I don't know if "shyness" is the exact same thing as lacking "confidence" but they seem closely enough related to me to make it worth talking a little bit about shyness....

Most people have had times of shyness at at least some stage in their lives. It can make many things difficult, especially where you may have to deal with other people.... However, there are ways of dealing with it....

I was surprised to read recently that many quite famous people are actually quite shy.... Here's a list of some celebrities who have admitted to being quite shy....

* Barbara Walters
* Cher
* Johnny Carson
* Mike Myers
* and the list goes on....

While these people (by their own accounts) have never fully overcome their shyness, they did manage to deal with it so that they could still succeed.

I can actually be a bit of a shy person in real life.... In fact, a part of me has always been a little bit shy, but I experiment with various ways of dealing with it.

There are some "side-effects" of being shy.... Some people may misinterpret shyness as "snobbishness," which is unfortunate....

There are a lot of resources online about how to deal with shyness. I suggest going to a search engine -- I personally like to use www.google.com -- and type in some words like "overcoming shyness" (with the quote marks as well) or just "shyness".

I don't know if this is exactly the kind of advice you were looking for, Sandy.... However, I know that the percentage of people who are shy is actually quite large. I have no doubt that many of the people who read this forum are in fact perhaps too shy to post something, so these words and thoughts are for you....

Shyness can make things difficult sometimes, but it is possible to deal with it, and even go on to great success -- like the "shy celebrities" I listed above....

Best of luck (and keep working on it!),

Dien Rice