Confidence: Stop Being Shy

The following are common phrases from people who state that they are shy:

“I am bad at public speaking”
“My idea is stupid”
“I am fat and ugly, so someone I like won’t like me”
“I get nervous and I can’t speak”

Contrast these phrases to someone who is confident and you will begin to see that the only difference between a shy person and a confident person are the phrases that they tell themselves. Therefore, the main cause of someone’s shyness comes from these limiting thoughts. So to understand shyness and confidence, we need to understand why these thoughts are limiting.

Looking back at these limiting beliefs, there are two things that need to be highlighted. One is an assumption as to who you are and the other is that based on that assumption, you judge yourself, which makes you feel bad. For instance, in the statement “My idea is stupid”, it implies that you are your thought and since you have judged that your thought is stupid, then you are also saying that you are stupid.

Additionally, making the statement “I am fat and ugly” implies that who you are is your body and since your body is fat and ugly, then you are fat and ugly.

The logic in both examples go as follows:
Either my body or something I do/think/feel/have is wrong. Since I am my body or what I do/think/feel/have, then this means that I am wrong. Since I am wrong, I feel bad.

The problem with this logic is that there is no real definition of who you are. You are never one thing, but instead you are your actions, thoughts, emotions, results and/or your body. Also, how do we know what we really are? If the problem with these types of limiting beliefs is that we don’t know who we are, then the next step is to find out who we are so we can understand our limiting beliefs.

So to figure out how to become confident, lets answer these two important questions:

Question #1
Since the basis of shyness comes from a lack of understanding who we are, it makes sense to figure out who we are.

Question #2
After figuring out who we are, we need to be able to understand what we can judge and what we can’t judge, as judging is what makes us feel bad, or shy, in the first place. So lets figure out what can we judge?