How I Went From Shy to Less Shy

How I Went From Shy to Less Shy

I was pushed to it mainly when I started my job. Before, I wouldn't say I was too shy but unsure, uncertain in many things. Still like being the teenager and not an adult so how to argue with them about something which they should know better just because they live longer. Also when meeting new people, it's not that I was totally quiet but I was holding back with my opinion in first place and even more with private stories. You never know if they may talk you over or try to use it against you. The lack of self esteem is something normal at an younger age I believe, at least it was it for me, but when I had to take ownership for my work I was quickly getting more and more confident. Not only in business where you develop a kind of knowledge about your business but also for me as private person. Part of my job was and still is to work with people around the world and its not a fixed team for the next ten years, no, it's changing, sometimes very quickly. New team members, new staff hired, new clients, things and people are moving and to adapt to this world you need to develop a style of getting along with all these changes and cultural differences. I can never expect that one client is working as the other and for my internal staff I realize that the e.g. hungarian team member is not working exactly in the same way as the israelian even if it is exactly the same job. To be honest, I like it, it's sometimes driving me crazy but most of the time I'm happy to be in the position to meet so many different persons. I learned a lot for my life even if some tasks like holding a speech in front of several persons was scaring me in the beginning. Learning while doing is the best as you have to go through it and I can say that it was always a lesson learned for me and I was proud when it went good. So no reason to be scared, you will be proud afterwards when it went fine and if not you will have learned what to change for the next time. Another important part for me was to get used to write and talk English as this is the main language in my business. When I started I had my school English plus a few books I read, nowadays I'm talking as if I never did anything else, this may not be perfect and there may be mistakes but I'm neither an English teacher nor a native speaker, as long as the main part is ok and people are able to understand what I'm saying or writing I'm fine. Ad why do I title this post "...from shy to less shy" - am I only less shy? You could assume I'm not shy at all now but the truth is, I'm still a bit shy and it's good that way. But it's something I know, I'm pretty good in hiding it so that most of the people are not realizing that part. It's not visible, it's like my inner shield telling me to be cautious or careful. I'm not the one talking about every single moment of my life as long as I don't know the person in front of me. Sometimes not even when I knew them better for good reasons, as we all know not all people are nice just because they act in a nice way and I never was the person who wants to be topic during lunch for others. The less I talk about me, the less they have to talk about me. Only a well picked small circle of friends knows how I am really and they don't even know everything - that's enough. I learned to never arm people with information to use it against me one day. But what counts the most as always is to stay yourself and to be authentic.
Keep the faith and take care!