You can accelerate at your career. Workout. Get some snazzy clothes. New hairdo. Attend seminars. (NOT RECOMMENDED), but at the perfect buzz..be happy-chatty.

If you are basically shy and a bit introverted, do you ever REALLY get over it?

Believe it or not I used to be shy. I took a couple speech classes from a terrific instructor in high school and that has made all the difference

Well... I've always been extremely shy, still can be shy in certain situations. But I have reached the level where I can now be 'adorably shy'.
You know, I blush like a schoolgirl, feel awkward as heck, men love it, I still feel awkward as heck, lol, but I can enjoy that a man finds it adorable. When I feel confident, I succeed at ignoring it and truly have pleasure at men's joy of making me blush.

Totally get over it, nope. Able to deal with it, sort of.
I dread the day he gets me to blush, and I'm sure that will come. I think I'll want to crawl under the table when it happens. I know he'll love it, which will make me hate him even more LOL
.
.

By my definition I don't think I have ever had
a shy day in my life.

Will that change?
Probably not.

I can be the quietest person in the room, always
listening..which can appear to be shyness.

Or not commenting (I try not to when I have nothing
to say) can be labeled shyness.

But no, feeling trepidation around people is not
my thing :-)

I had a debate teacher like that :-)

First class he said pick a subject you are passionate
about and take a side, someone will debate you on it.

We studied and memorized.. made our cases on paper (speech).

Then we walked into class fully prepared to debate it.
At which point he told us a good debator can take EITHER
side and assigned us all the opposite of what we believed in!

Best lesson I ever had.
See both sides first.

Well as much as I've tried most of my life to not be shy or a little introverted, I came to realize that that is a part of me and now I embrace it. I have moments when I'm not that shy and moments when I am a little extroverted, but overall, I am mostly shy....which is cool by me.

I'm not sure I am being clear (or knew what I was trying to post in the first place)

I'm not uncomfortable in social situations....relatively confident. I love in depth conversations about like minded things. I've initiated them... (but only with that trigger)

I just admire those people who can walk in to a room and manufacture it out of thin air.

I say f.xxk um. ..if thay can't take a joke. ..lol

So basically asking if you could learn to be that way? I think so. Question for me would be: Do I want to be that way?
Answer is: Not really. Doesn't suit my personality.
I think the natural ones need that sort of thing in order to feel whole (doesn't mean they're arrogant or anything).
I often prefer to just go unnoticed. Different personality. Could I learn it? I think so, I can do it (when I choose to do it). But to always do it would exhaust me.

Okay, those that can create instant charisma..I have seen
it many times also..sometimes it is only the build-up and
expectations of others but there are some who can literally
stop you in your tracks with their appeal.

Even the celebrities who have learned to be appealing as
a trade can go either way.

So what is it and can it be duplicated by an average person?
Can you just determine to be charismatic and follow through?

My opinion is, if you have something others can see, and want,
you can learn to sell it.

Others, are simply born with it, never give it a second thought
..the kind of people others follow seemingly randomly.

They..draw you in..by simply being who they are, which
is usually unique.

awww.. you described me perfectly..lol..wink.

I'm shy till I get to know ya.

I own the room when I want to, I just don't want to much anymore.

Personally, I really don't care what strangers think of me.

In my younger days I was the life of the party, the cheer in the room.
People gravitate to me. Pets seem to love me.
Doesn't really matter when the SHTF and life gets bad.

I never 'try' to be charismatic it just happens that people tend to really like me? Thus is the way of my world.

Yes I do too, and what's even more admirable are the people who don't even know they're doing it.

I'm sure you can Beach, I'm certain of it, you probably just don't realise you are doing it.

In a Robert Heinlein novel I once read (I think) something along the lines of "people don't change. They either become more of who they really are, or better at hiding it."

If you're naturally shy and a bit introverted, you never "really" get over it. But that doesn't mean it has to be a significant influence over your behavior and emotions.

If being shy and a bit introverted is a learned behavior, you can "really" get over it. But that doesn't mean it won't always be a significant influence over your behavior and emotions.

This is, or at least can be, a rather big subject. Bigger than most people (particularly those who have never been shy) realize.

I was EXTREMELY shy growing up. Always uncomfortable in social settings, often accidentally angering others around me, which naturally made it all vastly worse.

I went through hell, to a great extent because of that shyness, so I naturally (being the analytical problem solver I have been since birth), spent a fair amount of time studying it all as dispassionately and logically as I could manage.

I am convinced, first of all, that shyness is like most human characteristics, in that it often SEEMS to be entirely the result of upbringing and environment, but there is definitely a purely physiological, mostly biochemical component to it as well. That component is most easily seen, if you study the first and most rapid and complete reaction a child has to a sudden change, especially a challenging change, to their immediate environment. Some people react first with ANGER. Others with FEAR. Others with something in between, which might be confusion.

That initial reaction, is due to CHEMISTRY more than anything else. A surge of adrenaline in one person, might make them feel powerful. In another, due to their having a very different baseline chemical makeup, it will cause their muscles to shake, and their blood pressure to fall slightly, resulting in a reaction closer to fear or immobility.

Because of that physiological component, no one who was born shy will ever become identical to those who always react with anger or confidence to new challenges. However, what the shy person can do, is to accept their chemistry, and adjust how they deal with life in various ways, in order to make the best of things. Just as the person who is born with a defect in a limb, must alter all sorts of things in their life in order to get along without a perfect whatever, so too the shy people have to invent coping tricks.

What I did, was for the most part, based (amusingly enough) on a common small scene I saw acted out in cartoons and movies I saw as I was growing up. The scene I mean, is where someone in the cartoon is made a fool of by another character. The one who was fooled is very often made fun of by the cartoon producer as well. What I saw these "fools" do, right after they were discarded by the rest of the people in the story, was that they walked away talking to themselves, saying "when he said THAT, I should have said THIS! Yeah! That would have made HIM look bad!"

Although the stories always intended us in the audience to despise the character saying that even more, I realized that actually, it was a very practical thing to do: provided the person actually DOES finish working out the better solution to whatever social faux pas they had been through.

So I did that. When someone managed to purposely make fun of me, I went away in shame, but I also carefully worked out the logic of it all, and found a solution of one kind or another. Sometimes it was just to avoid such situations, but sometimes I actually found a response that would work, and not make ME look like either a fool (or worse, another jerk like the person who put me down), and I memorized it.

Because I realized that in Shyworld Life, such situations DO repeat.
Essentially, I built up a catalog of good responses to all the difficulties I had to face, and then I was able to APPEAR to be on top of things, going forward. I was never as adroit and clever as the people who are naturally confident, but like the person who wears a brace on a limb and learns to walk and run in a fluid manner with it, I became socially functional.

That's essentially what things like the speech classes and debate classes do as well. They give you a catalog of ways to deal with social situations so that you don't HAVE to invent them on the spot yourself, while your biochemistry is busy undermining you.

That in turn eventually changes how often you suffer the post-biochemical problems that are triggered by the failed situations, and EVERYTHING gets better.

In short, no, you can't become identical to the NATURALLY Great People who you wish you could be; but you very much CAN become functionally close ENOUGH, to be able to deal with the world reasonably successfully.

Yes you can, it takes practice, it takes mistakes, it takes learning from the mistakes, most important, placing yourself out there.

By nature I really don't talk unless I have something to say. But I have learned over the years to speak up if I have something of value to say, regardless of who is in the room. This assertiveness has served me well.

But I admit, that took time to feel comfortable doing it.

I can understand why it is not easy for shy people.

Thanks for the feedback Guys! I wish I had the energy, fortitude, and typing skills to respond to each and every one of you lol! There are so many here whom are so good about that!!

...another thing I admire!

You are too, my beautiful friend!

...and YOU my bless'ed friend, never say anything cross...you let us of the hook!

It's a beautiful SKILL! <3