Overcoming Shyness With Age And Goals.
Shyness can be overcome, but before you set out to completely conquer your shyness, pause first to ask yourself what are your overall goals.
Why goal setting is critical.
If you don’t know what your overall goal is, it makes getting there quite a challenge. There are many many different social situations that exist. Do you have the desire to feel comfortable in each and every one? Or do you really just want to feel comfortable in the day-to-day social situations, such as talking with co-workers and feeling at ease when meeting new people.
What sacrifice are you willing to make?
How much you are willing to sacrifice has a big impact on how realistic your goals are. If you want to go from very shy to social butterfly then unless you are willing to make great sacrifice, your goals are not very realistic. And as we know, unrealistic goals are doomed to fail.
When you are overcoming shyness sacrifices generally boil down to feeling uncomfortable. Putting yourself out there, taking action and placing yourself in new social situations. The amount of time and energy you and discomfort you are willing to experience need to match the overall goal to make it do-able.
Age helps the goals.
It is critical to point out that experience comes with age. There is no way to short cut this. So some of the shyness you may experience now will fade as you natural age and experience more. Speaking from personal experience I can say that there were things that bothered me in my teenage years that are a non-issue now.
Well if age helps overcome shyness, why set goals?
You still need to set goals because age will only reduce some of your shyness. Which means that you still need to take action.
But generally as you age you naturally encounter different social settings. Some of these activities will, of course, be uncomfortable at first, but the strong need to do them (such as contact agents to find a house or apartment) means you will have the motivation to take action and soon you will feel much more comfortable. Some of this comfort will spill over into other areas of your social life, but you will still need to get out there and take action to feel totally at ease in those social situations. Goal setting comes in here. For example, you may wish to feel comfortable asking someone out, now some of your shyness maybe reduce due to age and experience, but unless you get out there, take action and some risks by asking people out, then you will never feel totally comfortable with doing this.
So as you work towards overcoming your shyness, take a moment to think about what you want the outcome to look like. Having a overall goal can be a motivating factor in itself. Remember that life experience will help you overcome shyness but you still need to take action.
December 7th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Hi,
I would like to put in a few words for this post. Shyness is a big obstacle to personal development. It slows down the learning process. Shyness hides qustions that can be addressed simply and fast. But sometimes, due to shyness, problems are uncovered till big “events” happened. Shyness may be due to not being able to acceptlosing face in front of others. Promtion or status may be at stake if one voice out a “silly” question. However, it is better to be “sily” once than being “silly” forever without knowing the answer.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
The comment about being shy or silly is not correct. In theory sure, it has some merits, but in reality it’s just not that simple.
and what is meant by “Shyness hides questions that can be addressed simply and fast.”?