Networking for the Shy and Socially Anxious: How to Build Courage

Its finally your turn to speak. Everyone’s gaze converges together creating a supernova spotlight blazing down heat on to you. You’re blinded by the light of their eyes. You try and think of what to say but nothing comes. Your mind has abandoned you. Everyone is looking expectantly, if you wait any longer to speak its gonna look weird.

You buy some time starting with filler words like a rapper that’s forgotten the lyrics,

“yeah, ah, yeah, mmm”

Dammit now they’re focusing even more intently as you’ve hyped them up for something meaningful.

Finally a sentence forms in your mind and you start to speak it. But the words irritate your throat on the way out as if your body knows you’re about to make a fool of yourself. You’re forced to cough and choke. You manage to recover but now you’ve lost your train of thought.

You start just saying words praying that they form a coherent order. Are people actually listening to this non-sense?  Are they just nodding out of politeness?

Oh no one of them is about to take over, you missed your chance to make a good first impression, judgement has been cast and you will be forever remembered as a moron that can’t speak.

Damn it, if only you’d hidden from them or better yet stayed home, you’d never have been seen crashing and burning.

If you’re shy or socially anxious like me this may be a familiar scenario. If not then you’re probably thinking ‘you okay buddy?’. Don't worry I've since learned to be a lot kinder to myself!

Networking is one of the keys to growing your business yet if you experience anything remotely similar to the above you’re probably going to end up avoiding it like the plague.

The problem is that through avoidance you never get to overcome the anxiety, it then becomes this constant barrier in life separating you from what you want.

Is it really that Simple?

The other day someone asked me, how do you build up the courage to direct message someone on social media?

I understood the context of the question immediately and it made me think about how shyness impacts networking and life in general.

I can tell you to ‘JUST DO IT’ because on one level it is just that simple, just smash through the barrier to get what you want. But that’s just the beauty of hindsight.

To really understand how to overcome shyness you have to understand what shyness is.

Shyness isn’t who you are, shyness is what stops you from being who you are.

 

HyperSensitivity to Social Performance

Shyness is basically an over sensitivity to unfamiliar social experiences – new people, new environments, new situations.

It’s the fear of being in the spotlight and having to perform to meet an expected social standard. Especially in the unknown. In the unknown you don’t know what to expect and you don’t have control over whether something bad happens.

The unknown causes uncertainty –  and uncertainty causes anxiety – and anxiety tanks social performance.

Everybody wants to be liked. No one goes to an event hoping that every single person they meet hates their guts (unless there’s some kind of secondary gain).

The problem is that most people in human society are very quick to make judgements about new people. These quick judgements are based on social performance.

So around a group of people who don’t know the real you, you worry about giving a good social performance and then anxiety makes sure that doesn’t happen.

Personality Inhibition

Shyness can completely suppresses your real personality.

One of the most unfortunate results of being shy is that other people think that shyness is your whole personality, you’re just the quiet guy, nothing else. Once you get that label its very difficult to behave outside of that social expectation.

So you’re drawn into this vicious circle – people genuinely think that’s who you are and you stick to the role you’ve been assigned to avoid drawing attention to yourself.

Which means that people never get to see your own unique amazing personality. Except the people closest to you or if you get slightly tipsy.

How to not be Shy?

How do you not be shy, how do you overcome that?

On the same level that someone might advise ‘JUST DO IT’ is the response ‘YOU JUST CAN’T’

Lets look at this.

The social hypersensitivity aspect of shyness is just the way you’re born its how your brain is wired.

In order for you to not be shy you would basically have to meet all 8 billion people in the world and form a trusting secure relationship with each and every one of them.

By the time you’ve done that probably a billion of them would be dead and a billion more born! So its basically impossible- (if anyone wants to run the numbers on that please let me know the outcome!)

So what can you do?

Focus on a greater purpose

This is how you build courage. Courage is feeling afraid but taking action anyway.

Suppose you’re at a networking event and you’re feeling too anxious to start speaking to anyone.

How would you then feel if you found out that if you speak to 5 different people in the room one of them will give you £1million pounds in 18 months time?

Your focus becomes less about the anxiety you feel right now and more about the future reward of the £1million pounds.

Even if you make a fool out of yourself now, you’re still going to get that future £1million. 

This is what it means to have a greater purpose. Money is just something that everyone can relate to easily but the reward has to be something personal to you, something that you really believe in.

Think about whats worth going through the temporary pain for...

For me I believe I can help people achieve their dreams and make a living out of it so if I have to network to make that happen then so be it.

You may think cringe feels bad, but regret feels even worse.

Repetition and small increments

Here’s the crucial aspect of building courage. 

You have to get the reps in. Start with the lightest weight possible and do as many repetitions as you can until it no longer produces anxiety.

You have to numb down the sensitivity of that particular neural pathway in your brain until that action no longer produces any fear.

This means committing to consistent actions over time towards a specific greater purpose.

How this might look in practice:

Messaging one different person everyday until you’ve messaged 5 people. Then increasing to messaging 2 different people and so on in increments that you feel comfy with.

The power of small reps over time is unmatched. Just remember even if the social interaction goes horribly you’ve still won.

As long as you continue to repeat the action again and again and again over time your brain will change – until you get to the point of really understanding the first level of advice to ‘JUST DO IT’

Closing Thoughts

The thing about shyness is that you have to maintain mastery over it. There will always be new situations and new people that will test you.

You might not always have the confidence, but you can always access the power of purpose to find courage when you need it.

When you learn to build courage your life becomes guided by your passion, rather than restricted by your shyness.

Stay Healthy

Lewis

P.S