( Joodie Shy )

When embarking on a new travel journey, your own confidence is one of the biggest things you’re forced to confront. Sure, there’s money to worry about, tours to schedule, planes to catch… but talking to a local? For me, that’s hard. Alright, very, very hard. I’m extremely introverted and when I read this article by (one of my new favorite bloggers) Karol Gajda it resonated deeply:

How To Be More Confident. A few straightforward tips everyone should be using (unless you were born with oodles of confidence, you lucky dog)! Also, I commend Gajda for the last tip in the article. Alcohol is a crutch, it’s cheating yourself the chance to really change. Don’t cripple yourself. And thank you for the article Gajda!

I have heard before the advice of trying to act like someone you admire when you’re in a new situation. There are lots of possibilities when you’re surrounded by strangers. You could be anyone. You could even try to be a little kooky if you’d like some more ‘interesting’ new friends. You can be elegant, or whatever you need to attract your Right People. If I were to add anything to this advice I would say, don’t stick to one personality, experiment; it’s all good fun anyways!

However, I’ve found this tip difficult to put into action. It’s hard not to run right back to our safe pattern of doing things. Avoiding eye contact, pretend you’re on the phone, or whatever you do when you’re feeling a bit shy. While it’s easy in some ways to walk our well-worn path of timid, shy behavior – it’s not so easy on our self-esteem. Consistently giving in to my fears is nothing I take pride in. Acting in spite of fear is when you really get to live and breathe easy knowing you’ve tried something new!

If it feels so easy to stay afraid, then why are we so gosh darn hard on our selves later on? I know many times I think to myself, “Damn why didn’t I say something? That was so stupid of me.” That’s not easy. It’s not easy to keep coming up with excuses. It’s hard to repeat unhealthy patterns of behavior.

Therefor, I’ve decided that on my upcoming trip I’m going to take the advice in the article, fake it til I make it, and be a lot easier on myself!*

- What might you add if you were advising a shy traveler on the journey ahead? Who do you look to as a confident role model? (For me Gala Darling oozes confidence and I love her for it!)

* And yes, you can hold me accountable for this statement. Hopefully next month I’ll have a progress report for you! Stay tuned!

Tags: change, happiness, learning, life, transformation