{"id":585,"date":"2013-07-31T04:35:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T04:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=585"},"modified":"2013-07-31T04:35:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T04:35:57","slug":"coming-out-of-your-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/coming-out-of-your-shell\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Out of Your Shell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a friend, let\u2019s call him Gordon.\u00a0 Gordon has always been a bit of an introvert. He\u2019d rather listen than talk, dreaded group projects in school, and was always talking himself out of trying new things.\u00a0 Gordon knew that to succeed in life, he would have to overcome all of his fears. Although he still struggles with some of them daily, he has come an awful long way.\u00a0 He told me that there were several things that helped him get past his fears and become a successful employee and manager.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Learn To Tune Negative You Out<\/strong><b> \u2013<\/b> Now don\u2019t take this wrong.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t mean ignore your intuition or conscience.\u00a0 Just ignore your negative self-talk.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let <strong>you<\/strong> get to <strong>you<\/strong><b>.\u00a0 <\/b>Gordon constantly reminded himself how he wasn\u2019t smart enough or qualified enough, and had to realize that maybe he was perfect for the positions; he just needed to believe in himself.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Focus on Your Strengths \u2013<\/strong> Don\u2019t focus on your weaknesses, but your strengths.\u00a0 Remind yourself why you are good at what you do every day.\u00a0 Build on those strengths, and soon your strengths will over shadow any weaknesses you have.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Surround Yourself with Teammates<\/strong><b> \u2013 <\/b>Everyone you choose to be around you should be on your team.\u00a0 If someone isn\u2019t helping you stay positive, is dragging you down, or is making you depressed about your situation, get away from them.\u00a0 You can\u2019t do much about co-workers or bad managers, but you can choose friends, so choose wisely.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Always Have a Plan<\/strong><b> \u2013<\/b> Introverts can easily be overwhelmed, and especially in situations when they are forced to react quickly.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t because they are inept, it is simply because they like to take time to view the whole situation and make the best possible plan of action after determining all the facts.\u00a0 Gordon found that always having a pre-made plan, including \u201chaving a plan for when there is no plan\u201d helps ease the stress of an emergency or last minute issue.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Know Your Target Audience \u2013<\/strong> Whether you work with a certain type of a customer, or in a certain field of employees, know your audience.\u00a0 As an introvert, this can help you adapt and predict reactions to information.\u00a0 The more you know about your audience the more likely you are to communicate well with them.\u00a0 Since communication is such a difficult milestone for introverts, you have to do all you can or else you will stumble over your words like a nervous middle school student giving their first oral report.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It\u2019s Okay to be Confident \u2013<\/strong> Introverts tend to shy away from compliments and even have trouble accepting a \u201cthank you\u201d.\u00a0 Gordon said learning to accept a compliment from a coworker or Manager was one of the hardest things to learn.\u00a0 His negative self-talk was so bad, that he would even correct people who complimented him that they must be mistaken, and that he certainly wasn\u2019t worthy.\u00a0 Building confidence is key to succeeding in the workplace, and that includes graciously accepting kind words from your peers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a friend, let\u2019s call him Gordon.\u00a0 Gordon has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[406,407],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}