Overcoming Shyness Part 9: Stop Comparisons
If you find yourself wishing you were more outgoing like your friend, then stop and ask yourself - is this helping you overcome your shyness? Chances are it does not reduce your shyness nor help you feel more comfortable in social settings. In fact there is a good change that it makes your shyness increase as you think ‘I could never do that’ or ‘ why can’t I be more outgoing’. If these comparisons don’t help, change them.
Don’t compare, get tips.
Instead of wishing you were more outgoing, observe how outgoing people act. What is their body posture and eye contact like? How do they move? Taking away these tips is much better, because this gives you something to work on (not dwell on).
Remember everyone has insecurities.
Even those that appear very confident have insecurites. And because people don’t broadcast their insecurities, you can easily forget that they have them. Don’t compare yourself (with insecurities) to someone’s social confident behaviour. Consider the fact that even thought they appear confident, that might not be the case.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I have been guilty of this many times.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[...] Dee helps us overcome our shyness in her latest post on stop comparing yourself with others. [...]