overcoming social anxiety and shyness
Overcoming social anxiety and shyness is a mean accomplishment. It changes person to person as to how much effort is required. For a few people it requires nothing more than going out and practicing talking to people to get through bad feelings that are not particularly strong. For others on the other end of the scale it requires years of groundwork, trying and failing with likely several different techniques until they find something that works for them. The bulk of people are somewhere in between.
Ive been pondering recently about regardless of how stuck someone may be, just what does it take to be that type of person that can overcome it. I thought back through my own past from my days over six years ago now when I started out on a huge journey to change my life.
So what type of person does someone have to be in order to be successful in overcoming social anxiety and shyness?
The foremost responsibility is to yourself.
Irrespective of the technique they end up deciding upon a person needs to be able to have responsibility for themselves. If youre the type of individual who wont stop whining about being where you are because of other people then you will never be able to have great results. Your whole foundation is that because someone else broke you either they or somebody else needs to fix you. Only problem is no one will. Even when you look for methods to assist you it is inevitably you that must do the work.
You must commit to change.
You also need to be the type of person who can commit to something. Many people start off trying to change their anxieties and become happy with life, of those that set out likely 90% or more fail. From the research Ive carried out the majority of that 90% is because people fall in with an unsupportive crowd. While I say unsupportive I do not imply those who do not help out. Quite the opposite. I discovered so many people fail because they join a group (typically an online social anxiety forum) where people are more than eager to help you by justifying where you are and not providing you the kick up the backside to press on). People who end up on these forums reduce the dedication they started with, this new group makes them feel safe and supported, yet in truth they are generally just trapped in a slightly different place.
Value the smaller changes.
Being able to see the little changes in life is priceless. When I initially started out all I recognized was that the person I was was not the person I wanted to be. What I aimed for were massive changes that were in line with exactly the change that I was seeking. I discovered however that this is a seriously problematic perspective. You see when you view life through a problem what you see at the destination of where you want to go is entirely warped. By being able to see and get pleasure from small changes I was able to keep reaffirming that life was indeed getting much improved, sometimes I went on a tangent and improved some other area of my life which had a knock on effect to how I dealt with people.
There are a great many other personality traits that will help you along the way . Id like to open up the comments to allow anyone who has succesfully overcome their social anxiety and shyness to post about the traits they needed. I may also cover some in a future post.
The information contained within this article is not intended to replace advice or instructions from a qualified doctor or health practitioner. If you think you may be suffering from anything which is related to the content of this post your doctor should always be the first place to go.
