At its essence, shyness is merely a lack of self-confidence and skills to use in social settings. Difficulty in public speaking, whether it be to larger groups of people or even to smaller groups, is also related to a lack of self-confidence and a lack of skills.Your fellow Toastmaster members will help you become more self-confident by providing you many different styles of speaking opportunities. By speaking more often, in different situations, you desensitize your feelings of anxiety. Eventually, with enough speaking opportunities, your lack of fear gets neutralized and you can start creating speaking skills.
You can also help reduce your shyness by taking chances and talking to people more often. After a conversation, when alone, try to review the conversation. What worked for you? Were you understandable? When you said something, did the other person understand you or did you confuse them?
You can’t learn to be unshy by osmosis. You can’t read about it. You have to get out there and do something about it.
It is often said that practice makes perfect. Its not true. If you keep making mistakes or repeating actions that are ineffective, you just get better at making mistakes or being ineffective. You need someone to provide you with constructive feedback. This is where someone gives you an evaluation of what worked, what didn’t work and provide you with some suggestions to improve next time.
This is where a Toastmasters club comes in. They are a good source of constructive feedback.
You might also try emulating the socializing/speaking style of someone in your sphere of connections until you develop your own. I know all this to be true because it has worked for me.
Thanks for your question. Good luck with your journey of building your self-confidence.
