SELF

How Introverts and Shy People Can Start to Build Their Confidence

HOPE is a four-step method to build your confidence by developing an independent voice

This article speaks to shy and introverted people who may struggle with building their confidence and offers a 4-step path to tackle it.

To hold your own points of view in this world — that, to me, is the foundation to building your confidence.

Breaking it Apart

Shy and introverted people often lack self-confidence. There, indeed, are many external factors that affect one’s confidence. But what about internal factors?

I believe the biggest internal drivers are our thoughts and the wheelhouse of ideas we naturally carry. Somewhere along the path of life, shy people get bombarded and experience a drowning out of their voice. Even as severe as complete detachment and inability to develop their thoughts and ideas.

Shyness and introversion can fuel anxiety, a common characteristic that most of us share and even secretly unite under. Most of us seek ways to subside anxiety or focus on other surface-level symptoms, like stuttering, brain freeze, or cracking voice. We think if we can fix these symptoms that our confidence problems will resolve. Nope.

In literary terms, voice means “emotions, attitude, tone, and point of view.” Could it be that voice and confidence are inextricably linked? If so, then one can assert that a weak voice weakens confidence. A strong voice bolster’s stronger confidence. To bolster one’s confidence, one must first bolster one’s independent voice.

My desire to build my confidence as a shy and introverted adult shapes my argument. Through this self-study and personal challenge, I learned the stepping stones to building confidence can only be mastered by shaping your voice.

As I gained the courage to shape my thinking, develop my ideas, and share those ideas, I saw an immediate improvement in my confidence.

Stepping Stones to Confidence Building

Confidence comes from doing. It is active rather than passive. Confidence is a direct reflection of our internal belief and is further bolstered by our comfort with our voice —thoughts, and ideas.

What does speaking and knowing what you want to say have to do with confidence building?

Confidence is about your voice. If you don’t believe in your thoughts and ideas, you most likely have low confidence. If you struggle to assert yourself in front of others, I would ask you to identify why. My bet is you don’t trust the gravity of your thinking enough to debate or share your words with anyone.

If I asked you why a second time, what would you say? Please understand, this lack of confidence in your voice carries over into other parts of your life.

The biggest hurdle is first, having an independent idea, and two, putting yourself in spaces to deliver that message, even while your confidence is low. Sounds counter-intuitive or backward? It does, but the work in building your confidence, the doing part, is what builds momentum in raising your confidence.

Confidence-building requires a clear, consistent, and repeatable path of execution. That path is HOPE.

HOPE is a 4-step method that guides shy and introverted people to learn and develop their voice over time, in four simple steps:

• Know how to identify your voice
• Take time to observe your weak areas
• Practice skills to establish muscle memory
• Execute your voice with authority every time

How to Identify Your Voice

How do we find your voice?

To help find your voice, you will need to experiment in different spaces to feel and observe the most fitting and least fitting. We need to look at our natural behaviors and in-depth and breadth. The goal is to identify your natural communication style and personality type. This is critical as you start to move into the other HOPE steps that focus on spaces and our actions in those spaces to build your confidence.

Understand your preferred communication style. Image Consultant and Blogger Imogen Lamport offer an expanded view of the traditional communication styles related to how we carry ourselves.

There are four categories of preferred communication styles: Visual (Seeing), Auditory (Hearing), Kinesthetic (Physical), or Reading/Writing. This will help you select spaces that are most complementary to your natural communication style.

Your natural communication style may help you determine which spaces are better for you to start developing and sharing your ideas. This approach allows you to start where you are and then grow out into other spaces as your confidence grows.

For example, as a visual-spatial type, I am drawn to visual spaces such as movies, TV, and drawing art to communicate my ideas. These spaces feel less forward to me and permit me to expand my voice and ticker with new ideas.

In time, it may feel natural to springboard from visual spaces to other spaces, such as performing stages or writing spaces. The intent is to explore sharing your ideas in different spaces and mediums.

Key Take-Away You must understand who you are (personality test), what you are thinking and how you are thinking (your voice), and your naturally suited communication style (articulating messages). Having a firm understanding of these will allow you to move into different spaces while sticking to your preferred communication style, thus invoking confidence.

What to do next? Take a Personality Quiz to see what spaces are the best match for your personality. The world-wide-web is inundated with free and paid personality quizzes. I would highly recommend a reputable quiz that assesses your 4-part personality code (e.g., INTP or ENTP) based on the widely accepted Myers-Briggs testing model or similar.

Fueling Your Confidence

Understand the natural spaces that you thrive in. Common spaces introverts and shy people thrive in are often behind the scenes. However, your confidence can only be improved when you practice and adjust yourself under pressure.

Our minds control confidence. The environments we interact in, the people, and the spaces, either blow up or deflates our impression of ourselves.

Confidence has to be fed and nurtured in the right environment and with the right elements; like a spark and a match, it can be large and uncontrolled or softly fading hue to dark.

Once you identify your voice, start to find the space that will help light your match. It will be in these new and exciting spaces that the real work gets done where we test your voice and build your confidence.

Observe Your Weak Areas

What are your strong and weak spots? How do you handle when your thoughts and ideas are challenged? Do you wait to share your thoughts? What happens to your thoughts and ideas if your friends or classmates hold different views? Do you willingly change your ideas under pressure? Maybe you freeze altogether, no thoughts or ideas in plain sight — just mentally blank?

Observing your weak areas is challenging and will require a guide or trusted friend to help you. In keeping with the theory, owning your thoughts and ideas is the pathway to self-confidence, the best way to illuminate your weak spots is to perform in spaces that trigger your weak areas. This performance could be reciting a speech in front of family or having a timed debate with a seasoned friend.

The key is to act under pressure so that your weak areas boldly stand out to you during observation. Having someone critique your behaviors and quirks during pressured activities, such as school presentations, public speaking, or debate contests, can help you quickly identify your pinch spots.

Example pinch spots could be stuttering, brain freezes, inability to articulate coherently, or wavering your argument position to avoid confrontation. Once you identified your pinch points, we can move to the next step and develop an improvement plan.

Key Take-Away Sharing your ideas is the single best method to shape your voice. Using your power strength in communication style, rather that is speaking or writing, enables you to operate in any space.

To push you over the edge, introverts and shy people must work in speaking or writing spaces. They are also the scariest activities that quickly boost your confidence levels.

What to do next? Have someone you trust observe your behaviors and review them. Identify the areas that you consistently fail to perform well and write those areas down.

They will most often fall into the following categories: Indecision, Confusing thought process where you are difficult to understand, never firmly hold a position and waver, and lack independent thought on any given issue.

Practice Skills To Establish Muscle Memory

How do you practice building confidence?

Practice helps to shape our voice, our creative ideas, and thoughts. We should be able to write, perform, or speak confidently about our thoughts and ideas in multiple spaces, at different times, and under different environments.

The power of practice forges consistent execution through muscle memory, repetition, and exposure to various environmental stimuli. We can consistently perform as our confidence levels increase. We become confident in our abilities because we have practiced sharing our ideas until mastered.

Practice helps us dismantle our three biggest fears: fear of rejection, fear of ineptitude, and failure. These are roadblocks to our confidence, and without care, can further erode our confidence. One way to incorporate practice is to apply the 10,000 hours theory to mastery loosely.

In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell asserted that it took 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a skill. If we ascribe to this theory, it tells us that we have to have a strong sense of commitment to mastering anything in life.

This theory’s literal application would look like one practicing 3 hours a day, every day for about ten years. A more practical application of this theory means setting aside 30–60 minutes a day, 4–5 days of the week, focusing on developing a new skill to immediate-level mastery.

Key Take-Away Don’t fixate on the length of time to amass 10,000 hours but practice achieving mastery, a critical element of confidence. By mastering your voice, your confidence soars with each performance. That is what you want high confidence.

What to do next? Participate in competitions or literary contests, join a journalist or writing club, write a storytelling blog, join academic decathlon, drama, or debate clubs, join ROTC or Toastmasters Club. These outlets will give you opportunities to practice elements of thought and articulation.

Execute with Authority Every Time

Can you confidently deliver and articulate your independent thoughts when it counts?

This final step aims to confidently execute delivering your thoughts and ideas with authority any time and any place. Authority requires one to speak or write. It is more about connection and influencing others.

Words that are spoken or written is the most efficient tool to become more confident as people become more attracted to you.

Key Take-Away When you find yourself having to defend your point of view or take an unpopular stance in life, at home, or at work, having a well-crafted set of ideas or the ability to communicate your unique position is a confidence booster.

What to do next? Seek leadership and public speaking roles, write a book, run for a student leadership position or government position, or publish an op-ed article to your student, local, or privately syndicated newspapers or literary journals.

Final Thoughts

Believing in the power of your thinking is one sure path to building your confidence. HOPE is the 4-step method that will help you realize a more confident self. This method coaches you to invest the time to identify, observe, practice, and execute your voice — thoughts and ideas — in any environment.

Once you can separate yourself as an independent thinker in any situation, you have crossed the threshold into soaring confidence.

Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what you think in the comments.

If you are interested to read more of my writings, you may read the following one published in The Masterpiece.

Shay D. Potter currently serves in the U.S. Army by day and devotes the evenings and weekends to writing, videography, and podcasting. Follow on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or website.