In our modern culture, everyone is focused on becoming more social, popular, and liked–since all of these personality traits come with many benefits. Extroverted people generally have more friends, fun and success than introverts. They also tend to suffer from loneliness and depression less.
Becoming more outgoing and social is about living life to the fullest, unafraid to express yourself or go after what you want in life. Since being extroverted has so many benefits to it, it makes sense to want to get rid of your shyness.
Getting your conversation skills up to speed is one quick and easy way to start becoming less introverted. In particular, you want to start becoming more impulsive in what you say.
While there are some situations, like job interviews, where you want to be very careful about what you say, in most you should focus on talking more often and more spontaneously. This is going to sound bad, but try not to think too much before you speak in informal social situations.
If you put too much effort into everything you say, you’ll come across as a try-hard. By being spontaneous and just letting the words flow, you become easy-going, which is what people like.
In some situation, you can probably already talk to people easily and spontaneously. It could be around your family, your niece or nephew, or talking to a close friend.
However, when around people you don’t know well or are intimidated of, you aren’t able to act the same way. Your shyness gets in the way. A lot of the time, this issue can fix itself through gradual exposure.
An intimidating stranger soon become a close friend if you hang around him several times. By spending more time with people you’ll start to get the hang of talking to strangers.
Believe it or not, how well you make conversation is not a talent you were born with, but a skill set. Just like riding a bicycle, the more you practice this skill set the better you will become and the easier you’ll find it to be relaxed around new people.
In lowering your levels of nervousness when talking to people, there are many useful techniques to help you relax. Relaxation has the effect of demonstrating to your brain that there is nothing to be afraid of in this situations, which makes your brain’s anxiety lessen. You want that: nothing kills feelings of nervousness and anxiety faster than physical relaxation.
Your relaxation routine should be structured in a way that gets you the maximum results in overcoming shyness. It is not an event, it is a process. It is more effective to implement relaxation as a new routine rather than try it out one time incorrectly when you are in the middle of a full-blown anxiety attack. It will be the compounding of accumulated change that yields the most substantial results.
Set aside some time every day to practice relaxation. This will let you become relaxed when you are feeling at your most tense and nervous around people.
The Worst Shyness Advice in The World
Here are 5 of the worst pieces of advice
1. Focusing On Other People
It’s a piece of advice that sounds great on the surface … to people who have never had shyness.
If overcoming shyness was as simple as telling someone to “focus more on other people,” then nobody would be shy. The advice is simply not SPECIFIC enough to be helpful to the average shy person.
2. Rehearse What to Say
If you want to sound like a robot, then this would be great advice.
But for everyone else out there, rehearsing what to say is a terrible thing to do because it completely ruins your ability to talk to people naturally and spontaneously.
Preparing what to say for a job interview or a speech is normal. Rehearsing daily conversations or phone calls because you are shy is ridiculous. It turns your life into a performance, and is that really how anyone should live?
Do normal people have to rehearse their daily conversations like an actor? No, they simply talk to people. And the reason why they can talk to people easily is because their inner psychology is free of anxiety, insecurity and inhibitions, not because they have memorized the perfect “lines.”
So you need to focus on getting your inner psychology right instead of rehearsing what to say.
3. Ask More, Talk Less
Back when I had really bad shyness, I would barely speak up and people would always call me quiet. If someone had told me back then that I should “talk less,” then I’d probably think they were crazy.
Here’s the truth: Shy people need tips for how to talk MORE, not less.
4. Affirmations
Affirmations are basically positive statements that you repeat to yourself like “I am confident and happy.” Literally hundreds of self-help books have repeatedly recommended using this technique for overcoming shyness or low self-esteem… without any scientific proof that it actually works!
In fact, every scientific study recently done on affirmations has consistently shown that they don’t work, and can even make you feel worse!
Here’s a quote from one of these studies. (Pay special attention to the parts I’ve bolded.)
Canadian researcher, Dr. Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo and her colleagues at the University of New Brunswick who have recently published their research in the Journal of Psychological Science, concluded “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.”
The researchers asked people with low self-esteem to say “I am a lovable person.” They then measured the participants’ moods and their feelings about
themselves. The low-esteem group felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not. However, people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive affirmation–but only slightly.
Just like other shyness advice that sounds logical but doesn’t work, asking yourself questions like “Who cares what they think?” or “What’s the worst that can happen?” does NOTHING for making you feel less shy, nervous or anxious in social situations.
By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and anxiety.
Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts can drive behaviour.
The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.
Attacking your social anxiety from these three areas at the same time will have a compounding effect on the results you get. Focus on the ones you have the most difficulty with now, and then move on to the others.
Your thoughts and how you manage them can have a substantial impact. If you have time, look into cognitive behavioral therapy for a complete set of tools on managing your thoughts. If you just want to try some quick techniques out right now, then keep reading this article.
One way to lower your anxious thoughts is to accept them. It sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. Once you fully accept yourself, even down to your anxious thoughts, which are a “flaw,” then you’ll feel a lot less inferior to others.
If you have thoughts or feelings of inadequacy or inferiority often, then it usually just comes down to accepting yourself and then working towards a better future at the same time.
Also try thinking a lot less. Most socially anxious people think way too much, which makes them stuck inside their head. If you can slow down your anxious thoughts by switching your focus to the people around you, then you should be able to think a lot less, which will make you less anxious.
If you have social anxiety, then it’s normal to feel lonely, sad and depressed.
Unfortunately, these are the exact types of emotions that will drive off potential friendships or relationships. People don’t like to be around people who are sad and depressed all the time. Instead, you want to be fun and happy a good deal of the time.
How do you do this? Try smiling. The simple act of smiling actually releases chemicals in your brain that start to make you feel happier automatically If you don’t believe me, then try it for yourself. How much different do you feel when you are slouched over and looking bored versus sitting up straight with a huge smile on your face?
The last tip I’ll show you is the one which may make the most lasting changes to your level of social anxiety.
Here it is: face your fears directly. It may sound like impractical advice if you are very socially anxious. In that case, you need to start with small fears and build your way up. Maybe try to make and hold eye contact outside with three people outside today and then move on to bigger fears.
Social Anxiety Tips – 2 Sure-Fire Techniques That Work
It’s the moment of truth. You know you have to finally face your fears and go into a scary social situation. The question is: how can you cope with your social anxiety so it doesn’t overwhelm you?
I remember when I had social anxiety. I would avoid most social situations whenever possible. When I HAD to do something for sure, like making a presentation in front of the class, I would dread it for weeks beforehand.
When the day came, I would start to get physical symptoms: Sweating for no reason, shuddering breaths, shaking in fear. Some people who have social anxiety disorder may even get headaches, stomach aches, or vomiting because of their anxiety.
What a nightmare!
The good news is, in my quest to overcome social anxiety, I found some sure-fire techniques for coping with social anxiety as it comes up. Some of these you may have hear of before, others may be completely new to you. For the ones you have heard of before, read them again and pay careful attention to how I used them, it may turn out to be different from what you’re used to.
For all of these techniques, make sure you don’t just read them and then forget about them. These can all make a measurable, significant decrease in your anxiety whenever you need them. And I’ve also found most people don’t use them properly right away. It takes some practice to get the feel for when and how to use them.
Right when you are feeling most anxiousyou probably won’t be in the best state of mind to try out a new technique. You’ll need to use it several times before it begins to work instantly for you. Also, keep in mind that these are not a cure for social anxiety.
They are only meant to help you cope with social anxiety in the short term.
1. Be Very, Very, Very Relaxed
One of the most basic concepts in psychology is that the mind and the body are interconnected. When you feel anxiety and find yourself starting to sweat, shake or blush, your mind is affecting your body.
What most people don’t realize is that the opposite is also true. The state your body is in also affects the state your mind is in. If your body is totally relaxed, then your mind will start to follow along. (In psychology, this effect is called psychosomatic.)
If you change your behaviour, your emotions will follow.
So how should you change your behaviour to decrease your anxiety? Focus on becoming very, very relaxed. Be as relaxed as you can possibly manage.
Go through your muscle groups in your head and release a little tension in each one. Start with your face: unclench your jaw, relax your cheeks, rest your eyebrows. Then move on down to your shoulders, stop tensing them up so high, drop them a little bit by relaxing those muscles. Keep going down until you have relaxed each muscle group a little more. If you want, you can do this again and again and become more and more relaxed each time.
How relaxed should you be? Completely and TOTALLY relaxed. You almost have to make your body go limp — that’s how relaxed you should be. In my mind, there is no such thing as “too relaxed” for someone feeling anxiety. Maybe if you start slurring your words you should stop, but I don’t think there’s a big chance of that happening.
Try this out for yourself. Next time you’re feeling anxious in a social situation, make yourself relaxed to the point of feeling lazy and limp. You’ll still feel some anxiety, but much less than you did before. As you do this over days and weeks, it’ll become much easier to be deeply relaxed in social situations. If you keep it up, you may even become as relaxed around people as you are when you’re by yourself just by using this one technique.
Don’t take this technique lightly. It is one of the golden keys to overcoming social anxiety disorder and one of the biggest tools I used for overcoming my own anxiety.
2. Breathe Deeply Through Your Belly
The second technique is about making a simple adjustment to the way you breathe to decrease your anxiety on the spot.
What you’re probably thinking right now is: “Why do I need to change the way I breathe? And what good will this do?”
People with social anxiety breathe badly because their mind has taken over their body. Someone who is under a lot of anxiety is probably experiencing a “fight or flight” reaction in their body which makes them breathe in a way that only makes their anxiety worse!
When you feel anxiety, your body actually thinks you are in immediate danger, so it sets up an emergency system that will allow you to either fight the danger or run away fast.
One part of this “emergency system” is to change your breathing patterns. Most people who are experiencing anxiety are breathing in a very bad way. They are breathing shallowly, taking very fast breaths, and using their upper chest to breathe as opposed to their stomach.
This type of breathing would be great if you needed to run away from danger RIGHT NOW! … but it’s extremely counterproductive if you are trying to make yourself feel calm and relaxed to lower your anxiety.
So how do you change your breathing to make it “normal?”
The first step is to breathe through your belly, not your chest. Most people with social anxiety spend their whole lives breathing through their chest. This is not good if you want to relax your body and mind and feel less anxiety and nervousness in social situations.
Also, breathing through your chest gives you less oxygen, so you may end up with cold, clammy hands all the time — even in summer!
Here’s how you breathe through your belly. Look at the animation to the left. When you breathe in, your stomach should expand. When you breathe out, your stomach should contract. Your chest and shoulders shouldn’t move at all. This type of breathing is also called diaphragmatic breathing.
If you’ve been using your chest to breathe all your life, it may take some time to get used to belly breathing. You can practice by laying down on your back and putting one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest. Then you breathe, trying to only move the hand on your belly and keeping the hand on your chest as still as possible.
Take slow, steady breaths in and out. Practice making them longer and longer. Also, try to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. When you get the hang of belly breathing, you should try to do it all the time. Right before you go to sleep or right after you wake up, take 10-15 minutes to just lay in bed and practice belly breathing.
When you feel anxious, your body will want to go back to chest breathing. This is the time to take control and consciously make yourself breathe through your belly. If you keep doing this, you’ll find that it’s a very reliable method of coping with social anxiety.
Practice to Improve
Remember that for both techniques I showed you, it’s not enough to read about them. You have to PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE if you want them to have an impact on your life. And you’ll be most successful if you practice consistently.
Once I put these techniques into practice for myself, I found that my physical symptoms became much better. I stopped breaking out into a nervous sweat as much, and my hands stopped being cold all the time. My voice also sounded much less weird and awkward, even when I felt anxious on the inside.
The catch is, these techniques are for COPING with social anxiety, they will not get rid of it. In order to cure your social anxiety, you must attack the root of it, not just them symptoms.
If you want to learn more about how to get rid of social anxiety permanently, then check out my eBook called “The Shyness and Social Anxiety System.” I overcame my own social anxiety and now I teach people all around the world how they can do the same.
It’s much easier to get rid of your social anxiety when you know the exact steps you need to take. Most of the books and audio programs on overcoming social anxiety out there were made by people who learned about social anxiety from a psychology textbook and now they want to pay off their degree.
By learning from someone who has done it himself, you’ll be able to progress faster than you ever thought possible because you’ll learn all of the “insider secrets” to overcoming social anxiety that I figured out along my own journey. Click here to find out more.
By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and anxiety.
Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts can drive behaviour.
The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.
Whether
you feel shy around most girls, or just around that one girl you like, it can
be very frustrating. You don't know how to ask her out or even start talking to
her.
If
you do talk to her, you have trouble coming up with something interesting to
say to make her like you. You wish she was your girlfriend, but you have no
idea how to accomplish that.
In
this article, I'm going to show you a couple simple steps to start overcoming
your shyness around girls. It may seem like an impossible thing to do right
now, but once you know the exact steps to take, it becomes simple and
straightforward.
So
let's start off with the basic problem? Why do you feel shy around girls? Often
it comes down to you feeling like you are lower status or lower value than
them. You feel in some way inferior to them.
By
the way, notice how around girls who you aren't as attracted to, you don't feel
as shy around them. This is because they don't have the beauty which usually
intimidates you. So how do you overcome inferiority so you can act confident
around the girls you like? One way is to find out what is making you feel
inferior and fix it.
If
you have crooked teeth, get them straightened. If you are overweight, start
hitting the gym. If you feel ashamed of the clothes you wear, get a new style.
If you think you're a loner, learn how to make friends.
But
what about problems you can't fix? What about if you were just born way shorter
than everyone else? What if you are just uglier than average, no matter what
you do? In these cases, I would suggest that you just do whatever you can, but
then learn to live with your appearance as it is and learn to accept it.
Everyone
has their flaws, and girls aren't really looking for the flawlessly perfect guy
anyway. I'm sure you've heard before how girls pay far less attention to a
guy's looks than to his personality. In my experience, this is true.
Sure,
there are some girls who only like good looking guys, but this is the minority.
Most girls will look past any physical shortcoming you have if you are just
confident and can make them laugh.
Instead
of trying to make your appearance perfect, work on improving your social
skills. The more you talk to girls, the less shy you will become. As you talk
to more and more girls, it's almost inevitable that you will find a girl you
have chemistry with.
Shy Around Girls? 3
Simple Steps to Overcome Shyness Around Girls
This Part is for the Really Shy Guy
Most
guys feel a little nervous around the girls they like, but they’re able to take
a deep breath, push through it, and become comfortable with them over time.
That’s not who this post is for. This
post is for the guys who feel really anxious, scared and inhibited around
girls.
If
you get a strong physical feeling of anxiety when you think of talking to a
girl you like, or you feel a powerful, paralyzing hesitation when you want to
approach or ask out a girl, then this post is for you.
I’ve
broken it down to three parts: Overcoming inferiority, not being too invested,
and becoming assertiveness. This is going to go into more depth than anything
else out there. Bookmark this page now so you can come back to it again and
again.
Now
here’s step one…
1.Overcome Your Inferiority
From
my experience teaching hundreds of shy people over the past couple of years,
both guys and girls, I’ve found the cause of most shyness is a feeling of
inferiority. If you feel you are somehow “less valuable” than the girl, then
you will feel shy and nervous around her.
Let
me illustrate this with an example.
Unattractive Girl
Syndrome
Imagine
a girl you know who is unattractive to you, perhaps she is overweight or just
not your type. Do you feel any anxiety or nervousness around her? No, probably
not. And if you do, it will still be far less than around the girl you are
attracted to.
Think
about the way you talk to girls who you aren’t really attracted to. Are you
more relaxed and casual around them? Do you talk to them the same way you would
talk to a guy friend? Meanwhile around a girl you find attractive your mind
suddenly goes blank and you can’t think of what to say.
Why
does this happen? Why are you only shy around certain girls? This happens when
you place so much value on looks that a good looking girl becomes intimidating.
The solution is, of course, to stop placing so much value on
looks. Treat
an attractive girl in the same casual, natural way you would treat a guy friend
or unattractive girl. Sure, you may be attracted more to a good looking
girl, but physical looks alone shouldn’t be enough to immediately make you
intimidated and won over.
I
remember back when I was very shy around girls, I would start to really like a
girl and start to fantasize about our future together… without ever really
having talked to her!
In
hindsight, it seems so foolish, yet so many shy guys do it. They become
infatuated with a girl just based on how she looks from a distance. They
haven’t even talked to her yet, yet they start to imagine a future together
with her. (I’ll
talk more about these unrealistic fantasies later.)
It’s
better to have an attitude of “what else do you offer?” Does the girl have
something other than her looks going for her? There are plenty of cute girls in
the world, but it’s rare to find a girl you can have fun with and one that has
a personality that “clicks” with yours.
Do
not put the girl on a pedestal before you even know her. Treat her as an equal
human being, not a goddess. That’s why so many women give guys the advice to
“be yourself.” They don’t like it when a guy is trying hard to impress them and
get them to like him. Especially when they haven’t done anything to deserve his
attention yet except looking pretty.
Realize
that how someone looks does not dictate how valuable they are. Being good
looking is more about luck in getting the right genes than anything else. Would
you think that a lottery winner was superior to you?
Being Less Experienced
Another
way of feeling inferior is thinking that being less experienced than the girl
with relationships will immediately make you repulsive to her.
Back when I was shy, I remember I kept having to think I had to
“hide” the fact I had never had a girlfriend. I thought that if
the girl realized from the way I acted that I was romantically or sexually
inexperienced, then that meant she would just get up and leave automatically.
The
truth is, by having an attitude of feeling undeserving of more experienced
girls, then you are only sabotaging yourself. If you have grown up somewhat shy
and socially awkward, then it will be almost inevitable that most girls will be
more experienced than you.
In
order to “catch up,” you need to start to talk to, and become involved with,
these girls. That’s actually a great perspective to have.
The
fact that you are less experienced than average does not mean girls do not like
you. It just means that you have some catching up to do because of your shyness
or social anxiety. You just started later than everyone else. And that brings
me to the last point…
Being Hard On Yourself
and Insecure
Remember
the first key lesson: The less valuable you think you are compared to someone,
the more shy you will feel around them. Inferiority makes you feel not entitled
to be confident and express your personality.
Ask yourself: “How do I make myself feel inferior than other
people?”
One
big problem you may have to overcome is your own thoughts. Many shy people have
a constant stream of thoughts that point out what a loser they are.
If
you constantly think about why you’re a loser, how you aren’t good looking, how
you have some physical flaw that needs to be fixed, how you’re a loner with
little or no friends, how you’ve never even kissed a girl, etc … then you are
just sabotaging yourself.
By
being too hard on yourself and being insecure about your appearance you are
constantly reinforcing the idea in your mind that you are inferior to the
girl. This makes it IMPOSSIBLE for you to be confident around her, because you
think she is more valuable.
And
if you are lacking confidence and can’t even talk to her normally, then you
have no chance of attracting her and forming a relationship.
Confidence and personality are more attractive than physical
appearance to most girls. Your looks don’t matter nearly as much as
you think they do. If you don’t believe me, then look around.
All
the good looking girls are around the confident, popular, charismatic guys. On
the other hand, many of the good looking guys who are shy are stuck alone or with
a girl they’re not really attracted to. Looks matter much more to guys than
girls.
So
the most important thing is to cut out any thoughts that
sabotage your confidence or make you inhibited. This means to
notice when you are having self-defeating thought patterns and stop them in
their tracks.
Any
thought that makes you think you are less valuable will only sabotage your
progress in becoming less shy around girls. Notice when they occur, challenge
them with the ideas you’ve learned so far, and instead try to focus on your
good qualities that you are proud of.
Remind
yourself that girls aren’t really after the best-looking guy, but one who can
be confidentand talk to them
without being intimidated by their superficial qualities.
2. Stop Being Too Invested
in One Particular Girl
If
there’s one thing that all shy guys have in common, it’s that they have a
tendency to pick one girl that may show them even the slightest interest and
then become obsessed by her.
Stop The Unrealistic Fantasies
Do
you find yourself picking out one girl that you like and then thinking for
hours about what it would be like to date her and have a relationship with her?
Maybe
the girl showed you a little bit of interest. Maybe you just talked to her once
for a couple minutes. Or maybe she’s in your class and you’ve never spoken a
word to her before.
If
you are constantly fixated on one girl at a time and playing out fantasies in your head about what it would be like to
date her, then you are again sabotaging yourself.
What
do you think happens when you decide you want to finally go talk to the girl in
real life? You’re too nervous to even move. You’ve thought about her so
long and built her up in your mind into such a perfect creature that you become
literally paralyzed by fear.
Meanwhile,
the girl may not even be aware that you even exist.
All
the thinking makes you unable to approach her and talk to her casually. And
even if you do, the way you behave around her still communicates to her that
you would be totally crushed if she was to disapprove of you in any way or
reject you.
The
problem is, you became too emotionally invested in the girl before she had done
anything to earn your attention. You put so much time and effort thinking about
her that her rejection of you would ruin your fantasyland image of you two
together.
Don’t Have Too Many
Expectations
One
thing in particular shy guys do is they may talk to an attractive girl for a
few seconds and then put too much meaning into the interaction. They may start
fantasizing about the girl like I said above. They may go out of their way to
pass her in the hallway. They may even stalk her photos on Facebook.
The
key to avoiding this issue is to talk to girls without having a hidden agenda
to make her your one true love. Don’t have too many expectations about a future
relationship with any one particular girl until you have spent a decent amount
of time getting to know her.
The reason why is that people tend to put out their best parts for
the world to see.
Until
you have gotten to know someone over a period of time, you have no idea what
they’re actually like. That girl you think is perfect may be annoying to hang
out with, she may be needy, she may be insecure despite being beautiful, she
may be completely unintelligent, or she may be into the celebrity gossip shows
you hate.
And
if you don’t get to know her, then you’ll never realize you were just seeing
her through rose-colored glasses.
The
point is, don’t be won over by looks alone. There are plenty of cute girls out
there. Many of those are as cute as the one you are obsessed about … and they
have a personality you will like spending time with!
I’m
sure you’ve heard the saying:
For every hot girl out
there, there’s some guy that’s sick of f**king her.
So
after you’ve talked to some girl, don’t start imagining a future together with
her right away. This will just make you nervous to ever talk to her again.
Instead, keep it casual and see where it goes.
Guys
who have little relationship experience tend to be naive and think that most
relationships develop like a romantic movie from Hollywood. Two lovers fall
into each other’s arm when they first see each other. The reality is much
different. Long-term relationships develop over time and are always a work-in-progress.
2.Be Assertive
One
way to stop being so invested in one particular girl is to have many options
instead of one. The best way to do this is to talk to many women on a weekly or
daily basis.
If
you only talk to one new girl a month, then it will be hard not to think about
her. But if you are constantly meeting new girls then it becomes a lot easier
to see her as just a girl you talked to one time and that’s it.
Fate Doesn’t Exist
Many
guys who are inexperienced with women have wrong and naive ideas about how
relationships work. Maybe you think that the best strategy to get a girlfriend is to wait for the right
circumstances.
Are
you waiting for a situation where you just happen to meet a girl, you magically
aren’t nervous about talking to her, don’t have to ask her out, and she makes
all the moves? That’s like waiting for the stars to align.
The harsh reality is that you are going to have to work and learn
to cope with your nervousness if you want to have a girlfriend. The universe will
not deliver one to you.
Sure,
you may get lucky a couple times where a girl puts in much of the work to get
to know you, asks you out, and makes all the moves. BUT … she probably won’t be
the same girl that you want!
If
you want something, you’ve got to go after it, especially when it comes to
dating for guys.
Guys Are the Ones Who Make Moves
In
our society, or perhaps due to our biological programming, it’s guys who need
to be assertive about meeting new girls and becoming physical with them.
Don’t
like that? Too bad. That’s just the way it works. It may suck if you’re a shy
guy, but it is what it is. Learn to accept it and live with it.
You’re
going to be the one to approach. You’re going to be the one who asks for the
phone number. You’re going to be the one who goes for the kiss. Going after a girl you want
involves risking rejection every step of the way.
How
do you overcome this fear of rejection? You desensitize
yourself to it so many times that it doesn’t bother you much anymore.
Don’t Hesitate
Being
assertive is like a muscle. The more you do it, the less effort it takes.
When
you want to talk to the girl you like, you will probably hesitate a little.
You’ll
stop yourself.
Then
when you try to do it in a couple minutes again, your “mental barrier” to
acting becomes higher. It becomes even more difficult to “just do it.”
And the longer you think about whether you should make your move
or not, the more anxiety you feel. It’s just like when you think of a girl
for months and it becomes impossible to talk to her. You’ve built it up in your
mind so much that you’ve become a victim of paralysis by analysis.
Instead,
you need to act more upon that first impulse. That first impulse is your best
shot at actually doing it. All the thinking that happens later only serves to
talk you out of acting on that impulse.
If
you talk to a girl and she doesn’t like you, then don’t start thinking of ways
to make her like you. There are literally billions of girls out there, just try
a different one.
Conclusion
I
hope these tips help you to get over your shyness around girls. Much of this
information was a turning point for me going from a hopeless guy with extreme
shyness and social awkwardness to someone who has overcome shyness and has
decent social skills. Enough to talk to girls I’m attracted to without feeling
shy at all.
By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and
Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This
program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and
anxiety.
Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step
audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you
ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system
utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts
can drive behaviour.
The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by
professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the
relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.
