I think this video by Juilen kind of sums up the problem I am facing. It really got me thinking about my current journey and maybe I was focusing on the wrong things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7Rc6BNDcE

To make a long story short, I thought I made a lot of progress in personal growth and mental health over the past year. I started working out, trying to be more social, I became more adventurous and started traveling by myself and I became more driven in school. There was a lot of positive changes that came out of all of that and I thought I was on the right track, but after kind of a failure going out clubbing last night I realized all those things did not fix the root of my problems and fundamentally. When I went out I was in my head all night and was always comparing myself in my current state versus the people I see around me and the person I know I wanted to be, and I didn't do enough approaches and my interactions were just meh all around. I probably am more or less the same person I despised and wanted to change from a year ago. My biggest problem is I am still not comfortable in my own skin and I really wish I could be the type of guy who can go in a room full of strangers and act like I've known them forever instead of being stiff and awkward. I thought doing all those personal growth things would directly contribute to that, but according to Julien, all those things I did were effects and I need to be looking at how to change myself at the core. The part I don't get is what it actually means in practice to change your core self

I guess maybe the things I did so far didn't push me out of my comfort zone enough and I still played it safe. I did cold approach for like a month at college which maybe wasn't long enough or consistent enough to see a big enough change, but I don't think it directly helped me in truly being comfortable with myself.

If you didn't read all that then my question pretty much comes down to this: I take myself way too seriously and I am not fully comfortable with who I am. What should I be doing to change my core self so that I can just let loose at parties and stop being serious all the time because I feel like thats my biggest thing holding me back.