoming shyness.( read about having a healthy communication with your partner here)
- Smile and Make Eye Contact: Making eye contact shows positive image and confidence. although it is bad to stare, make eye contact for some seconds then look away and make eye contact again after some seconds. Also, make sure you smile, it shows you are friendly and smiles are contagious. when you do this you are midway in your journey of overcoming shyness( read about why you should do medical checkup for your eyes here)
- Just Say Hi: Everybody knows how hard it is to start a conversation, so try and start by making eye contact, saying hi and then smile, make it a goal to say hi to as many people as you see their body language is open for conversation daily, this helps build your self-confidence and in no time you will be making good conversation with strangers and overcoming shyness(read an interesting article on confidence here)
- Make Sure You Listen: Most times this is harder than people think because most people talk more than they listen, listening means hearing and thinking about what the other person is saying, this is important so as to keep the conversation going by asking questions or affirming their points. when you actively listen, it shows you are interested in the conversation.
Benefits and Advantages of Overcoming Shyness
- Being More Successful: now don’t get this wrong, nobody is saying shy people will not be successful, in fact statistical shy people are more intelligent intellectually which has been linked to higher probability of success, what we are saying is that if you are already as intelligent as you are, if you overcome your shyness it increases your chances of success, now take a look at your workplace, you will realise that the people that get promotions easily are the people that are not shy, this is because they are popular and their name quickly pops up during any management meetings. So overcoming your shyness increases your chances of success. (Child labour: a threat to a child’s success)
- Helps Solve Your Problems Quickly: This is also an important benefit of shyness, when you are not shy you have a large network of friends and acquaintances, this becomes handy when you need some things done or problems solve, all you have to do is pick up your phone and call the guy you met at a bar last month that works there. Apart from solving problems, it also makes you have access to correct information since at least one person from your large network of friends is probably a specialist in what you want to know.(read on how to make good friends here)
- Have high Self-Esteem: shy people are usually people with esteem and inferiority issues, so overcoming your shyness makes you feel better about yourself. it also makes you have confidence in your self and this affects every aspect of your life ranging from your work, hobbies, relationships, etc. (read an interesting write up about “No excuse for Ignorance” here)
The benefits of shyness are enormous so make sure you start working towards overcoming your shyness.
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