Is Shyness Stopping You from Getting Things Done? 20 Tips to Help You Cope
July 3rd, 2008 Jennifer George Lynn E. O'Connor Ph.D.Categories | Cognitive Science | Getting Things Done | Health | Psychology of GTD | Tips - How To's
We all feel shy at times. Some of us find groups intimidating, others feel self conscious one on one, still others can’t stand to be the focus of attention for fear that people will see something wrong with them. The truth is that everyone has insecurities and everyone has faults. While we’re busy worrying that everyone else is secretly noticing how badly we suck at something, chances are they are really worrying about everyone noticing how badly they suck at exactly the same thing. For all but the truly exceptionally self-assurred among us a few tips on how to feel less shy would probably come in very handy.
If you agree, check out ThinkSImpleNow.com . They got as a great article on how to overcome shyness as well as a ton of other content that will lift your spirits, improve your self esteem and help you remember that everyone is unique and special and also that we’re all just human. I’ll be that our two resident cognitive scientists, Jennifer George and Lynn O’Connor have even more helpful tools and enlightened commentary on shyness and how to fight it. Perhaps one of them will weigh in on this post?
As a bonus you might want to check out another article from ThinkSImpleNow.com that covers all the stuff we collect and some helpful methods for getting it under control. Do you have any tips on decluttering your life that you’d like to share? Please do in the comments.
Hey, thanks for promoting me to cognitive scientist!
As for shyness, I tend to think it’s chemical. Just from personal experience, I’ve struggled with social anxiety all my life and only recently had any relief. The solution? Taking antidepressant medication. Oh, and getting older and more experienced. That helps too.
I took a cognitive behavior therapy-oriented class aimed at dealing with shyness that helped a bit, but in the end I think we’re going to find out that social anxiety is genetic and caused mostly by brain chemistry. That may not be a popular view among us personal development types, who believe that reading a self-help book can substantively change how we feel, but I bet I’ll be proven right with time and more research.
I think you’re so right about this Jennifer. And being aware of this is swimming upstream in our culture. I know from my line of work that it is similar with parenting where most people believe that if someone has a difficult child, it must be because of poor parenting. But have loads of research these days showing clearly that kids have a lot of genetic traits, dimensions of temperament. Of course parents can respond in more and less helpful, or useful ways to the child’s temperament which can lead to things going more or less smoothly. But the idea that the parents are responsible for every detail of the child’s personality and demeanor is just wrong, in much the same way as it would be wrong and even counterprodcutive to tell someone who is shy, to just be more outgoing.
Also I wanted to say that I think this is cool to share with your readers that you, as someone who is functioning as a personal development writer, also has had her own struggles with issues like these. I like the hand of cards metaphor for our “wiring” (to mix metaphors for a moment). We all get dealt our cards, some of us get a depression card, some of us get a hallucinations card, some of us have a near perfect hand the leaves them very even keeled (certainly not me), but the dignity lies in how we play the cards we have. Cursing the cards we got dealt, or denying it and pretending we actually are holding different cards than we have just doesn’t help much. Acceptance and working with what you’ve got as you’re demonstrating here as much as we can do.
If one was naive, one can speak openly to crowds.
Intelligence creates the conditions of shyness not brain chemistry.
Example of the mentally handicapped, you ever meet them in public or on the bus? The are very friendly , trusting and talk to everyone like a young child would. They have little fear.
The reason (not chemical imbalance) people are shy is because of rational fears of humiliation or rejection from the peer group they are speaking to.
If you remove intellegence , yes you then have no fear of what could go wrong, and no balanced internal self criticism.