INTRODUCTION: All my life I have been shy. Also, all my life I’ve been hearing people say, “She will grow out of it.” I’m 20 years old and the shyness is still here. As a kid you can get by being shy but as an adult, shyness can hold you back in many aspects of your life. DESCRIBING PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR: After two weeks of recording my behaviors I’ve come to realize in what situations my shyness comes into play most often. There are very few situations that I feel comfortable with myself, allowing me to speak freely. The only people that I ever feel at ease with are my own family and friends. Even my own family and friends can turn me silent in some situations. Meeting new people is a very hard task for me. Sometimes it feels almost impossible. My biggest fear of meeting new people is, not knowing what to say. In most cases I would rather avoid a situation than have to deal with the feeling of not knowing what to say. 2/6-2/9 I tried to avoid any situation that I thought I could feel awkward in. Avoidance can be either physical (steering clear of a friend after having an argument, or in my case, steering clear of a friend to avoid the chance of any awkward situation) or conversational (changing the topic, joking, or denying that a problem exists). (Ch.11-Managing Conflict, p.304) Most shy people would rather avoid the short term problem of meeting new people and asking for dates, even when the long term goal of intimate relationships are enticing. On 1/18 I had a job interview at a new pizza restaurant. My parent’s had been hounding me for months to find a job. The new pizza restaurant that was opening, the owner happened to be one of my dad’s co-workers, so I decided that even though I hated interviews I would give this one a try. It was 1/18 that the owner had called and asked for me to come in for an interview that same day. From the moment that I hung up the phone after agreeing that I would be there at 2:30 I had the same sick feeling I always got when I was nervous about something. All I could think about was all the other interviews that I had gone on in the past and never got the job, so that had to be how this was going to turn out too, that was my self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophec... ... middle of paper ... ...ome vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” (Desiderata) One source of low self-esteem is inaccurate self-perception. Sometimes I can be overly harsh of myself, believing that I’m worse than the facts indicate. Learning to have a realistic perception of myself was a hard thing to learn. Gaining self-esteem isn’t something that you will gain over night. I think throughout this term I have learned many things leading me to gain the self-esteem slowly that I lost back in high school. To change my self-concept I have to have the will to change. I have said for many years that I want to change, but I don’t do anything but say that. I thought that being shy was who I was. My static evaluation that’s I’ve heard over and over in my head, “Ashley is shy.” (Ch. 4 – Language, p. 98) I am capable of changing this part of my life, it is something that I have to have the will to gain the skills I need to be able to change. The main thing that I learned from this project and life is, shyness may be difficult to overcome, but loneliness is harder.
This summer I had the honor of traveling the United States with eighty-one strangers through a program called, Teens Westward Bound. This was the hardest and most rewarding hurdle I have ever overcome. As a habitually shy person the only words I could use to describe myself are introverted, cautious, and modest. I have maintained the same group of friends since elementary school and I saw no problem
late to have any chance of getting the job. So I walked into the local
Being told that talking to strangers is dangerous since we were four can alter how we think about all of the unknown people around us. Somewhere along the line, the fear of being kidnapped and murdered transitions into not wanting to talk to some weirdo or to be rude. There are situations where it is perfectly okay to talk to a person you don’t know, like at a party. However, there are times when you should not talk to strangers, such as when they are eating. When you are alone, eating is usually a private experience, or when you are with
Social phobia is “shyness taken to an extreme” (Myers 323). The origins of social phobia can be linked to “traumatic social experiences and social isolation” (Hudson118-120). A traumatic social experience can be “being laughed at or making a mistake in situations such as being called on to talk in class, being on a first date, speaking in public or being at a party”(Hudson 118). Social isolation includes “being teased, bullied, laughed at, rejected, neglected, or isolated from other children. Research from Allison G. Harvey shows that certain events around the time social fears being are when people are changing schools or work at 50.9%, not fitting in with or being ostracized by a p...
Ever since I was in middle school, people always told me that I’m quiet and shy. Having said that, I never felt comfortable communicating with people I didn't know that well. That also includes speaking or presenting in front of a class. According to my family and friends, I’m the complete opposite, because they claim that I’m talkative. Being shy and nervous did affect my schoolwork. I wouldn’t raise my hand in class that often, because I didn’t feel comfortable enough. When I was in 6th grade, my teacher would always call up students to share something they liked about a story they read. When the teacher called out my name, my heart started pounding, my hands were shaking and my mind went completely blank. I was so nervous to the point where I felt like I was going to pass out any moment. That’s when I asked the teacher if I could excuse myself to go to the bathroom. She didn’t mind that request so I tried to calm myself down by washing my face and breathing. After class, my teacher and I discussed my inability to present in front of a class. She was obliging, because she agreed to help me overcome being shy and to help boost my self-confidence. Shyness and nervousness also stopped me from participating in activities and obtaining opportunities. In 10th grade, my Chemistry teacher suggested a film festival, because she was aware that I loved filmmaking. At first, I considered the idea, because I’ve never done anything like it before. Having thought about it, I then realized that I was going to have my movie up on a full screen where
and not wanting to say the wrong thing. Only the first session consisted of those sort of
In late June of 2015 I applied to and was hired by Chick-fil-A Fort Collins. I wasn’t sure what it
One of the biggest fears I have had to overcome in high school is my fear of public speaking. I was always comfortable in the classroom; I loved discussing current events and explaining different biology and history to my friends, but I could not stand in front of them to give a presentation. Whenever I stood in front of my classmate speak, I would begin to shake so much that I could not read any notes I may have brought up with me. I was an absolute wreck and I hated that I could not overcome my phobia; however, my fear of public speaking is incredibly ironic because my sister teaches public speaking on a collegiate level. When I told my sister that I was horrified of standing up and speaking in front of my classmates, she was surprised. My sister told me that I could not let my fear stop me from speaking because I would likely never get over it. In addition, she
If you have ever known a truly shy child, you probably know how difficult being shy can be for that child. It can be very painful to see a shy child “desperately wanting to be accepted by other children yet not knowing what to do to gain their approval, or else too frightened to take the risk of trying to reach out to them” (Zimbardo, 1981, p. 4). A women expresses difficulty with having been a shy child: Growing up is painful at best, but excruciating for the shy. When others could not understand the reason for my lack of zest for life, I knew all along that my shyness was the real problem. I was terribly envious of anyone who seemed comfortable with people. Anyone who could express their thoughts verbally . . . (Zimbardo, 1981, p. 4).
runs away from it” With that we ended the interview and thanked them for their time
."Fear of social situations is a very natural fear as many people simply do not like getting
I believe that my loss in confidence was a barrier for me to become a communicative person I want to be with my peers. The fact that I was not interested in the
Shyness is a sentiment to feel awkward and tensed during social encounter especially in meeting with unfamiliar person. A feeling of apprehension and nervousness causes a person to confront face scanning and so he shy to make eye contact with others. It is a type of social phobia and is referred as social anxiety. Shy people have special symptoms of blushing, sweating and they have pessimistic feelings about themselves like worrying about how others ponder them. They become vigilant about their attitude and behavior while facing others because they dread negative evaluation and criticism on their personality due to any blunder.
The first step is to develop a healthy mental image of meeting new people. Some of us see meeting new people as a scary event. We are concerned about making a good impression, whether the other person will like us, how to keep the conversation going, and so on. The more we think about it, the scarier it seems. This initial apprehension develops into a mental fear, which takes a life of its own and unknowingly blocks us from making new friends. Shyness toward others is actually a result of fear.
am awkward, and can sometimes be offensive. The only thing that sets me apart is that I follow