Admit it, if you're here, you probably sought advice on how to break out of your shell. And that's the right thing to do.

Many of us have been shy guys at school who would be too afraid of looking girls in the eye. Some of us were bullied, and shaped by society to believe we are what we are - shyness is our identity and some guys are just born and/or raised to be outgoing.

Total. Bullshit. You're gonna stop believing that crappy thinking right now.

You're not here to limit yourself. You're here to break the limit you have. Shyness is not your identity, it is a response to a situation. Since you did that so many times, that's how you naturally respond, therefore how your mind believes you are like: "if I see a pretty girl, I know I am not worthy of her and will look back down and wish intensely she looks at poor little me and shares the teeniest tiniest bit of attention with me."

Bro, you are not what you feel. You are not what you think. You're a complex human being, full of variables that can and do change a lot throughout your life.

The Old You vs. The New You

Up until the end of my middle school, I had a ton of acne and dressed poorly. I didn't like myself. Didn't have a single female friend because I was that afraid of my classmates making fun of me for wanting to date her. Fast forward to today, I can approach women at the gym, in the street, at clubs, bars, libraries, the freaking supermarket. And I get #'s left and right. I never paid for a single sexual encounter in my life, not even a nude. They were all given wholeheartedly, without any unnecessary pushing, with both sides ending up satisfied. How is that possible? Wasn't I doomed to be a quiet, virgin nerd?

Thankfully, I found out self-improvement is a thing. I started working on myself during high school, and by my senior year I was getting a girl to set aside all the heavy metal friend groups she had and the expectations they had for her to be with another metalhead to be with me.

The thing is, your mind will absorb anything you feed it. And I fed mine the idea I'm a super cool guy to be around, that my friends love to spend time with me, and women I had interacted with in a friendly way also enjoyed my personality. I realized even though I didn't approach with cockiness, I could. Even if I didn't feel like a badass, I could start feeling like one. Because no one is going to tell me "hey, you should become a badass." I'm going to make myself into one. If I did that, so can you.

Prioritizing your personality

It is of utmost important to realize what interactions are supposed to be: a way of you expressing your personality. If you find someone in the street with a fantastic Naruto t-shirt and you feel like praising them on it, you have a duty to your personality to allow it to be expressed. You see a gorgeous woman, and you want to walk up to her to tell her that, you have an obligation to fulfill with Ms. Personality. Overheard a fun conversation about astronomy and wanna slip in with a comment? Personality speaking right there. Every social interaction opportunity is a chance for your personality to be expressed. How you go about it is what matters. Do you allow yourself to be expressed and get the message across to the other person, or do you censor yourself, keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself, wishing you had said it? Most people censor themselves, and most people live with a desire to express themselves, but they don't. They've been shaped by society into "not wanting to disturb others" - except they aren't. If the interaction is possible, the person will like it; if they don't, they will forget you guys ever spoke in the next 5 minutes. People are too busy thinking about their own lives. Let things happen, and do not try to calculate your every step.

For the actionable steps on effectively changing yourself:

1) Visualize your success. Get your mind accustomed to the idea you can do things: greet people, praise their clothing, hair, ask for information, anything. Start with simple tasks, then build it up gradually. Remember: your mind is a car, and your thoughts are the fuel you feed it with.

2) Do the thing. Put yourself out there and do it. Do it exactly as you visualized. You don't have to plan every little thing, just the general way you visualized yourself doing it: confident, at ease, cocky, playful, discreet, loud, whatever it is. Learn from the details of your approach.

3) DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING. I can't stress this enough. Seriously, do not expect people to answer you in an excited voice tonality, nor to be overtly happy over your approach. Most of the time, they will be minding their own business. Do it for your own sake. As I always say: socializing is about whether you will allow yourself to express your personality or censor it. Forget how others will respond to you - that's on them.

4) Repeat until you feel confident. Experience is the best way to go about this process.

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Hope that helps you in your social endeavors! You have the potential to improve yourself. If I did, so can you.

EDIT: So happy to see folks enjoyed the content! Feel free to follow me for more on social intelligence.