Practice can help with both of those. I’m fairly introverted, but I constantly force myself to say stuff to people even if I think it might be cringey. Of course, in the beginning, it was, but eventually I got better at talking to people. Now, I can make friends with my co-workers fairly well, and articulate my points coherently enough (and importantly, in real-time) that I am able to bring people over to ‘my side’ with reasonable success.
Down side is, it’s exhausting for me to do, so if I have a week at work where I’m in a lot of meetings or have a lot of interactions like that, my brain is so well and fried by the weekend that all I want to do is sit there and stare at a wall for 48h. WFH during Covid has helped considerably with that aspect, as it’s moved most of my conversations into chat or email, but that also means I have to work a bit harder at forcing myself into situations where I have to communicate.
Practice can help with both of those. I’m fairly introverted, but I constantly force myself to say stuff to people even if I think it might be cringey. Of course, in the beginning, it was, but eventually I got better at talking to people. Now, I can make friends with my co-workers fairly well, and articulate my points coherently enough (and importantly, in real-time) that I am able to bring people over to ‘my side’ with reasonable success.
Down side is, it’s exhausting for me to do, so if I have a week at work where I’m in a lot of meetings or have a lot of interactions like that, my brain is so well and fried by the weekend that all I want to do is sit there and stare at a wall for 48h. WFH during Covid has helped considerably with that aspect, as it’s moved most of my conversations into chat or email, but that also means I have to work a bit harder at forcing myself into situations where I have to communicate.