Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

By working from home so I don't have to be around others.

It turns out I'm not really that shy. I just don't like spending more than about 3 minutes at a time around most people.

Here’s what I did (would’ve been about 2009-2011, when I was late 20s/early 30s):

• Say yes to every social invitation I received for a period of about 2 years, whether it was something I thought would be fun or not — and never flake. Get to be known as a reliable person who is down for anything.

• Set a goal of speaking to a person I didn’t know every day — could be as simple as “Hello” to a cashier at the grocery store, but I had to do it

• Date more - went out on an average of 2 first dates a week (all found through OK Cupid). Just getting coffee, going to dinner, going to a movie, taking a walk — simple stuff with no pressure. Just meet another person, ask questions about their life, share about my own life.

It was a very fun and life-changing experience.

"everything changes dramatically" - Practice each little bit one element at a time.

Posture is a great place to start. Just practice making sure that you keep a confident posture. Standing up straight. Shoulders back and relaxed. Head looking forward and alert. Focus on keeping your posture. A lot of how people read "confidence" is noticing these cues. It will become second nature if you practice.

Check out "power posing" also. Works for some people, doesn't work for others. Totally works for me.

For your voice, what is it doing? Probably going up higher? That's because your muscles in your neck are tightening up. Gotta keep them relaxed. I bet you'll find when you get your relaxed posture in place that your voice will change less also.

Noticing is the first step! A therapist can really help you as it sounds like a part of you is experiencing anxiety. Essentially you have developed a learned behavior and you have to unlearn it by replacing your habit with a new one. Part of that is say exposure therapy (meaning, just go out and meet people). It also helps to develop a framework and set of scripts for what to do which is where a therapist can come in handy (also for how you process the situation). We teach these things to kids with autism all the time.

If you need a script the easiest thing to do and understand is that people love to talk about themselves.

1. introduce yourself 2. ask their name 3. ask how they are or how their day is going 4 .... 5. continue to ask them questions as they appropriately come up.

Question 4 can be context dependent.. are you at a party of a mutual friend? Are you at a meetup? Basically use the shared environment to bootstrap the conversation. So a question could be like, "how do you know so and so" etc...

When I feel shy, I always seek out someone else seemingly shy and strike up a conversation that way.

It doesn't have to be perfect. And maybe take a friend with you who has more social awareness to help you. Tell them what your goal is.

Also if someone notices you are blushing and feeling flustered etc.. and asks you what's wrong, just take a breath and say that social situations are difficult for you but you are learning to work through them. Lots of people will be understanding. I say this as an adult. Sometimes you can be around immature folks who do not help the situation but those are people you don't really want to be around anyway.

I was a shy and awkward kid, and I suspect that never really goes away, but the contexts where that becomes an issue can be learnt away.

I.e. you can learn to prepare for certain situations, and learn that the outcome doesnt have to be bad. That can relax you, but there will always be situations that make you nervous.

I guess don't shy away from doing the things you need to be doing, and you will learn to deal with these situations better and be more relaxed about it.