Top Tips for breaking out of your shell!
1) Don’t force it to break, do new things slowly, and do things step by step. Start with the less freighting thing first and gradually push yourself.
2) Keep reminding yourself of what your aims are and what will happen to you as a person if you go through with it.
3) Try not to think negatively about what it is you’re going to do. Don’t catastrophize! Just go with it, don’t overthink it. Because if you keep overthinking it, you will think of all the what- if’s, just do it! You can’t tell the future and you can’t judge something you have never tried before.
4) Set yourself tasks, e.g. talk to someone new while filming an event. This way you will have a taste for different things you may encounter, and you know what you can do and what you can’t do, so you know what to build on.
5) Remember you are you, you are great, you are amazing, no one else is quite like you, and you can go on to do great things! Don’t worry if you find yourself going back into your shell now and again, it is completely normal, I still do it, but I acknowledge it and take action. You are unique and you can do this!
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Hi, I’m Lauren, the new creative and digital media apprentice, which is completely bizarre considering where I was a year ago. I was super shy, still doing my A-levels and a confused 17 year old not knowing where I really wanted to go in life.
I took more of an interest in media, films and creative writing and found that I became more confident when behind a camera and doing all things media. So I decided to overcome my shyness and start looking for opportunities to develop my media skills and came across Beatfreeks Summer Academies where there was a media academy, so I decided to sign up. This was a really hard thing for me to do as I hated meeting new people and got very anxious if I was to go and do something like this on my own. But I pushed myself to do it and it was the best decision I ever made!
At the start of the week I was so nervous and wanted to drop out, but when I was introduced to the group I would be working with over the next week I started to become OK. As the days went on, I grew and developed and suddenly found myself emerging from this shell I had developed a home in for the past 17 years of my life and saw the world and myself in a completely different way. The shell had helped me in ways of protecting me from the badness that was coming from life, like being bullied and having no friends. But, it stopped me from experiencing life in a different way that made it better and would let me grow.
Emerging from this shell was a hard thing to do, it was like leaving home or being left somewhere foreign. It was my comfort. It was my barrier from life and people. It was me. But it was the best thing I have done because I now get buses, I go to new places and meet new people, I get to do what I love: Videography and photography andI am also now an apprentice with Beatfreeks. I couldn’t be happier with where I am now, all it took was to break that shell.