Almost every act in life requires taking a leap to put yourself out there: Making friends. Dating. Applying for jobs. Even mundane tasks like filling out bank forms or sending back the wrong order in a restaurant are easier when you have the gusto to speak up and ask for what you want.
It’s obvious that putting yourself out there can help you land an interview for a slightly less soul-sucking way to pay your bills or finally put you in touch with your soulmate so you can bid adieu to dating apps forever. But it simply makes the days more joyful, too. When you get over your social anxiety long enough to tell that stranger in the coffee line that you like their shoes, don’t you both smile and hate humanity less, even for a few seconds?
I know it’s not easy for everyone to put themselves out there, especially for introverts or those whose childhood report cards never earned the “takes initiative” stamp in the teacher comments. But if you don’t learn how to muster up the courage to put yourself out there, your life is going to end up passing you by while you sit around waiting for people, opportunities, and, dare I say, happiness to come find you.
What I learned about putting myself out there
After graduating college, I moved to the capital city of my home state. It wasn’t far from where I grew up; still, I had only one vague acquaintance who lived there, leaving me with barely any social network to cling to. I knew if I didn’t want a repeat of my college years (which, admittedly, were not the highlight of my life), I needed to do something to build a world around me that gave me the life I wanted.
I knew it wasn’t always going to be fun. People weren’t going to line up and knock on the door to ask to be my friend. I was going to have to make the first moves.
In the end, I lived in that city for two years. I had a big social network with many layers of acquaintances, side characters, and friendly neighborhood faces to add variety to my inner circle and color to my Friday nights.
This is what I learned about putting myself out there and becoming an active player in my own life:
You have to get over the fear of being the first one to reach out.
Relationships don’t spring up from nowhere. Someone has to make the first move, and if you’re not content to let others run your life for you, that someone should be you.
Yes, you can wait on other people to reach out to you. But they’re probably just as nervous as you are. If both of you keep cowering in your respective corners waiting for the other to take the first step forward, you’re never going to meet.
Plus, do you want to leave the direction of your life in strangers’ hands? Do you want to actively choose the people you hang out with (and possibly become romantically entangled with)? Or are you fine with just accepting whomever comes along and falls in your lap?
There’s no secret key to confidence here. One day, you just have to pull the trigger and start practicing, one baby step after another.
Signing up for a social event is a great place to start. But sorry, that’s not enough. You don’t make friendships just by showing up to local trivia night. You have to go further, i.e., exchange numbers with someone (ideally, multiple someones) and then text them afterwards to invite them out for a coffee or drink.
It will be awkward sometimes. Some people will ghost you. But you’re a big person, and you can handle this. (Short people can handle this, too.) Over time, reaching out first will become easier and less scary. And sooner or later, something (or someone) will stick.
Practice putting yourself out there this week with A Merry Loner’s 7-Day Do Things Alone Challenge. For seven days, you’ll get an email a day with one bite-size challenge to help you practice doing things alone in public so you can get more comfortable putting yourself out there.
You can’t take it personally when things don’t work out.
Sadly, life is not just one string of amazing successes after the other.
People will sometimes be rude to you for no reason. On some occasions, you will say the wrong thing. On others, you will say the right thing, but you still won’t hit it off with everybody.
It happens. It’s unavoidable. So stop letting yourself get all worked up when you shoot your shot and fall flat on your face.
Instead, when someone ghosts you, insults you, or otherwise disappoints you, remember: You can just move on. You don’t owe them an explanation, and you don’t always need closure. You can simply call it a day and move on with your life.
Similarly, if you put yourself out there, think someone likes you, but still end up cast aside or left out, do not use this experience as a catalyst to re-examine your self worth. Sometimes, it just be like that. After all, have you liked every single person you’ve ever met? Of course not, so why should other people? They’re allowed preferences, too. You can both be, individually, great people; you just don’t belong together.
It helps to pretend you’re already who you want to be.
I’ve been doing this, almost subconsciously, since I was a teenager.
High school was not a golden time for me. I had great friends, impressive grades, and a stacked extracurriculars list ready for college applications (field hockey captain, yearbook editor, honor council secretary, you name it). But for a variety of reasons that will remain undisclosed, I didn’t often feel happy. As many others probably did (I now realize), I felt like I didn’t fit in and was constantly imagining who I could be and what my life could look like if I were simply somewhere else.
I escaped by reading. Off the pages, I became the protagonist in my own coming-of-age novel. There, I was not schlepping around a Hawaiian-flower-print L.L. Bean backpack, stressing out about my Honors English class, or flipping through fashion magazines alone at lunchtime. I was a budding writer, hatching the first draft of what would become the Next Great American Novel. Or I was a still-undiscovered future starlet, giving an indie performance from the trunk of her used minivan after class. Or whatever other character I was playing that day.
I wasn’t trying to be someone I wasn’t. But strangely, by playing out those stories in my head, I grew the confidence to experiment with what felt right for me and to keep working towards the person I wanted to be.
That meant when a group of boys called me names while walking by my locker or when some girls found an ingenious way of simultaneously excluding me and being polite, I didn’t let those moments alter the way I thought about myself. Instead, I held onto the vision of the person I wanted to be and acted like I already was her.
Putting yourself out there is the only way to create the life you want.
I’ve achieved things I hadn’t even considered to dream because I found the confidence to put myself out there and become an active player in my life.
As a full-time freelance writer who walked away from corporate life, I would have no work, no clients, and no money if I didn’t get comfortable introducing myself to strangers, sending the first email, or following up on what feels like a dead end.
As an American living in France for almost five years, I never would have become fluent in the language if I hadn’t been willing to embarrass myself and muscle through difficult situations.
As someone about to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary, I wouldn’t have learned how fun being married can be if I hadn’t found the courage (and had a couple of gin and tonics) to tell my now husband, then long-time friend, how I felt.
Though times may feel difficult, there is still much opportunity to bring beauty into your life. Don’t waste time hoping to be discovered. Do what it takes to put yourself where you want to be.
For courage to push yourself to try something new, read these short poems about new beginnings. If it’s friendship you seek to help you bear the weight of what it takes to be human, learn how spending more time alone can, paradoxically, help you get more comfortable meeting new people.
If you feel like you’re putting yourself out there but nothing is sticking, keep the faith. These quotes about feeling alone remind us we’re each steering our own ship and are each capable of creating our own peace.
