SHYNESS | AKINOSO LOIS TOLULOPE

My name is Akindeleola. I am someone who has a shy personality which I inherited from my mum. This shyness affected me in some areas of my life especially in the academic area. This is my Story.
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In my first year at the university, during the first semester, there was a course I did as an English language and Literary studies student which was called ENG107 (Introduction to Prose Fiction). In my class we were more than 100 students, but less than 200. My lecturer, a female, gave us about 6-5 novels to read and split the class into groups according to the number of books given to us. Each group were to do a presentation on the book and she can call on any group to come any present any time.
My group(the first) prepared well for the presentation of the novel, Animal Farm. It was Wednesday morning, when everyone was waiting anxiously for the lecturer to come. No one knew which group was to present first for that day. On entering, the lecturer was happy because she thought we will present very well. She settled down behind the class room and then called on the first group to come out and present, then I became very nervous that I started feeling heat rise from within me, though I wasn’t sweating. In my heart I was praying silently for God’s courage. The lecturer asked that one of us should explain what the Animal Farm is all about, but no one came out. She asked again, the same thing happened, so she decided to call names. Everyone she called didn’t give her a satisfactory answer, when it was my turn I gave told what I think the answer should have been. At first she was interested, so she told me to continue, but I couldn’t because I let my shyness get the better of me. At the end she lost interest in our group and angry because she was disappointed, dismissed the class for the rest of the semester and also cancelled other presentation.
After this incident, I decided there and then that it will not happen again. So I built up my self-confidence because being shy had made lose something (marks that could have made me get an A in the course.
Shyness is an emotion that effects how a person feels and behaves around others. It can mean feeling uncomfortable, self-conscious, nervous, bashful, timid or insecure. People who feel shy sometimes notice physical sensations like blushing or feeling speechless, shaky or breathless. It is partly a result of genes a person has inherited. It can also be influenced by behaviors they’ve learned and life experience they’ve had.
Things to know about Shy people
People who are naturally shy also have gifts that they might not appreciate in themselves. For examples, they are good listeners because they prefer listening to talking (and what friend doesn’t appreciate that?).
Naturally shy people become sensitive to other people’s feelings and emotions. They are caring and interested in how others feel.
Disadvantages of shyness
• Other people can take it as an opportunity to take advantage of shy people i.e they can cheat, bully and step all over shy people because they know they (shy people) can’t speak up for themselves.
• Shy people can lose opportunity to be successful because they don’t like being the leader and cannot face lots of people. 
• When shy people don’t speak out their mind, they can get emotional disorder which is not good for the people around them, instead they isolate themselves from people.
• Shyness doesn’t allow one to socialize with new people, people that may be of help in the future.
7 Ways to Shake Shyness
Most people like me want to feel less shy so that we can have more fun socializing and being ourselves around others. Here are some tips for overcoming shy feelings (it works).
1. Build your confidence with people you feel comfortable around by practicing social behaviors like eye contact, confident body language, etc.
2. Think of some conversation starters like hi, how are you, can you please show how to this, etc.
3. Rehearse what to say. It doesn’t matter if you made mistake while conversing with someone, you might feel that it absurd, but just continue conversing. At the end you will be proud of yourself.
4. Give yourself a chance, don’t get discouraged. It will be okay at the end
5. Speak up for yourself when you should, don’t let anyone step all over you. Ask for what you want or need.
6. Be yourself, dearest
7. Most of all trust God, he doesn’t let his children down.