Either way, they may be holding you down from overcoming your shyness.

Do you ever feel more shy around your family? Do you feel weird being around and talking to people your own age or of the opposite sex when some members of your family are around? Does it feel weird when you try to be more outgoing and sometimes seem like your family wants you to keep being shy?

There are several reasons why you feel this way, and 3 major ones:

Reason 1: You Care What They Think

This is the biggie. It’s hard not to care what your family thinks. You may worry they judge how you act, who you know or what clothes you wear. If you’re a teenager or living at or near your parent’s home, it can be even more difficult. But this is the cause of the other two reasons.

One way to stop caring so much is to get a life. I mean it. Seek out new friends, new interests, and outside groups. If you have a life outside of the house you’ll stop caring as much about what your family thinks because they will become only part of your life, instead of being there always.

By the way, I know “get outside interests and friends” is a lot easier for me to say than it is to actually do. I know what it’s like to be shy and feel stuck inside the house. It’s like having an invisible barrier holding you down and you wish something would just “snap” and make your life better. Right now I’m writing a section in my book (in-progress) that talks about a psychological technique called “Pattern Interrupts”. It’s a little-known way to break out of these loops shy people get stuck in, and it’s REALLY exciting stuff.

Reason 2: Won’t They Notice If You Change?

You’re afraid of suddenly acting more confident and talking less quiet because you don’t want your family to notice. This goes back to Reason 1, But there’s actually a much easier solution for this feeling.

Yes, they may notice you changing, but they won’t mind. If they do, it’s because they feel like they’re “losing control” over you. Some outgoing people feel more important around shy people because they like being able to boss them around and dominate over them. If your family doesn’t want you to change, hang around them less (see #1).

Also, it’s generally expected that shy people need some time to “break out of their shell”. You won’t really be surprising anyone.

Reason 3: They Know You’re Shy

It’s very hard to change the impression of you that your family has built up over many years. Maybe they see you as “a shy person”. The worst part about this is, the impression they’ve built up is like an elastic band. There’s no way to gradually make them see you as a more and more confident person. It will just snap back to “shy guy/girl”.

The “Pattern Interrupt” technique that I mentioned above in my shyness book is the simplest way to solve this problem, but since it’s not out yet, I’ll give you a different solution…

Get away for a bit. If you’re leaving for college or moving to a new, faraway job soon, that would be the best solution.

If they only start to see you occasionally, instead of every day, they will have to reevaluate and change their initial impression of you. They expect you to change if they haven’t seen you for a while. There’s also a second bonus to getting away.

People Have Expectations They Expect You To Live Up To

People generally behave as others expect them to behave. If your friends know you are shy, they won’t like it if you are suddenly loud. That’s not because they don’t want you to stop being shy, but it just seems weird. An outgoing, funny guy who is well-known will have every one’s attention as soon as he enters a room. That’s because everybody expects him to be outgoing and funny, and he plays into that expectation.

But in a different place, where no one has any expectations of what kind of person you are, you can “pretend” to be confident and change a lot more rapidly.

Imagine travelling to a new city. You could hop onto an airplane, and in a few hours, you’re in a totally different place. You could be who ever you want to be in that place. That’s the feeling “getting away” gives you.

It’s like an instant shyness cure.

Summary

In this article, here’s what you’ve read:

• There are many reasons for you to feel like your family is holding you back from changing.
• What it all comes down to is you caring what they think. You can start caring less by building interests outside of your home and eventually, by having a social life.
• They may notice if you start changing. Usually it’s expected for a shy person to take some time to “break out of your shell”.
• They know you’re shy, and expect you to continue being the same person. One way to get around this is to get away from your family for a bit. Move away, and only see them occasionally. Maybe it’s college or a new job. 
• Getting away from your family for a bit will give you the opportunity to meet people who don’t know you’re shy and you can “pretend” to be confident. This is the fastest way to change.

Photo by hrtmnstrfr

You feel fear. Intense, shaking fear that rattles through your whole body.

Suddenly there’s a man standing at the opposite end of the room. He yells at you: “Don’t worry! This type of snake doesn’t bite!” Do you feel any different?

After all, the man does give you more information. So there are now two conflicting parts of your brain. One feels fear. The other tries to logically convince the first part not to feel fear.

This is a lot like how shyness works.

First, What Is Shyness Exactly?

I know it’s a stupid question, but this is key.

Many shy people get confused into thinking shyness is something it’s not. When they are young, someone may tell them, “You’re shy.”  This assumes that shyness is a trait of a person. It’s something they are born with or have developed over time to become a part of them, like their hair. Or like being athletic or overweight or hairy. But the scary truth is, shyness isn’t a trait.

Think about it: Are you shy all the time? Even when you’re by yourself? Are you equally shy when you’re talking to someone new as when you’re talking to your closest friend?

Shyness is a reaction. It’s a feeling someone gets in response to certain situations. The amount and the type of reaction someone feels depends on the situation. Shyness isn’t something you are, it’s something you feel, sometimes.

So What?

It’s a reaction, and you can’t control the reaction. Just like you can’t control the fear you get when you see a deadly snake coming at you.

And that means you’re not going to cure your shyness by thinking about it logically. But that’s what most shy people try to do.

No amount of saying “It’s no big deal. It’s just a conversation/speech/girl/guy.” is going to stop that intense physical and emotional response you have in social situations.

The response that makes you want to run away and hide because you’re so nervous.

Shyness Isn’t A Choice

Shyness isn’t a choice, it’s actually much closer to fear than anything else. That means the only way to overcome it is to work smarter, not harder.

The problem isn’t to make yourself “feel less shy”, because you can’t make that choice. The real problem usually runs much deeper.

What I’ve come to realize is that it’s a problem of not facing your fears in life, in general.

Wrap Up

What can you learn from what I said above?

• Shyness isn’t a choice. It’s a reaction.
• You can’t logically convince yourself not to feel shy by thinking, because shyness is automatic. You don’t decide to do it or not based on facts. It’s there or it’s not.
• Therefore the only way to cure shyness is to attack it indirectly. You can’t tell yourself not to feel shy as you are doing it, no matter how many “good reasons” you have not to be shy. You have to fix your shyness by fixing other, underlying issues.

There’s something so much bigger at stake here…and overcoming this issue will lead to success in many other areas of your life. Stick with it!

Photo by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton

In the beginning, the young elephant tries to escape. It struggles against the rope that holds it in place. For several days, the rope keeps rubbing the same spot on the elephant’s leg. The rope finally wears through the elephant’s tough outer skin, and cuts into the elephant’s soft pink flesh. The pain is excruciating. It’s the worst thing the animal has ever felt.

The elephant soon learns that pulling and struggling against the rope will only bring him pain, so he doesn’t struggle anymore.

The elephant grows to be a 12,000 pound monster-sized animal. It could physically crush the animal trainer like a small bug. But it doesn’t.

The animal trainer still keeps it tied up. To the same short wooden stake. If the elephant tried, it could snap the wooden stake in half by simply shifting its weight. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t think it can break free of the stake because of the early experiences it had trying to break free. It thinks the outcome will be pain, instead of freedom.

Elephants are really not that different from shy people in this way.

Do You Avoid Wearing Nicer Looking Clothes Because You Worry About What Other People Will Think Of You?

Some shy people have this problem: You may tend to wear the most plain looking clothes, even stupid looking clothes. You feel ashamed, anxious and shy to wear clothes that you have been said to look good in.

Basically, you run away from positive attention as much as from negative attention. But then you also regret it when people of the opposite sex ignore you when you dress like a loser. Or when other people look at you skeptically, probably mocking your dress sense.

Why Do You Do This?

It all comes down to social value or status, and what you believe your social value is. It’s where you think you “fit” in the social ladder.

See, you have an identity in your mind that you have developed over time and become attached to. That identity is based on what you think other people think of you. Acting outside of that identity is hard to do. It’s the main reason why shy people feel “held back” from expressing themselves fully.

If you think other people think you’re a loser when you wear stupid clothes, then wearing cool clothes will make you feel like a fraud. It won’t feel natural, for a reason that goes back to the days people lived in caves.

Acting outside of the identity you have of yourself activates the same part of the brain that physical pain does. This is a survival mechanism. Back when humans just needed to survive, it wasn’t a good idea for everyone to be high social value. There had to be a few key leaders to keep tribes running smoothly, and they needed to be securely in power. It wouldn’t do the whole tribe any good if every week some new guy came along and thought he could be the leader.

Going back to the elephant example, it wouldn’t help the animal trainers if the elephant suddenly realized that he was able to overpower them and break free.

If you are shy, then you tend to act based on what you’ve been conditioned to do in the past, not what you are actually capable of. You are afraid to act too confident or dress clothes that look too good because of invisible constraints you put on yourself from the past.

You are not who you think you are. You are not who other people think you are. You are who you think other people think you are.

How Does This Work?

Imagine a popular, macho guy. It makes sense to think he would be uncomfortable walking down the street in clothes that weren’t cool, like a pink dress.

But many people are confused that the same applies for people who try to dress above their status. Like if an unpopular guy suddenly got an attractive shirt that made him stand out. He’s been conditioned that he has low social value, so the shirt makes him feel like he’s going against what other people really think of him.

How Can I Get Rid Of This Feeling?

The good news is, you aren’t an elephant and you aren’t a caveman. (I hope) It is possible to get rid of your insecurity over time, simply because you are aware of it now.

The bad news is that there’s no “magic button”. I can’t make you suddenly feel comfortable wearing cool clothes. The only way to do it is to change how you think about social interaction at a fundamental level. The only way to make yourself comfortable is to change your identity.Then the clothes will feel “right”, and uncool clothes will make you uncomfortable.

You have to change what you think other people think of you. Now, I know you can’t change what other people think of you. You can’t control their thoughts. But you can change what you think they think.

This is related to building self-confidence, which I’ll write more about in the future. At first you may think you’re fooling yourself, then slowly you will find yourself actually becoming a cool person for real.

Won’t People Notice If I Change?

Maybe some of your close friends will, but they’ll get used to it.

The process of wearing cooler clothes actually runs counter intuitive to much of the advice I give. The key is to switch completely, not gradually. Decide on a date when you won’t wear any of your old clothes, then buy cool clothes to last you for at least a week. Then get rid of most of your old clothes.

Don’t think you can do that? That’s your identity talking. Don’t worry. I’m working on more posts, so check back to this blog often. I’m also working on a book aimed to completely change you from a shy person to an outgoing person.

The Big Picture

• Your feelings come from how you think other people perceive you. The key is to change your thoughts, not other people’s.
• A guy or girl who thinks they are low status won’t want to go against this identity they have decided on. Going against it activates the same part of the brain that physical pain does. It’s a survival mechanism.
• The only cure is to change how you think other people perceive you.

Photo by Adam Foster

Suddenly, your mind goes blank.

What do you do? You desperately try to think of something to say, and an awkward silence falls across the class. They’re all looking at you. Everybody’s watching.

Suddenly you’re not sure where you should put your hands. You move them awkwardly to the back edge of your desk, and you feel how cold and sweaty they are. But there’s no time to worry about that. You have to say something, anything. Quick!

You blurt out an answer. Why does your voice sound so weird? Everyone keeps looking at you for some reason. Now your voice sounds a little better. You wish the teacher would move on with the other people in the class…

What Did You Do Wrong?

Maybe that situation has happened to you before. Maybe it’s happened to you many times. Or maybe some other, similar situation has happened. It’s happened to me, and it happens to most people who are shy, for a reason.

The reason is shy people tend be preoccupied about what other people think of them. In the classroom, you were very aware that everyone was watching you. You didn’t want to mess up.

You didn’t want other people to get the wrong impression of you, so you had to think carefully about what you were going to say or do next. Unfortunately, your plan backfired horribly.

You Fell Into A Trap

It’s a trap many shy people get caught up in: they try to micro-manage what other people think of them. They constantly think about little things that are unimportant.

For example: Is what you say next going to be liked? Are your clothes representative of your personality? Will the way you walk give off the right vibe? What’s the right body language? Will doing this or that make you seem less smart? Do people secretly respect the way you are?

This is the process shy people go through before they say or do something:

1. “What should I say next?”
2. “Will it sound good?”
3. “What’s the best way to say it?”
4. …and only then do they actually say it.

This type of thinking is called Self-Monitoring, and it’s bad for several reasons:

1. You Hesitate

Instead of just letting go and expressing yourself, you think and think and think. And only after do you do something. It’s not fun for you and it’s not fun for other people. It’s unnatural. The more you hesitate before doing something, the more contrived it will seem when you finally do.

For example, if you think of something to say, and them wonder if you should say it, you get nervous. It stops becoming something that just popped into your head and becomes YOUR own idea. You put more and more importance on how people will react to it the longer you wait. When you finally do say it, you’re nervous. You control how your act through conscious effort, and it comes out unnatural.

2. You Seem Out Of Focus

When you Self-Monitor, you seem out of focus. Like you’re actually 10 seconds in the past or 10 seconds in the future, instead of being in the NOW and enjoying it.

Only shy people and those who are extremely self-conscious monitor what they do. Normal people don’t. What normal people do, is not think at all. They don’t think about what they’re going to say next. They get a general feeling of what they want to communicate, and they say it.

Think back to one of your best experiences socially. Chances are, it felt like the right words were somehow coming out of your mouth automatically. You weren’t stuck in your head, trying to come up with something to say. It was all flowing, and you felt in the moment and connected to the other person. Best of all, you were having fun.

3. You Seem Inauthentic

Oh, the irony. You want people to like you and think you’re a swell guy or girl, but they don’t. They think you’re inauthentic.

When you think about everything you say and do, it doesn’t come from you directly. It’s been filtered by your brain, and people can feel it. They can sense the slight offness when you’ve been thinking of a remark for a minute. They don’t feel the same energy coming from you as from a person who comes up with something to say on the spot, and that lack of energy turns them off.

How Do You Stop Self-Monitoring?

First, you have to realize when you’re doing it. You do it when you’re trying to consciously control internal processes that are normally unconscious. What does that mean?

Do you control how you move your mouth when you talk? Do you consciously control how you’re breathing? Do you think about how your arms and legs move as you walk or sit down? Maybe you aren’t doing it now, but in tough social situations you do it. You shouldn’t EVER do this. 

When you realize you are doing any of these things, this is what you should do:

Switch your focus. Think about being on the beach. Count to one hundred. Think of something that will take you mind completely off what you’re doing physically.

Stop talking to yourself. If you’re constantly doing this in your head, stop. It’s part of Self-Monitoring. You’re probably talking to yourself about what you’re doing, or about to do. Switch your focus using the technique I just showed you.

Don’t hesitate. When a thought pops into your head, express it. The longer you wait the worse your fear of expressing it badly becomes. Downplay. You could be in a war zone right now. You’re just talking to someone, maybe it’s your teacher.

These things should come naturally. So don’t consciously force your mouth to move when you’re talking Or your arms to move a certain way when you’re walking. Switch your focus, relax, and have fun.

The Blueprint

1. Realize when you’re self-monitoring
2. Switch your focus off yourself.
3. Stop talking to yourself.
4. Don’t hesitate for a second.

Photo by missjdub