Let's Talk - Shyness

This blog post is a little more personal than my usual posts and far from what I had intended when I started writing it. It’s a subject that I’ve mentioned briefly in other blog posts but I’m hoping that this post will maybe help a few people, who may feel the same, to feel less alone.

Shyness was never something I really struggled with until I reached high school. Ever since then it’s been something that’s affected my daily life interactions. I feel that a lot of people misinterpret shyness. People see you as someone who thinks they’re better than everyone by not talking to anyone and keeping to yourself when this is so far from the truth. The reality is that you’d want more than anything to be able to just chat and make conversation but it feels almost physically impossible. 

I always feel like I have to think about everything I say which then leads to me overthinking everything before I say it which often just then leads me to not saying anything at all. It’s like I want to speak and chat to people but my brain turns to complete mush the minute I even think about doing it. A lot of the time I also feel as though I just don’t know what to say or how to even talk to people. Why can’t I seem to do something that everyone else on the planet seems to be able to do without even thinking twice about - simply having a conversation? 

It’s almost like as soon as I realise someone else is paying attention to what I’m saying, my mind starts to go blank and I start sweating and becoming more and more conscious of myself and how I’m coming across that I don’t even realise what I’m saying anymore. This always leads me to overanalyse every conversation or slight interaction. Sometimes even the simplest everyday task becomes a sort of internal battle. Ordering food becomes something I need to rehearse so many times in my head before I say it and if I say it even slightly differently than how I practiced, it becomes an unnecessary disaster.

Then I’ll have those days where I actually do feel pretty confident. For instance, I’ll go out with my friends and chat away no problem with them and anyone else I encounter when I’m out. And I love it. I love the days where I’m feeling confident and able to talk to anyone. I just wish I knew what the difference was on those days. Like some sort of special formula that helps me to become my most confident self. 

Then there’s those days where having to make conversation seems like such a huge task, and one that I feel as though I just can’t accomplish. 

Sometimes I’ll make plans to meet up with friends on a day where I’m feeling all good but when it comes to the actual day, I feel nervous and almost ill and I won’t want to go. But then when I actually do go out I have a great time and am usually more chatty and confident than what I had first thought I was going to be and all the fears I had before seem so silly. 

Going to work is a particularly difficult thing for me at times because I don’t see the people I work with that overly often since I generally only work one or two days a week. It feels like I need to start again, work on getting my confidence up with and it never seems to work. And since my work people don’t really know me all that well, I always worry that they get the wrong idea of me. Apart from that there’s also the factor of having to interact with so many people, strangers, throughout the day. It’s just exhausting. 

I feel that I’m much too hard on myself about it all though. Like I’ll have a not so confident day after having a couple days of feeling pretty confident and it’ll feel like I’m back to square one. For example, at uni I can be chatty and confident one day and then the next it feels like I can’t think of anything to say and the thought of trying to hold a conversation is something I feel I just can’t do and I’ll start to internally give myself a hard time over it. I’m shy, awkward and a little socially anxious in real life but this isn’t something that I should let define who I am. Being these things shouldn’t necessarily a bad thing. So why do I always seem to think of it in a negative way?

For me, I feel like I make all my quiet awkwardness into a much bigger problem than it actually is. I don’t actually know where my social issues stem from. Maybe I’m overly worried about what people will think of me - maybe they’ll think I’m weird or boring so I end up feeling like staying quieter is a safer option than trying to speak. But then I get worried that no one will ever get to actually know me if I don’t at least try. I just end up putting too much pressure on myself and making it all into this huge big deal. 

The only way to get better at something is to practice at it, so that’s what I’m going to need to do. I need to stop just saying to myself “aw, it’s just cause you’re shy and awkward that you can’t talk to people”. I’m the one holding myself back from getting better in social settings. I feel I need to try pushing myself out of my comfort zone a little and work up the courage to have more conversations with new people and not worry about how I sound. 

However, as important as it is to try and push yourself to do the things that’ll help you to better yourself in some way, it’s also perhaps more important to remember not to push to hard and to also remember that things may not always go the way you want them to but you can’t let setbacks stop you or make you feel bad for trying. A lot easier said than done, I know. There has been times in the past where I’ll have tried to step out of my comfort zone with the aim of working on my confidence and, for the most part, things go really well. Then one small thing will go not so well and that’s what my brain ends up clinging to. Not all the good confidence moments but the one not so good. I need to start focusing more on the good. 

It’s also important to remember that there are other people in the world who feel just like you do, even though you may feel alone in your feelings. 

I want to be the kind of person who is unapologetically them self.  I want to show people that I’ve got so much more to offer than simply being shy and awkward around them. I’d like to think that one day I’ll be one of those people who are at complete ease in conversations and don’t overthink everything. Until then, I’m just going to have to work on it all. 

Bye for now, xo