Shy

How Being Quiet Can Lead to Success

Annie Ridout

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780008401221
• eBook ISBN: 9780008401870
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Communication & Public Speaking

Society tells that us that being shy is a ‘fault’, an undesirable trait that needs to be ‘fixed’ as, left unchecked, it can create barriers. But Annie is here to challenge that perception by exploring all the elements of shyness – how to embrace it, what to learn from it and ultimately conclude that shyness is not a burden – it’s a gift.

Most of us have some understanding of shyness. Perhaps as a child, we felt awkward about going to kids’ parties if we didn’t know anyone there. Or as adults, dread the idea of the office Christmas party and having to socialise with colleagues in a different context. It might be an invite to an old friend’s wedding that sparks panic or having to present to a room of people. Shyness may be ever-present; it may come and go. It can manifest by blushing or make us feel unable to leave the house.

But for those who feel affected by shyness or believe someone close to them is – a partner, child, friend or sibling – it might be reassuring to hear that 57% of UK adults feel shy, and that a recent UK-based study of over 550,000 people found that shyness isn’t a fixed trait.

Partly genetic, partly environmental, shyness is largely viewed as a ‘character flaw’ and something that needs to change. A quick Google of ‘shyness’ will lead to masses of articles on social anxiety. It should be made clear that shyness and social anxiety are very different things. And secondly, why is no-one talking about the benefits of being shy?

Interweaving her own experiences, Annie will explore why shyness affects some more than others, drawing information from clinical psychologists as well as experiences from a range of different people – from comedians to writers to actors and artists.

It will also contain tried and tested tools to help the reader deal with elements of shyness that can feel crippling and debilitating so that by the end of the book the reader will come to view shyness as a positive and no longer a barrier to success and happiness.

Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want

Jonathan Safran Foer

As a young child, I was shy. I’d hide in the folds of my mum’s flowing skirts rather than join in with the party games. When well-meaning adults leant down to talk to me, I recoiled. I wanted to be left in a safe, quiet space and to emerge when I felt ready. Somehow, I managed to make friends, but at the centre of my social circle there was always a ‘best friend’ – one girl I was closest to and on whom I was somewhat reliant. She was always more confident than me. This was how I protected myself in the school playground, at parties and in other social situations: by positioning myself as her shadow. She did the speaking and then decided how the play would unravel; I followed suit. I wonder now if these best friends were mother replacements: if I couldn’t hide in my mum’s skirt, I’d attach myself to a peer.

Outside of that close friendship, I’d have other girls and boys I played with. I wasn’t too shy to integrate, I just needed to adjust to each new environment and mingle in my own time, on my own terms. And it’s this very fact that distinguishes shyness from both introversion and social anxiety. Because a shy child may desperately want to be part of a wide friendship group and even to be centre stage at points – I certainly did; I loved both performing onstage and in front of my friends – but they are held back by shyness.

Clinical psychologist Dr Emma Svanberg explains the difference between introversion and shyness as follows: ‘Often introverts are happy in their own company,’ she says, ‘whereas shy people would like to be able to connect more but don’t always feel able to. It’s also not to be confused with social anxiety, which is based on a fear response rather than a personality trait.’

Svanberg’s note sums up my childhood shyness. I felt like there was this confidence somewhere inside me but I just didn’t know how to access that part of myself. And because I was shy, I wasn’t able to express how held back I sometimes felt. Shyness can make you feel quite trapped – a bit like sleep paralysis, when your mind wakes up before your body and so you feel physically frozen though your mind is acutely active. Thankfully, though, while shyness is something that will always lurk within me and in some ways impact my decision-making, I’m no longer paralysed by it. And this makes sense, as studies have proven that unlike introversion, shyness isn’t a fixed personality trait.

If you’re not sure whether you’re shy, introverted, or socially anxious, this description from Dr Svanberg might help:

Shyness is more like: ‘I prefer to stand back and observe before getting involved’ whereas social anxiety is: ‘people are frightening and a threat to me/my self-esteem’. Introversion is: ‘I find energy from spending time alone or in small groups’, versus extroversion: ‘I find energy from being with others’. Introverts enjoy being solitary and are generally more reserved. It’s a different personality trait (shyness is more related to openness vs cautiousness).

According to a 2017 Shyness study: ‘Shyness involves discomfort and inhibition in social situations, specifically in novel social contexts.’[1] It makes sense then, that it was at parties that I would find myself wanting to creep back out the front door, or hide with one of my parents. But an earlier study, from 2011, found that our personalities are in fact informed by experienced events and social roles, as well as self-perceptions and others’ responses to our behaviour.[2] This leaves parents with two options: hold close the kid who so desperately fears new and unknown social situations, or push them a little, as this may help to lift the lid on that shyness and encourage them to adapt.

Clinical neuropsychologist Dr Ruth Erskine specialises in child psychology and says that in terms of whether shyness is genetic or learned, it’s complex. After all, she says, ‘You can’t really separate genes from environment because genes only become active in an environment.’ Some things are hardwired, though, while some things are more experience dependent. So a child might have a base level temperament and this will affect whether they are more or less sociable. ‘Children have different ways of engaging with the world,’ she says. ‘Some want to engage, some observe, some are watchful.’ She believes that while we may have inherent characteristics, they develop through interaction with other people. A basic tendency will or will not develop depending on experience.

This theory is corroborated in an episode of the BBC’s CrowdScience, called ‘Why am I shy?’[3], when Thalia Eley, professor of developmental behavioural genetics at King’s College London, explains that only around 30 per cent of shyness as a personality trait is down to genetics and that the rest is a response to our environment. ‘We think of shyness as a temperamental trait and temperament is like a precursor to personality,’ she says. ‘When very young children are starting to engage with other people you see variations in how comfortable [they] are in speaking to an adult that they don’t know.’

Dr Erskine also notes the potential correlation between our position in the family and our shyness levels. For instance, might the secondborn child, who less often has the full attention of her parents, sit back and observe, while the firstborn, who is used to being at the centre of her parents’ world, continues to confidently perform? This interests me, as the secondborn child – I’m the middle sibling, I have an older sister and a younger brother – as I certainly lived in my big sister’s shadow; following her around, allowing her to speak for me. So the idea that this might have been a factor in my withdrawing a little, while my sister continued to be more outgoing, feels plausible. But it’s anecdotal, and I have found examples of both sets of siblings where the middle child of three is more shy and where she is more dominant or confident. The root of shyness is made more complicated by the various potential causes. And most likely, it’s a combination of a base level wariness, and then a particular combination of life experiences.

My parents were accepting of my shyness and managed to strike a good balance, as far as I can remember: continually offering me opportunities to integrate and try out new social activities, but never making me feel ashamed if I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. But as I moved into my teens and 20s, and became independent, it was now up to me to challenge myself in terms of entering social and educational situations that filled me with dread. What I found is that while my childhood shyness was there for all to see, as I wasn’t yet emotionally mature enough to mask it, I was able to do a good job of hiding it as I grew older. This meant most people had no idea that I was shy. They might have mistaken my quietness for rudeness or even arrogance. This is a common error, and worth bearing in mind the next time you perceive someone as rude: are they actually just shy? What would happen if you gave them some extra time, and cracked through that shy shell? As the author Maya Angelou wrote in A Letter to My Daughter: ‘I am convinced that most people do not grow up … our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.’ And yet as we mature, it can be harder to identify shyness; maybe that’s because we expect people to ‘grow out of it’. But instead, it becomes buried inside and can feel like a source of shame.

Sometimes, though, the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach can be rather useful, because while I would spend days panicking about having to perform in front of my drama A level class or, later, present a project to my fellow students during my English BA degree, no one really knew that I was shy. Because they didn’t know, they treated me like a confident person; not someone who needed extra nurturing, and this meant that in time, and with the right tools, I came to adapt to the person they thought I was, rather than the person I felt like inside. And this mask soon morphed into the real me, as I entered my 30s and realised that my shyness had truly begun to disappear. I felt confident and bold.

It’s important to note, though, that there are different levels of shyness. Psychologists Ray Crozier and Lynn Alden explain in their book Coping with Shyness and Social Phobia that most of us are shy at least some of the time but can deal with it.[4] For others, shyness is something they would change if they could. And then, at its most acute: ‘the shyness is “crippling”, it prevents [people] from living the life they want to.’ At this end of the spectrum, the shyness may meet the diagnostic criteria for social phobia or social anxiety disorder.

I have experienced this more acute form of shyness, where it crosses into social anxiety disorder, and it was at this stage that I sought professional help. Through cognitive behavioural therapy, I was able to combat the daily panic attacks I suffered in my 20s – more on this later. But perhaps this social anxiety stemmed from my underlying shyness, and that is the personality trait that scientists believe we can control and ultimately change.

That said, both shyness and social anxiety can be circumstantial; emanating fully from a lived experience. So while we may feel confident for long periods, shyness can then be triggered. Dr Erskine remembers a child who was growing up in Africa and had a horrible tooth extraction experience. After that, he became very anxious; he didn’t want to go out. He developed social anxiety. ‘A child may be perfectly happy but something happens and it makes them want to stay close to their parents,’ she says. ‘Their confidence can be knocked, leaving them to be fearful. And their response to a traumatic experience may manifest as shyness or social anxiety.’

This nonlinear experience of shyness is documented in the 2017 study that surveyed over 550,000 adults in the UK. Researchers found that although personality is usually considered to be a stable construct, there is evidence to suggest that it in fact changes across the lifespan.[5] They discovered that our personality and propensity towards shyness is affected by our social environment, our parents – particularly our mothers; including their education, interestingly our father’s education has no bearing on our levels of shyness – and our income.

In terms of our mothers’ education being more impactful on our shyness, this may be associated with the probability that she was primary caregiver to us as children. Educational and child psychologist Hannah Abrahams says that because shy children need to survey, observe and make sense of the world and new situations around them before feeling they can fully participate, ‘they often have a greater understanding of social dynamics and networks since they have taken the time to watch’. She explains that children’s development is ‘very much based on the fine balance of nature and nurture, and children imbibe – and respond to – their parents’ examples. So if a child is born to a mother who is quieter, more observational, less socially confident, tenacious or outgoing verbally, a child will often follow their lead.’

But, she says: ‘if a child knows and receives the regular emotional validation from their parent, permission to observe and watch, as well as permission and gentle encouragement to participate; they will follow the lead. They will grow in confidence and feel secure to explore their environment and participate with and alongside their peers.’ Again, pointing to the notion that shyness isn’t fixed.

Abrahams goes on to explain that no child is on a linear trajectory in terms of their development and expression. ‘Their life stories and experiences will challenge and support their overall social development and narrative over time. Like with adults, when a child feels safe, secure and cocooned they too will learn to spread their wings as beautifully as we see butterflies do in the summer nights.’

I love this description. And it supports the findings that suggest while we may experience shyness in childhood – that manifests due to our genetic make-up, the conditions we’re being raised in, trauma that throws us into some level of social anxiety, or a combination of all three – when we take control over certain parts of our lives, what we earn for example, we are then able to shift away from it. If it feels inhibiting, that is.

Now that I feel fairly confident – in my abilities, but also in social environments – I’m able to reflect on my shyness and see it not as a mental health issue or fault, but as a period I went through, that lasted well into my 20s, and that made me feel sometimes terrified and regularly self-conscious, but also bestowed me with certain attributes. I now feel able to claim it and talk about it and reflect on the ways it helped me to become more empathic and better at listening than I might have been if I had been bolder and more outgoing as a child. I have also retained a fondness for quiet time, and for introspection, which I believe is one of the main reasons I now find myself earning a living from writing.

But something I’ve found fascinating while researching this book is others’ reluctance to admit to their shyness, or to discuss it. I approached people in the public eye who had mentioned their shyness in passing, to garner further information about this, and received curt responses along the lines of: I’m not shy; I may be introverted but definitely not shy. Or they didn’t respond at all. And it reminded me of a line in Susan Cain’s 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, where she says, ‘Introversion – along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness and shyness – is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.’

And yet, in the intervening years, we’ve opened up to introversion. Phrases like JOMO (joy of missing out) to counter the extroverts’ FOMO (fear of missing out) mean we are able to make a joke out of being introverted and favouring time alone, rather than being out socialising. But it somehow doesn’t feel so funny to explain that you might really want to go out but that your shyness is preventing you. I mean, what acronym could we develop for that: SOGO (scared of going out)?

Something else that I noticed happening when I started talking to friends about this book was that everyone had a story to share; about themselves or their child/friend/parent. Some had only just acknowledged, during our conversations, that what they might have experienced in the past was shyness. Like a friend who remembers getting the bus home from school for the first time, aged around 14. As he was approaching his stop, he became incredibly self-conscious about pressing the bell so instead the bus flew right past it. And the next one. And the next one. His shyness had prevented him from alerting the driver that he needed to get off. But it was only as we spoke and he relayed this anecdote that he realised it was shyness that had blocked him. He later worked as a barrister, that’s what he was doing when I first met him, so I never would have had him down as a shy person.

But this is what I’m learning: you just never know. I expect many people that I meet now would be surprised to learn that I was so shy, through my childhood and teens. In fact, I think even my friends at that time wouldn’t have known, because I hid it so well. That’s the thing about shyness: it’s all in the mind, so unless you admit to it, people might not always know that it’s lurking there. Moreover, as something that isn’t necessarily a permanent part of your personality, it might be that you only feel comfortable discussing it if and when it is indeed ‘overcome’.

For those who are shy, or have children who are showing signs of shyness, these words from psychologist Dr Svanberg may be reassuring:

It’s interesting that we have such an aversion to shyness. Like other personality traits, it is something that is very much part of who we are – and has a good evolutionary basis, we can’t all be explorers, some of us have to make sure the children are safe! But in a society that values external reward, independence, confidence and individuality, shyness can be seen as an affliction. Generally, if shy people are encouraged to feel safe (whatever this may mean to them), and given time to feel comfortable, they will thrive. Probably the worst thing we can do for a shy person is to push them into situations they don’t feel comfortable in – this will raise their anxiety and leave them feeling even less secure. With support, even the shyest children can become more confident about new situations.

The authors of the 2017 Shyness Study came to a similar conclusion, noting that while in most parts of the world today, we value bold and assertive behaviour more highly than shyness or social fear, these evaluations are based on what we presume to be an intrinsic trait, although shy...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Praise
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Shyness isn’t a fixed trait
• 2 Being shy doesn’t make you boring
• 3 You can always get what you want (without being loud)
• 4 Quiet people are more introspective
• 5 Shyness can help with your career
• 6 But confidence helps too
• 7 The online world is a shy person’s friend
• 8 You can overcome acute social anxiety
• 9 We need to teach our children that shyness is OK
• 10 Shyness may come and go
• Reference notes
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Also by the Author
• About the Publisher