GUIDE

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 i

How to come out of your shell

You don’t have to be outgoing. But if being introverted is holding you back from the
life you want, dive in for a way out

by Christian Jarrett  + BIO

Need to know
A few years ago, Jessica Pan – a young journalist living in London and with the world at
her feet – found herself at a low point. Life had become predictable and samey. ‘I
realised that I was using the label “introvert” as an excuse to say no to anything new or
anything that causes me anxiety,’ she told me. ‘I felt like I was totally cutting myself off
from
6 new experiences and new people. And I thought that can’t be healthy.’
Pan, who’d always identified strongly as an introvert, made a bold decision to do
something about her malaise, conducting a self-experiment to live as an out-and-out
extravert for a year. ‘I wanted to make new friends, I wanted to have more job
opportunities, I wanted to feel more alive and not just have the same things happen to
me,’ she says. One result of her extraverted year is Jessica’s funny and touching book
Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come (2020).

Like Pan, a few years ago, I became frustrated by my introverted tendencies. I was
writing a new book on personality change, Be Who You Want (2021), and made a
conscious decision to act on the advice I’d discovered in the process. I didn’t go quite as
far as Pan (among other things, she performed stand-up comedy and joined an improv
club), but I did make a concerted effort to come out of my shell. I said yes to most
personal and professional social invitations, and I made lifestyle changes, such as
switching from solo sessions at the gym (cocooned by headphones) to group exercise
classes that involved plenty of banter and laughter. My aim was to come out of my shell a
little, to dial up my levels of extraversion so that I would feel less isolated, and to allow
more room for the unexpected in life (I also made efforts to address other aspects of my
personality, but that’s for another Guide!).

In personality science, our levels of introversion vs extraversion are considered one of

the Big Five personality traits (alongside others, such as conscientiousness and
neuroticism). These traits reflect our ‘tendencies to think, feel and behave in certain
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ways that are relatively consistent across time and situations,’ explains Rodica Damian,
director of the Personality Development and Success Lab at the University of Houston.

Each Big Five trait, including introversion-extraversion, is a dimension, rather than a

‘type’ – that is, we all score somewhere along the spectrum, with few people at the very
extremes. However, for convenience, I’ll use the terms ‘introvert’ and ‘extravert’ as a
shorthand for people with tendencies toward one end or other of the spectrum.

The extraversion-introversion dimension in modern personality science is similar to

how we talk about these labels in everyday life, with some additional important
characteristics. If you’re a strong extravert, not only are you chatty and sociable, but you
are also optimistic, assertive, energetic and receptive to positive emotion – you seek out
reward and you’re willing to take risks for pleasure. As a consequence, extraverts tend to
be happier in life, bolder and more confident, which has benefits for their careers and
health. By contrast, if you’re a strong introvert, you’re quiet and reserved, you experience
less high-energy, positive emotion in life, you avoid too much stimulation, and you’re
more averse to risk; you’re a chill-seeker, in other words, rather than a thrill-seeker.

For sure, there are also advantages to being more introverted, as celebrated so effectively
by Susan Cain’s landmark book Quiet (2012) – among them, the lack of a need for
constant reward and stimulation lends itself to more solitary career pursuits, including
remote working, and it can provide protection against the dangers of overindulgence (it
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is extraverts who are more inclined towards problem drinking, drug-taking and sexual
infidelity). The patience and sensitivity of strong introverts also nourish creativity and
the ability to sustain dedicated practice. Introverts are also more effective leaders in
certain contexts, such as when managing a team of highly proactive workers. Aside from
these advantages, let’s be frank – wouldn’t life be incredibly dull and annoying if
everyone were excessively talkative and attention-seeking?

Even so, it’s possible to desire to come out of your shell – that is, to dial up your
extraversion – without completely denying your introverted nature and without aiming
to go to the other extreme, to become a rock-and-roll party animal. This Guide is about
helping you achieve a greater level of extraversion – if that is what you want, and to the
extent that works for you.

Like Pan and me, you might feel frustrated by your own strong introverted leanings.
Perhaps you’ve always felt this way, or maybe it’s a new sensation and you’ve noticed you
have become more introverted than you would like lately, due to the force of
circumstances. For example, many people have experienced loneliness during the
COVID-19 pandemic, and this is known to foster increased introversion. Other studies
suggest that major life experiences, such as divorce, can increase introversion for some
people. Mental illness too, such as depression, can lead us to withdraw into ourselves.

If you feel that you are, or have become, more withdrawn than you would like, or that
your introverted nature is holding you back from making friends or getting ahead at
work, then the good news is that it’s possible to exploit the relative malleability of
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personality to choose to become more extraverted. It probably won’t be quick or easy,
but it’s certainly achievable, and the rewards could be great.
‘There is extensive scientific evidence that we can choose to change our traits, but it
takes a lot of consistent effort,’ says Damian. ‘You can think of it in the same way you
think of physical fitness or healthy eating. It’s something you have to constantly work
towards [more akin to a lifestyle change vs a short-term fad diet] – but, once you do it
enough, it becomes a part of you.’ Mirjam Stieger at the Lifespan Developmental
Psychology Laboratory at Brandeis University in Massachusetts has been working on a
‘personality coach’ app to help people change their personality traits. She agrees with
Damian: ‘If people shift the way they think, feel and behave,’ she says, ‘they can change
their position on the personality trait continuum of introversion-extraversion.’

And there are good reasons for cranking up your extraversion, even if only a little.
Besides the extravert’s advantages for health and career progression (due to being more
physically active, experiencing more positive mood and the greater social
connectedness), numerous studies have also shown that, whatever our baseline
disposition, we do tend to feel happier in the moment whenever we act more extraverted
than usual, most likely because doing so increases our engagement with the world and
increases our connectedness to others, which are basic human needs associated with
wellbeing.

‘It’s a way to live more fully by experiencing new things,’ says Pan. ‘[By living like an
extravert], I felt like I had lived a different life … it’s a chance to just inject some fun and
serendipity and openness into your life. We can’t overestimate how much a new person,
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the right new person, can bring to our life. So, you know, even if you go to one party you
didn’t want to go to, but you meet one person who becomes your best friend or your new
boss or your networking partner or your tennis partner – that could change your life
forever.’

I agree: by coming out of my shell a little at my sports club, my life felt more rounded. As
other members began to know me by name, I came to enjoy a sense of community and
belonging that balanced out my relative isolation working remotely as an editor. And by
saying yes more often to more social and professional invitations, and with a greater
willingness to take risks, I even found myself undertaking a significant career move, to a
new digital magazine, the one you are reading right now.

What to do
General guidance and warming up for change

As you undertake the following steps and techniques, bear in mind that your personality
traits – including your levels of extraversion – reflect your current deep-seated habits of
thought, emotion and ways of relating to other people and the wider world. Think of
your personality as your default, automatic strategy for dealing with life and
relationships – how you currently behave without deliberate effort or planning. After all,
when
6 an extravert walks into a party, they don’t consciously coerce themselves into
chatting to the other guests – it’s just what comes naturally.
Of course, habits, even deep-seated ones, can be changed. It’s true that some of your
dispositional behaviour has genetic roots; it’s a profoundly ingrained part of who you
are. But a lot of it is also learned over the years, via your many experiences in life.
Critically, this means that, rather than waiting passively for life to change you, which it
surely will, you can choose to change those habitual ways of being. With enough
persistence and sufficient motivation, you can take intentional control over some of the
internal and external forces that continue to shape your personality, to steer yourself
toward becoming more extraverted.

‘Habits can be thought of like the layer between behaviours and personality trait
change,’ says Stieger. ‘If a person repeatedly shows new behaviours, and these new
behaviours become habitual, it can ultimately lead to lasting personality changes.’

Note that, especially if you are a strong introvert, deeply embedded in your shell, you
might find some of the following practical advice challenging at first, but take heart that
it will get easier. Humans are by nature adaptable. With practice and persistence, you
can recalibrate to your new, bolder ways of living and being. ‘It gets a lot easier,’ says Pan.
‘I learned that through basically a year of exposure therapy. Talking to people and
putting yourself out there is really, really hard. And it’s especially hard at the beginning.
But once you’ve done it a few times and had a few positive experiences, it gets much,
much easier.’

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Before you embark on my recommended specific techniques and lifestyle changes to
boost your extraversion, here are some ways to warm up and help focus your intentions
(as used in the personality change app developed and tested by Stieger and her
colleagues):

• Talk to close friends and/or family members about your goal of becoming more
extraverted, and ask for their tips and tricks.

• Observe your own behaviours. In which situations could you be more extraverted
than you currently are? In which situations are you already as extraverted as you
want to be?

• Write down your pros and cons of being an extraverted person.

• Identify people in your environment who are more extraverted than you are. What
are they doing differently? Can you try to copy specific behaviours?

Now that you’ve warmed up, it’s helpful to think in terms of a three-pronged strategy:
first, to change yourself from the ‘inside out’; secondly, to change yourself from the
‘outside in’; and finally, to consider your overarching goals and values and how these
might motivate and empower you.

‘Inside out’ strategies

Strong extraverts are habitually sociable. They happily strike up conversation with
strangers
6 and inevitably become highly practised at small talk and forging new
relationships. To adopt these habits for yourself, set some specific, concrete goals for
behaving in a more outgoing, gregarious fashion.

An effective way to do this is to use one or more if-then implementation plans, such as:
‘If I am waiting at a bus stop, then I will ask one of the other travellers there how they
are.’ ‘If I am buying groceries, then I will say hello to the check-out assistant.’ ‘If it’s a
Tuesday, then I will ask one of my colleagues to join me for a coffee.’ ‘If it’s a Saturday
and I don’t have plans to go out, then I’ll ring a friend.’ Repeat the plan or plans aloud to
yourself at least once each day and write them down somewhere you’ll notice them, such
as on a notepad by your bed.

If the idea of striking up a conversation with strangers feels completely overwhelming,

there’s no harm at all in putting in a little preparation. For instance, Christian Busch, the
author of Psyche’s Guide to being lucky, advises coming up ‘with a number of hooks –
interesting or memorable talking points, for example related to your current interests –
that you can use in your next conversation, especially if someone asks you “What do you
do?”.’

You should tailor the ambition of your if-then plans to your baseline levels of
introversion. If you’re feeling very daunted, then take it easy and begin with more
modest, gentle plans to increase your sociability (eg, simply saying hello to a fellow
commuter), then scale them up over time as you adjust and make progress (eg, arranging
to 6go out for coffee with a colleague). If you are very withdrawn by nature, these first
tentative steps are likely to feel awkward and uncomfortable at first, but take heart:
research has shown that talking to strangers is more fun than we think it will be, and
people generally form a more positive impression of us than we anticipate. Also, keep in
mind the rewards of having more random conversations – it will allow room for more
unexpected plot twists in life. ‘I am a closet introvert,’ says Busch who teaches how to
experience more serendipity. ‘I had to train myself to be more extraverted.’

Another way to change yourself from the inside out is to boost your optimism. One
reason that extraverts are bolder than average is because they tend to believe that events
will go well. There are techniques you can use to boost your optimism and willingness to
take on challenges. One of them is known as the ‘best possible self’ intervention:
spend about five to 15 minutes picturing yourself in the future, a few years from now, in a
scenario in which everything in life has gone as well as you hoped. Form the picture as
vividly as you can. Some versions of the technique recommend writing down a
description of this ideal version of yourself in the future – bring it to life with detail and
by exploring the different aspects of your life and how things will look, feel and sound.
Aim to do this daily for about two weeks to gain the maximum benefit.

Yet another approach to increase your boldness is to practise cognitive reappraisal.

There are different ways you might do this, but one is to try to reinterpret as excitement
any feelings of nerves or anxiety (eg, the butterflies in your tummy prior to a party or a
networking event) – so find a quiet space in advance of the social challenge and say out
loud to yourself: ‘I am excited.’ Research has shown that doing this helps people to cope
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with upcoming challenges that make them anxious, such as giving a public presentation.
Finally, you could consider making a commitment to build your strength and physical
fitness, to further increase your confidence and comfort with adventure. There are
many associations between physiology and personality, but perhaps most relevant in
this context is that taking up more physical exercise has been shown to lower people’s
levels of social anxiety; people (especially men) who are stronger tend to be more
extraverted; and moreover, people who are physically more active earlier in life tend to
retain their extraversion over the ensuing decades, compared with others who are more
sedentary.

Various mechanisms are thought to underlie these associations but suffice to say that
taking up regular physical exercise (choosing an activity that you particularly enjoy and
is convenient) is likely to make you feel more confident in yourself and lower your
anxiety levels, thus making it more appealing to venture out of your shell.

‘Outside in’ strategies

As well as using techniques to alter your habits of thought and feelings to help you
become bolder and more sociable, you can also leverage situations and relationships
around you to shape your levels of extraversion. There are close links between
personality trait expression and mood – including happier mood being associated with
more extraverted behaviour – so, whatever your baseline personality, it’s likely that,
when you’re feeling good, you will naturally tend to act in a more extraverted fashion.
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Spend a while considering how certain individuals and circumstances tend to provoke
different feelings and moods in you, and to bring out different sides of your character.
Relevant here is a phenomenon known as affective presence – a trait-like tendency that
people have to make others feel a certain way. You might be able to think of particular
friends or relatives who have a positive affective presence, with whom you tend to come
out of yourself a little or enjoy letting your hair down, for instance. I don’t think it’s a
coincidence that one of the eras in my life in which I was most extraverted was my first
year at university, when early on I befriended an extremely boisterous, fun-loving
extravert. By being more strategic about the situations you put yourself in, and the
people you mix with, you will find it easier to become more outgoing.

A simple way to be more mindful and intentional about the environmental forces
shaping your traits is via the situation selection strategy – for instance, ahead of next
weekend, spend a little time considering what you will do and who you will do it with.
Try to be more intentional than usual in planning your time and activities, rather than
relying on your usual routines. Choose activities that boost your mood (remembering
the links between positive mood and extraversion) and aim to spend time with people
who make you feel relaxed and confident (remembering the concept of affective
presence – the ways that others influence you). Before each weekend, you could even
repeat a mantra out loud three times, such as: ‘If I am deciding what to do this weekend,
then I will select activities that will make me feel good and avoid doing things that will
make
6 me feel bad.’
Psychologists at the University of Sheffield in the UK tested this approach and found
that volunteers who rehearsed the mantra ahead of a weekend ended up experiencing
more positive mood over that weekend than a control group. You could opt to amplify
this benefit by tweaking the mantra (and your intentions) with a more specific aim to
come out of your shell (eg, ‘If I am deciding what to do this weekend, then I will select
activities that will make me feel happy, confident and outgoing, and avoid doing things
that will make me feel bad and withdrawn’).

An even more ambitious approach to changing yourself from the outside in is to sign up
for a club or group activity that will essentially require you to behave in a more
extraverted fashion. Pretty much any challenging but enjoyable group activity that
involves mixing with other people will do the trick, but if you are feeling daunted, I’d
aim for a hobby, sport or game that immediately strikes you as especially fun or
interesting, as this will help sustain your motivation and help you overcome any
trepidation you might be feeling.

When I took this approach in my own life, I opted for a twice-weekly boxfit exercise class
that required pair-work and group activities – crucially, the physical challenge of the
tasks fostered camaraderie and, as a class, we often ended up laughing together and
supporting each other. As long as you show up regularly over time to such an activity,
you’re effectively shaping your character from the outside in, as the situation demands
that you come out of your shell, even if only modestly.
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During her extraverted year, Jessica Pan signed up for an improvisational theatre group,
and she specifically recommends looking for a newly launched group programme or
class so you have the advantage of everyone being new and in the same position. ‘I think
if you sign up for something and you put down money, you’re much more likely to do it,
and you meet loads of other people who are totally new at it as well. You just don’t feel as
scared because everyone’s in the same boat as you and everybody’s a beginner.’ She also
mentions that it can help to set yourself small goals when you go to these kind of events:
‘Just tell yourself you’ll talk to two people at the first day, even if it’s just literally “How
did you get here?” or “Why did you sign up?” And then, the next time, talk to them for
two minutes each or something. A tiny goal like that can be really helpful.’

Consider your overarching values and goals

Without a larger context or ambition, aiming to become more extraverted for the sake of
it is likely, before long, to become a slog. You are far more likely to succeed if your desire
for change serves a more meaningful value or goal. Consistent with this advice, research
has shown that changes in goals and priorities more often precede personality trait
change than the other way around.

For instance, say your newly launched business is your passion and you recognise that,
to succeed, you will need to put yourself out in the world far more than is currently in
your nature to do. Or perhaps, for you, a priority in life is to be the best possible parent to
6 young children, and you realise that, if they are to have a flourishing social life
your
outside of school, you will need to get to know the parents of your kids’ friends. Maybe
you have simply been struck by the shortness and fragility of this existence, and you are
experiencing an overwhelming desire to live more fully. In all these scenarios, increasing
your trait extraversion could help you be who you want and live according to your
priorities.

For a compelling, real-life example of an overriding goal driving a commitment to

personal change toward greater extraversion, consider the Nigerian activist Florence
Ozor, one of the leaders of the Bring Back Our Girls movement (established to raise the
profile of the plight of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014). Writing in her
book Insight (2017), the US psychologist Tasha Eurich describes how Ozor, a strong
introvert, realised early in her work that, to achieve the change she wanted, she needed
to act more like an extravert. ‘Never again will I run away from something just because
I’m scared of the spotlight,’ Ozor vowed to herself. True to her word, she became bolder
and more assertive, and went on to found the influential Florence Ozor Foundation that
aims to empower women in Nigeria.

So, it is worth spending some time carefully reflecting on why you wish to come out of
your shell. What is your larger reason for desiring this change? If you currently feel that
you lack any big, overriding purpose, passion or higher calling, I would recommend that
you begin the process of personal change by first reflecting on what matters to you and
who, ultimately, you want to be (to aid this process, read lots – memoirs, novels, history
and more – experiment with different activities and listen to other people’s stories). If,
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after careful reflection, you believe that enhancing your extraversion will help you serve
your overriding purpose or goals, now you will be so much more motivated. This will
help compel you on toward more lasting and significant change, to escape your shell and
live the life you want.

Key points
• The introversion-extraversion dimension is one of the Big Five personality traits.
Although they are meaningful and relatively stable constructs, the Big Five traits
are not set in stone, and you can choose to change.

• There are advantages and disadvantages to being more of an introvert or an

extravert. However, there are important reasons why you might wish to come out
of your shell by dialling up your extraversion, including potential benefits for your
health, career and relationships.

• You can increase your willingness and ability to come out of your shell by making
efforts to change yourself from the inside out, the outside in, and by considering
your overarching values and goals.

• ‘Inside out’ strategies will alter your habits of thought, feeling and behaviour,
6 increasing your sociability, optimism and confidence.
 • ‘Outside in’ strategies, such as signing up to group classes, will help you take
intentional control over the environmental forces shaping your personality,
including the company you keep and the activities you undertake.

• You are more likely to succeed at deliberate personality change if it is in the service
of some higher aim in life, helping you live more closely aligned to your values, so
spend time considering those goals and values and how coming out of your shell
will help you reach them.

• It is not fake to aspire to be who you want to be. Don’t let anyone tell you that
staying hidden in your shell is part of who you really are.

Learn more
Dealing with fears of being inauthentic or faking it

It is not fake to choose to change one or more of your personality traits, so that you
might live more in tune with your hopes and aspirations in life. Those hopes and desires
are a part of you. It’s not as if your personality traits fully encompass who you are as a
person – there’s also your values, your passions, morals, tastes and ambitions. That said,
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I completely understand that you might have reservations about purposefully acting ‘out
of character’.
I know many introverts take pride in being more quiet and reserved than average, and
they naturally baulk at the notion that they should change in order to fit into a noisy
world. If you are completely content with how you are, and you do not feel your
introversion is an obstacle to what matters to you in life, then that is a wonderful place
to be. I don’t believe anyone should feel pressured to act more like an extravert just to fit
in with cultural expectations.

However, if like Jessica Pan and me (and many others, according to surveys), you feel
frustrated by your levels of introversion – if you have a nagging sense that your
aspirations and need for connection are thwarted by your aversion to risk, challenge and
social engagement – then it is not fake or inauthentic to cultivate a more outgoing
personality.

‘If someone wants to change something about their personality, I don’t see why that
would be any more inauthentic than wanting to eat healthier, for example,’ says Rodica
Damian. ‘Do we say that people who change their lifestyle to eat healthier on a daily
basis are fake just because they used to eat unhealthy before? They just made a choice
for themselves, had the resources to make that choice, and worked at it consistently
until the change stuck.’

These sentiments are backed up by research that involved asking people to write about
times when they felt most authentic in life; people tended to report feeling authentic
6 often in situations in which they were acting in line with their ‘ideal self’, that is,
more
more like the kind of person they aspired to be, rather than their actual current self.
Similarly, other studies have shown that, regardless of our baseline traits, people tend to
feel more real or authentic when they are acting more extraverted – probably because
we’re more likely to act this way when we’re feeling happy, confident and socially
connected. Still further research has found that people tend to report feeling more
authentic in relationships in which their partner allowed them to act as their ideal self
(rather than their actual self).

All of these findings speak to the idea that you should not feel tied to some mystical
notion of what makes you ‘you’. You aren’t being disloyal to yourself by seeking to
change. Bear in mind that you will change anyway – each day, as you learn new things
and live through experiences, life is leaving its mark on you. You’re a work in progress
and, if anything, seeking to take intentional control over how you mature and evolve is
the opposite of inauthenticity – in fact, you’re being true to yourself by bringing about
the changes you desire.

So, don’t let anyone tell you that you should stay hiding in your shell because that’s who
‘you’ are. If you want to poke your head out and live a little more dangerously, go for it.

Links & books

My6 book Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change (2021) provides
many more exercises and inspiring stories to help you increase your extraversion (and
develop your other traits).

Both my book and this Guide are grounded in the Big Five model of personality. Colby
Personality Lab, led by Christopher Soto at Colby College in Maine, hosts various free
tests to discover your own personality trait profile.

In this TEDx talk from 2016, Abigail Smith, an undergraduate at St Lawrence University,
describes what she calls her ‘introvert’s challenge’ – finding ways to act more extraverted
and make her voice heard.

In another TEDx talk, from 2018, the personality change researcher Nathan Hudson at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas describes his findings, including the need to
adopt specific new habitual behaviours in order to achieve lasting trait changes.

That same year, I gave an in-depth lecture (recently made available on YouTube) for the
Weekend University in London, on the science of personality change, expanding upon
some of the key principles and theory underlying this Guide.

I’ve appeared on many podcasts to discuss the science of personality change, including
ways to become more extraverted, such as The Next Big Idea, The Psychology Podcast
and the Instant Genius Podcast.

Mirjam Stieger’s personality change app is not yet available for public use, but you can
read
6 more about it and follow its development via the project website.
Jessica Pan’s book Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come (2020) tells the story of her year-
long self-experiment at living as an extravert. The book also features useful advice that
she received from experts along the way.

8 SEPTEMBER 2021