Getting Rid of Shyness: 11 Steps to Confidence

Almost every day we encounter shy people. And this is not strange, because psychologists say that every person has shyness to one degree or another. The editors of Estet-portal decided to understand the causes of shyness and understand how you can overcome self-doubt.

Psychologists about shyness

Perhaps one of the best and most popular works on this topic is the book by F. Zimbardo, which is called: "Shyness: what is it and how to deal with it." This book goes directly to Webster's Dictionary, where the designation for shy people is given: "To be shy means to be difficult to approach, because of timidity, caution and mistrust." In addition, Zimbardo gives a few more quotations from the dictionary, which help to indicate the full formulation of this term, thereby understanding its essence. He defines shyness as awkwardness in the presence of other people.

We have highlighted for you a few simple steps described by F. Zimbardo that will really help you get rid of shyness and become more self-confident. Now let's break down each of these steps.

Step 1: Understand the cause of shyness

Pay close attention to your shyness and insecurity and try to understand its origins. Answer yourself the following questions:
1. Where did you get this property from?
2. Is it congenital or acquired?
3. And if you bought it, what influenced you the most – failure, bullying, ridicule, criticism, difficult circumstances, or some other reason?
Answer also the question – Is it easy to eliminate these causes with a simple volitional decision or do they require painstaking work, perhaps together with a specialist.

Step 2: find your inner ideal of confidence

Try to see in yourself that internal standard of self-confidence, the comparison with which brings you into a state of emotional tension and clamp. Then try to answer the following questions for yourself:
1. Why do you feel so painfully that you are not like him?
2. Where did you get this internal standard and image from?
3. Who introduced it into your mind?
Think about it, could you live without comparing yourself with anyone or anything, but accepting yourself as you are.

Step 3: What are you hiding in yourself

Try to understand what you dislike so much about yourself and why you reject it. What motivates you to hide this trait or property from other people so tensely? What will happen if, on the contrary, you accept it first for yourself, and then open it to others? To get rid of shyness, first try to imagine it mentally, and then gradually transfer your idea, vision and mood into reality.

Step 4: Look at yourself

Learn the great art of calmly and objectively seeing yourself as if from the outside, without judgment or judgment. Such an outwardly neutral vision will gradually awaken your positive emotions, a sense of joy and love for the whole world, including yourself, as part of this world. Direct this love to that darkened inner line that you do not like so much and which you so diligently hide from other people's views.

Step 5: Treat yourself with humor

Introduce a slight detachment and mild humor to your relationship with yourself. Make fun of your shyness and insecurity. Accept them easily, without tension, without judging yourself for such qualities, but perceiving their presence as a springboard for further improvement.

Step 6: Revisit all past successes

Collect all the past resources of your victories, or at least successful communication scenarios in any situations. Remember all the cases of your confidence and looseness in companies. Try to recall and relive your positive emotions that you experienced then.
Then gather these emotions together into one big holistic feeling of faith in yourself and tune in to its further expansion. Saturate this feeling like a light substance. Your whole being – body and organism, nervous system and psyche, consciousness and your "I".

Step 7: Select indoor units

Mentally observe yourself and try to find in yourself some internal obscurations and energy blocks that are responsible for the state of uncertainty and prevent you from getting rid of shyness. Then dissolve this feeling and state on all levels of your being from consciousness to body and replace it with a state of confidence and emancipation.

Step 8: Analyze Others' Confidence

Take a closer look at confident, liberated people. Try to understand what is the secret of their success and how they manage to keep themselves relaxed and confident in all situations. Try to imagine how their inner world works. Think about whether there are at least some weak rudiments of such confidence and looseness inside you? If there is, then tune in to this state again and again, catching and fixing it. Think also whether you are capable of doing such things.

Step 9: Try to be liberated

Try to behave like this type of people behave – freely, confidently, liberated, doing what they like to do, without regard to others. Bring impulses of freedom and emancipation into your gestures, movements, looks, gait, intonations, facial expressions, decisions, actions. Achieve a clear feeling that a stream of freedom is passing through you.

Step 10: Learn to Relax

Pay attention to the release of muscle clamps. Shyness simply ceases to exist as a property if a person has learned to truly relax his body. Each facet of shyness has its own muscular manifestation. Examine the muscle pattern of your shyness. Try to understand which muscle groups are the main forces supporting this negative emotional state.

Step 11: Deal with circumstances

At the moment of blows or pressure of circumstances, try to respond to them by setting up an energy shield woven from the substance of confidence. Trust that you can handle the problem. Only then the problem will recede, and you will finally be able to say goodbye to self-doubt and your abilities.

The editors of Estet-portal sincerely hope that our advice will help you get rid of shyness and gain self-confidence. But remember that confidence – this is not a tree, but only a way to achieve a goal and a kind of vital indicator that indicates that the goal will be achieved. You should not turn yourself into a self-confident individual who is not able to fully evaluate his actions.