5 steps to help you improve your social resilience and stop being shy

"Shy" is a word we are familiar with and use often.

The little girl next door saw the stranger and hurriedly hid behind her mother. We might laugh and say "the child is still young, a little shy, it's alright".

A blind date was arranged at home, and facing the date alone, I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know where to look, my face flushed nervously, and I felt uncomfortable all over. We may express understanding, because we are introverted, so we are a little shy,

The teacher asked a question in class. He knew the answer in his heart, and wanted to raise his hand to get a chance to speak, but he was afraid of saying the wrong thing and being jealous of his classmates, so he gave up the idea of ​​speaking. We might console ourselves with "there's a chance next time."

These scenes or experiences have appeared in your work and life more or less. You may have always thought that it is normal for people to be shy, and they do not need special attention, let alone adjustments.

But in fact, this is a misunderstanding.

Philip Zimbardo, a famous contemporary psychologist, has spent several years studying the phenomenon of "shyness" and found that shyness is a social anxiety disorder and a manifestation of insufficient social adaptability. Work and life have different impacts, and even produce a series of social problems.

Therefore, you must face up to your shyness and learn to get out of it, so as to improve your social adaptability.

5 steps to help you improve your social resilience and stop being shy

1. Almost everyone feels shy

Many people think of shyness as a derogatory term, and when labelled that way, it means unpopular or difficult to stand out from the crowd.

But in fact, according to research, only about 7% of people have never felt shy. In other words, more than 90% of people have experienced shyness, or are experiencing shyness.

Shyness is a trait shared by all humans and is universal. The reason why people are shy is not due to innate personality, but internal conflicts lead to insufficient social adaptability.

The famous Stanford Prison Experiment is a good example of this.

The experiment had a group of college students play the roles of police officers and prisoners. Although the subjects were carefully selected and completely normal, after just a few days in prison, their behavior began to become eccentric, even pathological.

In the experiment, the behavior of the police towards the prisoners changed from repressing themselves at first to being rude and tyrannical, while the prisoners expressed a passive and helpless state of power, and finally changed to blindly obeying all the prison rules. regulations.

In fact, whether to play the role of a policeman or a prisoner is determined by random drawing, and these students have not practiced correspondingly beforehand, but why can they each enter the role in just a few days?

The answer to the question is exactly what this experiment found: certain social situations can profoundly affect and change the way people think, feel, and behave.

In other words, whether you are shy or cheerful, it is not determined by genes, personality, etc., but by the situation you are in.

Those who are often shy are just a lack of social adaptability. So, almost everyone is shy, but shyness is a form of social anxiety that can be overcome.

5 steps to help you improve your social resilience and stop being shy

2. 5 steps to get out of shyness and improve social adaptability

Since harm is a kind of social anxiety, the key to overcoming harm is to break down internal psychological barriers, improve one’s own social adaptability, and calmly socialize and behave in different situations.

How to do? There are five specific steps:

1. Rediscover yourself

The core problem of shyness is excessive self-focus, excessive focus on negative evaluations. Therefore, to overcome shyness, you must re-understand yourself, enhance self-awareness, and be more alert and sensitive to your shyness as much as possible.

For example, you can recall your childhood, the influence of your parents and others on you; you can think about what is most important in life and what is not important; you can determine what you were like in the past, present, and future. These can help you to re-understand yourself objectively and calmly.

2. Face your anxiety calmly

Once you understand yourself, your family, your life, and your future, focus on shyness itself. You need to know where your shyness comes from, what are the factors associated with it, and what are the consequences. Only by knowing this, it will be easier to formulate a reasonable plan for intervention and change for yourself, to be able to treat it objectively, and to get rid of it and stay away from it.

For example, you can record every time you feel shy or anxious, record the ins and outs of things, your own psychological activities, etc., and then find clues. If such shyness experiences are well documented, it's easy to see what's wrong with you.

3. Take care of your self-esteem

People's self-awareness can affect all aspects of life. People with a high sense of self-worth generally maintain and show self-confidence at all times. They do not need affirmation and praise from others because their hearts are strong and solid.

On the contrary, people with low self-esteem are often negative, submissive, and not very popular, so it is also important to overcome shyness and know how to take care of their self-esteem.

For example, you can build your self-confidence by completing difficult tasks, you can prevent depression, you can learn to praise or accept compliments, you can imagine situations where you are not shy, and you can record good feelings instead of bad things. All of these methods can help you overcome low self-esteem issues and build stronger self-confidence.

4. Improve social skills

The most common personality trait of shyness is not taking action, so it's important to overcome shyness, change your habits, improve your social skills, and keep trying and practicing.

For example, you can take the initiative to participate in some social activities, and take the initiative to talk to strangers, you can try to be a good listener, you can learn to praise others.

Of course, you can also learn some words or skills to improve communication skills through books or courses, which will help open the door to social interaction.

5. Help others out of shyness

If you can lend a helping hand and help others cope better or overcome shyness in multiple ways and through multiple channels, then not only can you help others, but you can also make yourself less shy.

For example, you can help others by sharing your experiences of overcoming shyness, listening to the pain of the shy person, working or having fun with the shy person.

5 steps to help you improve your social resilience and stop being shy

3. To overcome shyness is to overcome the cage set by oneself

Shyness can limit a person's freedom of speech and personal development, and many describe it as a "self-imposed psychological prison". Because shyness is not caused by innate character, but a behavioral manifestation presented by an inner self-setting.

Shyness is most often reflected in social interaction, and most people's social anxiety and fear come from shyness, so overcoming shyness will greatly improve our social quality.

In the view of Philip Zimbardo, a famous contemporary psychologist, shyness is a learned state of mind. People can reduce social interaction by improving social skills, changing negative self-perceptions, and using a series of methods rather than drug treatment. Anxiety, relief and overcoming shyness.

This series of methods is to rediscover yourself, face anxiety calmly, care for self-esteem, improve social skills, and help others overcome shyness.

So, if you often feel bad and have social anxiety, you might as well try this method to overcome your shyness, get out of social anxiety, and become a person with high social resilience.