Chronically Shy
This article is for painfully shy men. You might be thinking "What qualifies you to speak to me about social phobias? You have no idea what it's like!" Um, yes I do know what it feels like to be painfully shy. When I was much younger I was one of the shyest, most insecure guys on the planet. My voice would literally shake when speaking with people I didn't know. I would do ANYTHING to avoid social situations where I'd have to speak with strangers or be in front of people. Just thinking about speaking with hot women made my stomach turn with fright.
Live with this type of irrational fear long enough and it can develop into what is known as a social phobia. Mine got so bad that I nearly became a social hermit. I didn't go to my best friends 17th birthday party because the mere thought of being there with lots of strangers was almost panic inducing. So if you're even somewhat shy, you have my sympathy and understanding.
Therefore I am well qualified to speak about defeating social phobias. Because I was able to overcome my own. Now there are several ways to deal with your problem. My way may not be best suited to you. However you choose to deal with your problem make sure you do in fact deal with it! It won't go away by itself. You likely won't grow out of it and it will probably just get worse. So it's time to cowboy up and face your fears!
Now there are several ways to deal with a severe social phobia. If you go to a psychologist he'll recommend that you go through what could easily turn into years of treatment. This may help, but do you really want to spend years spilling your guts to a complete stranger while paying for his new BMW? These guys aren't cheap.
Or you can go to a doctor who will most likely prescribe pills such as Paxil to help you get over your fears. Do they work? Possibly. But do you really want to spend money and put gunk into your system in order to get over shyness? I sure didn't.
So that leaves you with one final option, and that's the one I recommend because it worked for me. How do you get over your social phobia? By exposing yourself to it constantly. You need to put yourself into uncomfortable social situations repeatedly, every single day until the continuous exposure to what you fear most completely numbs you.
I did this by getting a commission sales job selling women's shoes at a department store. I was terrified of speaking in front of people, even more so of women. This was in effect my nightmare job. Just forcing myself to go to the two job interviews took some real inner strength. But I went, and although I suspect that they probably only hired me because they felt sorry for me, I got the job.
I remember being so nervous that I didn't sleep for literally the first week on the job. I went from being a social hermit, to being bombarded with human interaction nonstop for 8 hours a day. Not only was I forced into situations that I was very uncomfortable with, I had to learn how to sell, to women no less!
The good thing about taking a job like this is that it was a job. I had to show up at a certain time and I was required to sell X amount of dollars per day worth of product. There was a certain amount of competition there as well which distracted me from my fears without my even realizing it. Now looking back I realize that taking a job like that helped me switch out of my normal character and develop in ways I couldn't have otherwise. When I was at work I was a "shoe salesman." I couldn't afford to be shy. It was my job to speak with people and if I didn't, I wouldn't earn any money. I found myself becoming more and more competitive with time and began thinking about the money I was earning rather than the social phobia I had.
After two months my social phobia was gone. Literally just poof, it was gone. I remember walking down to the sales floor one day and thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm going to go approach a bunch of strangers, many of them hot women, and I'm looking forward to it!" I killed my social phobia simply by exposing myself to my fears nonstop for two months. Once the shyness was gone a whole new world opened up. Did I continue selling shoes? God no! It's a miserable job. But that job changed my life and I'll always think of it fondly.
Now am I telling you that in order to kill your shyness you need to go out there and get a job selling shoes? No. It took an act of courage I wasn't sure I was even capable of just to get that job. If you can do the same, then I highly recommend you do it. But you can kill your social phobia in any number of ways by putting yourself into situations where you are literally bombarded by human contact.
You can do this by getting any job where you are forced to speak with people. Join a club where you are forced to interact with its members. Force yourself to start speaking to others in class or at your current job. Force yourself to approach strangers. Talk to sales people in stores. Their job is to help you so in effect you have a captive audience to practice on. However you choose to do it, the key is to literally bombard yourself with human contact until you become numb to it. Yes it's painful at first. Yes it's scary. But choosing to spend the rest of your life as a shy, meek, frustrated person is simply unacceptable.
Get out there, attack life, and force yourself into situations that you're uncomfortable with. I did and was successful. Not only did I kill my shyness, I'm very successful with women now. People that know me now wouldn't believe me if I told them that I used to be shy and insecure. You really can do it! I'm living proof.