Stop being shy and start being social

Being shy can suck. When you feel like you want to be a lot more outgoing or speak up in certain situations and you don't … it feels like a hold-back. It feels like a limitation. It feels restrictive.

A lot of times, you can find yourself replaying social situations where you wished you'd said something and didn't … and all that does is make things worse.

We're going to look at 6 tips you can use to get over your shyness right now:

1) Don't be too hard on yourself for being shy.

When we are really hard on ourselves for being shy, it just makes things worse. It doesn't make you any less shy … in fact, it can make you more so. Because you'll start to feel shame about being shy and when we feel shame? Even the most out-going people tend to clam up.

2) Don't compare yourself to more outgoing people.

This is another common thing that we do that'll tend to make us feel a lot more shy, rather than make us feel less shy. For example, if you know a guy who's great at talking to women and you feel shy around women … and you compare yourself to him? You already know you aren't going to “measure up” and that's just going to make you feel bad about yourself.

3) Don't get lost in trying to figure out why you are shy.

Most of us think this will help. We think we'll be able to find one reason for why we are shy around others and if we find that reason … we'll be able to make it all go away. However, for most of us, this ends up being nothing more than a useless exercise that can last forever. And that means we'll just keep spinning our wheels, trying to find an answer that never seems to come.

4) Do allow yourself to become more present in the moment.

When you can allow yourself to become present in the moment, as opposed to retreating back into your head, a lot of the “hold-back” feeling that you have will naturally get less and less. You could say that all hold-back really happens in our head and the more present you are with the moment? The less trapped you are inside your own mind.

5) Do immerse yourself in more social situations than you are used to.

Just make sure that you give yourself a kind little push instead of trying really hard to force yourself to change your habits. The more you immerse yourself in social situations, the less uncomfortable it's going to feel and the more likely you are to just start to speak up more and more often.

6) Do realize that there's usually nothing to worry about for speaking up a little more often.

We do live in a pretty judgmental society. And if we are worried about being judged harshly for the things we say, we are a lot more likely to keep our mouths closed so that doesn't happen. But unless you are saying outrageous things, there's usually nothing at all to worry about by speaking up. When you realize this, a lot of worry about having the right thing to say goes away and that allows you to naturally be a little more talkative.

You may never become the most out-going and talkative person around. But it is possible to get over your shyness and feel more free to say what you want to say when you want to say it. These 6 tips should give you a good start.

Do you feel like you have a hard time meeting people? It's not just you. A lot of people feel the same exact way. And you might be surprised that even people who seem to have an easy time meeting new people still feel like it's hard for them. The good thing is, it doesn't have to remain that way. There are steps that you can take that'll help you get better at meeting people and as you do this and see that you can do this, your feelings about your ability to meet new people will change for the better.

Here's some tips that'll help you get better at meeting new people:

1) Learn to be less needy for friendship.

This can be hard to do. Especially because we usually don't want to admit that we might be feeling a bit needy for friendship. But if you wanna make it easy to make new friends, it's wise to admit that you might have at least a little bit of neediness going on. We can learn to be less needy by allowing ourselves to feel good about who we are and what we have to offer without the need for external validation.

2) Get yourself out of the house and out of your comfort zones.

We all have comfort zones. Areas we feel safest in. And one of the most common is the house we reside in. But you want to be able to get yourself out of the house and out of your comfort zones if you are going to make it easy for yourself to meet new people. As far as I know, there's no delivery service that's going to drop ship friends at your door. You have to be able to move physically in the direction you want to go and that means … you have to move away from your comfort zones a little bit.

3) Give yourself permission to start new conversations.

Most friendships or new meetings start with conversation. It's part of the social process and you wanna give yourself permission to start new conversations with people. If you wait for someone else to give you permission to do this, you might end up waiting forever. There's no need to do any waiting. Start today. Go start a conversation with someone knowing that this will get you closer to where you want to be.

4) Find new places to go to.

If you are a creature of habit and you only go to the same few places over and over again, your odds for meeting new people aren't very good. Like, a lot of people will go to the same bar over and over again. And they know on some level that they are not going to meet anyone new. But they do it over and over again. Don't do that. Find some new places to go. Where you are bound to meet new people.

It's not always easy to go out and meet someone new. Like I said, a lot of people have a problem with this. Even people you'd think didn't have a problem. But if you follow the 4 tips I gave you above, you should find it pretty easy to meet new people.