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Shyness is one of the most painful experiences of growing up. A few moments of embarrassment by daring to ask or say what you want, could save you months, perhaps years, of frustration or wrong directions.

Getting drunk doesn't cure shyness. Tomorrow you'll be sober and you'll still be shy. You have to learn to beat shyness face on in every situation, and it only postpones the battle if you resort to drink or other drugs. Worse still, you can very quickly start relying on drink and other drugs and then addiction might be just around the corner.

It's too easy to spend a lot of time knocking yourself down. Don't constantly attack yourself with criticism that you probably wouldn't say to your worst enemy. Nourish yourself.

Group or team activities build confidence - they allow the shyer individual to draw strength from the group until they're confident enough to do things alone.

Play to your strengths. Find a core of confidence and build on it.

The way to get the best from someone is encouragement: try it on yourself.

Self-confidence can often come about once you establish clarity of direction and a sense of identity that you're comfortable with.

The moment you start comparing yourself to those around you, you're doomed to feel unhappy. Better to simply look at yourself and improve upon that.

Learning to speak well is also learning to listen well. If you're worried about speaking, you'll be pretty poor at listening, too, because you'll be worrying about when it'll be your turn to say something. Try asking yourself if you could repeat back in your own words what the other person has just said.

Constantly develop your ability to use words well - both the written and spoken word. The former will help the latter, and the latter is increasingly the more important. Your good ideas will not receive the recognition they deserve unless you can express them well. So learn to talk on your feet, and to choose the right words for the moment. All of this takes practice, which itself will require you to get involved with the sorts of activities that will allow you to hone these skills: debating societies, discussions with friends, or just sticking your hand up in class and daring to engage in debate. We all find it rather terrifying, but make every effort to do it anyway.

Don't let fear make your decisions for you.

I spoke with a stammer throughout my adolescence and early twenties, which was a real drag because there were no men, no heroes, who stammered - or so I thought - and so I couldn't quite see where I would fit in to the world. What I did not realise, was that my stammer placed me in the good company of Charles Darwin, Sir Winston Churchill, Siegfried Sassoon and, more latterly, Dr. Jonathan Miller, Rowan Atkinson, Bruce Willis and many other men and women by whose achievements I would have been much inspired. I would urge anyone with an enduring problem to find out who else might have overcome something similar. It helps you to appreciate just how much is still open to you far beyond that one difficult part of yourself.

If you're not keen on the sound of your own voice, take speech training lessons, in the same way you'd go to an aerobics class to tone up your muscles.

If you're doing an important interview, or talking in public, just think of yourself sitting in a front-room talking to a friend.

Find a niche for yourself in which your contribution counts and those around you value your being there. It might be a club or society or a circle of friends, preferably with some unifying purpose. But don't hide there. Use that niche as a secure homebase from which to explore other worlds.

Acquiring as much confidence as possible can only come about by doing things, and preferably doing things well. Acquire the confidence to initiate things for yourself - to act rather than react.

Setting manageable goals is the way to satisfaction. It's easier to build up confidence with small successes and then build upon those, rather than setting yourself some overwhelming task.

You have to take every opportunity to practice being bold with the really small challenges, and this makes it easier when the big stuff comes along. Don't waste any opportunity to go beyond your 'comfort zone' and get a little bit out of your depth, because you'll be building your bravery muscles when you do so - and you'll need these to go for the stuff you really want. For instance, you'd build up to asking someone for a date, by daring to ask the tutor a few questions out loud in class.

Everyone is scared of a whole range of new experiences: giving a speech, making a journey, asking for a date. Take tiny and gradual steps at first, because the more often you do, and if you go a little further each time, you will beat your fear. The sense of satisfaction and pride and the idea that "anything's possible!'" will be very rewarding indeed, and far outweigh all the embarrassment. You might also think about who would make a good friend or coach to help you do this.

Try imagining you are a leading performer in your field - someone you respect. You'll be surprised how this 'impersonation', this 'act', can improve your own performance. This is a good illustration of how your self-concept can effect you and let you push through your previous limits.

It's only after I had messed up half-a-dozen major things over the same number of years, that I really got the hang of failure. I began to recognise its warning signals, and that's when I started achieving my major goals.

If you're good at something, develop that skill because it can bring a great sense of pride.

Try not to live in fear of things going wrong or of people disapproving.

Fear of what other people might say about us, is often a much greater barrier to doing things than is shortage of time or money. We have to learn to listen to our own heart beating, not other people's whispers.

Sometimes all a situation needs is for one single individual to stand up and say "Things can be different, can be better, and I'm going to show you how".

You'll feel so much more at ease with yourself when you start taking more of an interest in other people's lives. You'll learn more, too. Being self-centred is just a bad habit.

The pain of some embarrassment now could very well spare you the bitter regret and the shame of wrong directions and unfulfilled ambitions. You may be embarrassed but you should also feel brave because you were brave enough to ask and to speak your mind.