How to overcome shyness in front of authoritative people. Does shyness have positive aspects? I wish you success! Positive emotions and all the best in life! Good luck

Shyness is a complex problem and in order to get rid of it you will need various methods and tricks. However, the most important thing for success is a firm intention to change your life.

There are four different approaches to combat shyness, each of which should be developed separately:

Change your behavior;

change some social factors affecting shyness;

Change your perception of yourself and your shyness;

Change the way other people think and act.

Do not make sudden movements. Overcoming shyness does not happen overnight, self-confidence comes gradually. It is necessary to train a lot in practice and not be afraid of temporary setbacks.

The first thing to understand is that a person is not immutable, he is able to change and even radically. human behavior and even human essence changes as the situation changes. Human nature is flexible and able to adapt to environment. Those animals and people who have lost this ability are subject to extinction. Therefore, in order to change one's behavior, it is necessary to identify those factors that cause undesirable behavior.

In most cases, the desire to overcome shyness is weakened by the understanding that you will have to take the initiative. After all, shyness is a convenient defense against the worst - being uninteresting, unnecessary, unloved, unintelligent. However, it becomes possible to change one's life if a person believes that he is capable of doing it and refuses the dubious benefits of shyness.

There are far fewer shy people who stay that way for life than those who are eventually able to overcome it. Shyness and indecision can be overcome, however, this will require considerable effort.

Inertia and lack of initiative makes it difficult to reveal the potential and ability to communicate. You need to understand that exercising at home, for 10 minutes, the problem will not be resolved. If a person wants to overcome shyness, then he must spend a lot of time, effort and energy to achieve the goal.

Self-improvement includes several aspects:

understanding who you want to become;

self-understanding;

understanding the nature of their shyness;

self-respect;

development of skills for successful social interaction;

support for other shy people.

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It is better to start solving the problem with analysis. Therefore, do not be too lazy to remember and write down all the situations in which you feel embarrassed. Be extremely specific. Instead of “talking to people,” indicate which people you are talking about: strangers, members of the opposite sex, or people in power.

When you break down a problem into parts, it already seems more solvable.

Then try to arrange the recorded situations in order of increasing anxiety (probably calling a stranger causes less anxiety than speaking in front of an audience).

In the future, this list can be used as a plan to combat shyness. Starting small, you will overcome more and more difficult situations for you. And with each new victory, the feeling of confidence will grow, and shyness, respectively, will decrease.

2. Fix your strengths

Another list to help you in your battle against shyness should be about your positive qualities. As a rule, the cause of shyness is in. Fight it mercilessly, reminding yourself of your own splendor (this is not a joke).

Try to find reverse side even the shortcomings. It may be difficult for you to conduct a long monologue, but you are an excellent listener. This communication skill can and should be used as well.

3. Decide on a goal

Any action becomes much more effective when it is purposeful. It is clear that constant embarrassment interferes with life, but you need to explain to yourself what exactly it prevents you from doing. It is possible that the formulated goal will become an impetus for overcoming the old problem.

Even though I perform, write and host radio shows, I am an introvert at heart. But as the head of the company, I had to talk about our products and services. It required me to get out of my shell and take the message to the world. I overcame my shyness by realizing that only I can ensure that my message is delivered correctly. After realizing this fact, I took steps to make it easier for myself. public performance and meeting new people.

Eric Holtzclaw

4. Practice

Skills need to be honed, and those that interfere with life should be systematically eradicated. All this applies to sociability and shyness. Here are some ideas that you can use as a kind of workout.

Reprogram yourself. Imagine that your shyness is a program in the brain that runs in response to certain situations, and you, as a computer user, have the power to influence this process. Try to go from the opposite and do the opposite of what you are used to. Do you want to hide in a corner at a party? Go to the thick of things. Have you caught yourself thinking that in a conversation you are taking a position of deaf defense? Try asking the interviewee a few questions.
Talk to strangers. Try to talk to one person at least once a day. a stranger(preferably with a random passer-by). You will most likely never see him again, so feel free to hone your communication skills on him.
In general, communicate more. Try to use every opportunity to make contact with people. Tell jokes, agree to speeches, say hello to those you often meet but never greet.
Warm up before an important conversation. Do you want to talk to someone specific person at a party, but afraid to approach him? Practice on those present who cause less embarrassment. If we are talking about acquaintance, try to tell them everything that you plan to say in front of the right person. After such a rehearsal, it will be easier to speak.
And always prepare for public speaking. But don't limit yourself to just repeating the speech. Visualize your future success with the audience. This will give you confidence.

5. Focus on others

The problem with shy people is that they think too much about themselves and the impression they will make on others. Try to redirect the flow of thoughts from yourself to others. Be interested, ask, empathize. When you focus on the other person, anxiety about your own behavior fades into the background.

6. Try new things

Get out of your comfort zone. Firstly, this step will positively affect your self-esteem, and secondly, it will diversify your life. You can enroll in a sports section or art courses. Another great option is improvisation master classes. Such exercises help to liberate.

7. Watch your body language

Eye contact, correct posture, speaking loudly and clearly, as well as smiling and shaking hands firmly, inform those around you of your confidence and openness. Moreover, with these signals, you deceive your brain a little and really begin to feel more free.

8. Say “no” less often

A lot has been said about. But shy people, on the contrary, should avoid it. Their refusal (expressed both in word and action) is often dictated by fear of the unknown and an unreasonable fear of shame. If you want to stop being shy, learn to say yes to the opportunities that life presents.

10. Don't advertise your shyness

Do not focus your attention and others on the fact that you have communication problems. This is how you label yourself and subconsciously reinforce the belief that shyness is your permanent trait.

Even if others notice your embarrassment, pretend that this is an accident, talk about it lightly, and not as a serious problem. Are you starting to blush? Say that this is a feature of your body, and not a reaction to stress. And never characterize yourself in front of strangers as a shy person. Let them make up own opinion and notice other, more interesting features of yours.

Know other ways to stop being shy? Tell us about them in the comments.

Most of us know what embarrassment is, but for some it turns into real torture. In unusual situations for themselves, such people immediately blush and cannot speak normally, they get lost and hide. Usually shy people find it very difficult to be seen and carry on a conversation with strangers. Shyness in itself is not something bad, but often it interferes with normal communication with others, making new acquaintances and working. Shy people find it difficult to arrange their own personal life due to communication difficulties. Therefore, many try to get rid of their shyness. But, before rushing to break your character, you need to analyze where shyness came from and whether it is so important to get rid of it.

Reasons for shyness

Shyness is a character trait that usually manifests itself already in childhood, shy children communicate less and play with their peers. But do not confuse shy people with introverts. Introverts do not feel the need for communication, and shy children need it, but they are afraid to start it. A person becomes truly shy if a specific upbringing is superimposed on his innate characteristics.

Often, shyness affects people who, in childhood, did not feel comfortable when communicating with their parents. If the parents often pulled the child, reminded that he was small, not interesting to anyone and no one would listen to him, self-doubt can persist forever. Also, children who do not feel safe in the family often grow up shy, then the whole world seems to them full of troubles.

If the parents of the child are closed and insecure people, the probability is very high that the child will grow up the same. In this situation, parents, in addition to their desire, pass on the wrong model of behavior to their child. In addition, such parents often do not let the child go away from themselves, later they send him to a kindergarten or school, which forms fear and fear of the world.

Often people with low self-esteem and perfectionists suffer from shyness. They always make every effort to do everything perfectly, but they are afraid that others will not appreciate their work. This can also lead to embarrassment.

What problems does shyness bring?

If in childhood shyness prevents you from approaching peers in the sandbox or answering well in class, then an adult may be faced with big problems. A shy person usually has a hard time finding Good work because it requires people skills. Working, such people, despite the ideal achievement list, often do not get the promotion they receive and work for very modest remuneration.

Of course, you need to try to correct the appearance with the right hairstyle, clothes and accessories. This will give additional advantages, but in no case will it become a decisive factor. Decisive factor here is your personality, try to show off what you have - intelligence, sense of humor, kindness, interesting magnification, or even cute simplicity.

And further, don't think about your failures too often. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to analyze mistakes, but you don’t need to constantly engage in self-flagellation. If the girl/boyfriend of your dreams didn't appreciate your efforts, it may not have been a dream at all. Don't be afraid to start over, perhaps your fate is also shy to approach and is waiting for the first step.

If you feel that shyness is getting in the way normal life, and you cannot cope with it on your own, then do not be afraid to seek help from a psychotherapist. Very often the cause of shyness is psychological trauma obtained in . Good specialist will be able to figure it out and help get rid of problems.

It is very important to learn not to worry about trifles and to treat troubles more easily. Closed and shy people failures are usually very hard to bear. Therefore, you need to learn to treat failures as positive. life experience and keep moving on.

Very often shy people blush a lot in unpleasant situations, heart rate and breathing can be disturbed. At times like these, it is important to be able to relax. The best help is special breathing exercises or other modern methods relaxation. You can learn them from a therapist or even on your own. Relaxation in right moment will help to survive unpleasant situations without embarrassment, which gives courage and self-confidence for the future.

By different reasons people are shy and insecure. This prevents them from communicating openly and living fully, so each of them must have thought at least once, how to overcome shyness and become more courageous and confident.

Not everyone in this case goes for help to a psychologist for the same reason of self-doubt. And, nevertheless, the problem needs to be solved somehow: perhaps simple, but actionable advice from experienced psychologists that will teach a person to communicate even with the lowest self-esteem.

Internal attitudes: how to become bolder

The fight against shyness must begin with your internal attitudes. Try to understand what is causing your insecurities? Having correctly understood its nature for yourself, you can find the right solution.

1. Shyness as an innate character trait

Sometimes a person is not self-confident, shy and timid due to his temperament. This is how he was born: if both parents have such a set of qualities, the child is unlikely to turn out to be violent and self-confident. This, of course, is not an axiom, but it has its place. If this is your case, then you will have to work tirelessly on yourself. To start:

Stop comparing yourself to others;
Make a list of your virtues and, constantly re-reading it, try to increase them;
Start reaching for the top in the area in which you feel like a fish in water;
Do not dwell on what other people think of you: the main thing is that you respect yourself.

Work on each of these points daily: this will help you gradually gain confidence in yourself, in your self-importance which will affect both communication with others and your life in general.

2. Shyness as an acquired negative experience

It will not be easier to cope with your shyness and those in whom this quality was developed as a result negative experience in past. Perhaps you had to go through humiliations that served to develop complexes in your subconscious. It is they who are now preventing you from fully living and communicating.

What to do in this case? Again, work with your internal settings:

Recall your past and determine what events gave rise to complexes;
Analyze these events and come to the conclusion that they have too little value in your life;
When you assure yourself that your complexes are a mirage that does not have any real basis, you can get rid of your shyness and become more confident in yourself.

Throw off the burden of gloomy thoughts, try to think only about the positive and rosy, stop beating yourself up for the slightest fault. It is easier to treat people and the world, do not dwell on insults and give others your bright and kind smile- after all, this is the rule number 1 of a self-confident, and therefore a successful person.

Rules for communicating with a confident person

In the question of how to overcome shyness, it is very important whether you learn to communicate with people and with the opposite sex (as a rule, self-doubt is associated precisely with love failures). Try to win small victories every day - and soon you will surely be able to defeat your own complexes.

Don't be afraid to smile at the people you encounter during the day.
Always look directly into the eyes of the interlocutor, no matter how much you want to look away.
Engage in the development and production of your own voice: when talking, it should sound confident, loud enough and without hesitation. For this house, you can recite poems in front of a mirror.
Enjoy the conversation and try not to think that you are doing something wrong.

The very last stage will be an independent communication initiative: call the interlocutor yourself for a conversation, contact him first. This will be your real victory. And your appearance will add confidence in yourself, over which you should also work hard.

Appearance versus shyness

Sometimes people work for years to become more self-confident, but, going through all the stages of their inner development, they do not see the results, remaining still in their cocoon. Why? It's about appearance: learn to love yourself and take care of yourself. Dress brightly and brightly, let them pay attention to you.

Getting used to the admiring glances on the street, you yourself will feel that you have become more confident. This is just part of the program, how to overcome shyness on your own, without outside help. Having taken the first steps on this necessary and the right way, you will soon get a taste and no longer step back.

After all, completely new horizons, alluring distances and prospects will open before you. You will be happy to throw off the shell in which you have lived until now: you will no longer need it.

A PHOTO Getty Images

METHOD OF LEV LANDAU

Walk towards your fears

Laureate Nobel Prize, physicist Lev Landau suffered greatly because of his own shyness. It often seemed to him that people around him saw his absurdity and secretly laughed at him. Then he decided to knock out a wedge with a wedge - to go towards what drove him into fear. His biographers give such a story. "Would you be kind enough to answer one question?" - Lev turns to the self-confident bearded man, who looks like a Nepman. He stops. "Why are you wearing a beard?" - Lev continues in the same amiable tone. In order to wean himself from worrying about someone else's opinion, he walked along Nevsky Prospekt with a balloon tied to his hat.

THE MAHATMA GANDHI METHOD

Make others need you

Mahatma Gandhi was very shy about speaking in public and talking to other people. He also had difficulty standing up for his opinion. Having chosen the profession of a lawyer, Gandhi at first felt uncomfortable: he did not succeed public speeches, he confused words and had poor self-control. In the end, he decided to change the situation and went to work in South Africa where many Indians worked. It was there that recognition came to him: many compatriots who faced injustice turned to him for help, and he tried not to refuse anyone. So Gandhi not only gained communication experience, but also realized his main goal to fight for the rights of the oppressed.

"One of better ways overcome social anxiety – volunteer, engage in social work connected with helping other people, advises Bernardo Garducci, psychologist and director of the Institute for the Study of Shyness at Southeast Indiana University (USA). – First, you will master the skills of behavior in different social situations. Secondly, you will feel useful and needed, and this will give you strength.

GLORIA ESTEFAN METHOD

Find your inspiration

The future famous singer Gloria Estefan was so shy that it seemed that a musical career was closed to her. But her future husband Emilio, who saw in her a huge talent, constantly pushed her to work on herself. “Emilio saw in me what I could not show to other people,” Gloria later admitted. “People mistook my shyness for coldness and lifelessness. He tried to give me confidence."

Shy people who are often overcome by self-doubt need a support group. “It is important that this is not a deliverer who would reassure you, and not a persecutor who would criticize your mistakes,” emphasizes Bernardo Garducci. “You need someone who will push you to action, to development.” Such a mentor can be a coach, coach or just close person. And for the inventor Thomas Edison, the artist Pablo Picasso and the musician Ray Charles, the mother was such a living talisman. “My mother told me: “If you become a soldier, you will become a general. If you become a monk, you will become a pope.” Instead, I became a Picasso artist,” said Picasso.

THE STEPHEN KING METHOD

Don't give yourself time to doubt

In an interview, writer Stephen King said: “There are a million opportunities for self-doubt. If I write quickly, writing down the plot as it comes to mind, only checking the names and salient points of the characters' biographies, I manage to maintain the initial enthusiasm and at the same time escape from the self-doubts that are just waiting for the moment.

“The ability to think deeply should not be confused with the tendency to obsess over something,” says psychologist Barr Taylor. – The more shy person thinks about the problems he might face, the more his anxiety grows. On the contrary, if you find yourself in a situation that causes you anxiety, you are more likely to understand how to act.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT'S METHOD

Think of others, not yourself

Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of American President Franklin Roosevelt, suffered from timidity and shyness all her life. However, she was able to overcome this trait of her character by making empathy her strong point. She supported women and blacks in their fight for equal rights, winning the love of many ordinary Americans. Psychologist Susan Cain believes that Eleanor Roosevelt managed to transform her sensitivity into altruism.

The same strategy was followed, for example, by actress Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin: “Before appearing in public, I forbid myself to think about myself. No, I don’t belittle myself, I just stop cultivating my ego - but how will they react to me, and what will they say about me? I turn into an active listener, an active observer, and over time I get so carried away with the process that I stop thinking about how I look myself, whether I say it or not.

ALBERT EINSTEIN METHOD

Find what interests you

The creator of the theory of probability grew up as a modest and very timid boy. He did not share the interests of other teenagers and was an outsider in companies. However, his passion for physics gave him strength and self-confidence. He found friends and associates who shared his intellectual interests. By the way, Einstein's timidity did not extend to science. He owns the following words: "A man who never made a mistake, never tried to do something new."

Bernardo Garducci agrees that shyness disappears as soon as we fully immerse ourselves in what we really like. “I remember almost dying of fear the first time I went on stage,” admits actor Harrison Ford. - But then I was “dragged out”, and after a while I could no longer live without the theater. This is what saved me. Otherwise, I would have remained a failure for the rest of my life.”

For more details see Bernardo Carducci's books Shyness: A Bold New Approach (Harper Perennial, 2000), Susan Cain Introverts. How to use the features of your character” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2013).