philosophical Thoughts, Life Advice, and Unpopular Opinions

Shyness: An Inconvenient Character Flaw

Do you tend to avoid eye contact when someone talks to you? Do you find yourself dreading the thought of initiating conversation for fear of being ridiculed? Do you freeze up when you're about get yourself in any social situation? Do you get panic attacks when you're around too many people? I have a confession to make; so do I sometimes. Struggling with shyness and social anxiety has proven to be a very inconvenient obstacle in just about...well...almost every aspect of my life. It's especially awkward when I take Uber and the driver is trying to have a conversation with me and the best I can get out of myself is a smile and nod, then the rest of the trip just ends up as awkward silence. My shyness is so bad, I can barely do Youtube videos, which is why I chose to do writing instead of vlogs. However, I find it most detrimental to my professional life. I'm 98% sure it's my social anxiety and lack of confidence that's to blame for the fact I've had hundreds of job interviews in the past and not a single person has ever hired me. Even marketing my blog has proven to be difficult for me. After doing a lot of research on how to market my blog, most of it includes reaching out to what I call "the big guys" and doing terrifying stuff such as public speaking and things that big, successful people do like requesting to be interviewed or network with big people that I feel 100% unworthy to talk to. Yeah, my social anxiety is pretty bad. Because of this, I am extremely intimidated by the prospect of "going big" and I find myself becoming easily overwhelmed. Then again, maybe it's not people I'm afraid of, but failure, rejection, and criticism. Just like people aren't afraid of heights, they're afraid of falling. People aren't afraid of spiders, they're afraid of getting bit. I guess that's a good place for us shy people to start; pin pointing our true fears. Perhaps what I really need to be researching is how to get over my shyness, because I know that if I'm going to get anywhere, I need to get over my fear of failure, rejection, and criticism. We live in a world where rejection, failure, and criticism are unavoidable. The best we can do is to learn how to handle those things properly. Well my dear reader, I suppose I have some researching to do. I'll get back to you once I've learned the ways of getting over shyness.