Had a pretty good week at work

Normally I post when stuff goes awry (and am also very thankful for replies and comments from other users) but this week I actually had a small advancement and thought I'd share!

I'm pretty socially anxious (read "very") and work a retail job in which customers come to me etc. and usually I just feel really nervous and freak out mentally and am unable to think when this happens. It's such a bummer since I just faze out and try and do my best but can't really think on my feet and it's such a hindrance.

This week my goal for the weekdays was to be "more assertive" (really vague I know, but I sometimes set different goals in a given week to I guess broaden my horizons). Again I'm pretty reclusive and anxious around others so thought about trying to just "put myself out there"

To my surprise, these past few days, I actually felt a lot better and more confident! I'm still nervous talking to colleagues but whenever a customer came to me for help during work I felt (wait for it) calm and pretty collected. I got a little bit into a rhythm of feeling more confident. Since I don't work at the place very long (which used to freak me out since I don't have a lot of knowledge) many times I have figure stuff out along with the customer etc. but trying to do my best do my surprise it felt a lot of customers were grateful! Even when I couldn't help them or didn't have the knowledge they seemed appreciative (in previous experiences this would always make me feel terrible and make the conversation turn awkward and I'd feel bad) and thankful that I tried to help them which I never could've imagined (how can people be thankful if you screw up? though that probably tells a lot about my way of thinking too). It really made me pause on a personal level since I'd never imagine to be one of those employees customers seemed to enjoy talking to and put customers at ease when they were dissatisfied but it came pretty naturally at times and I even felt in tune with the customer's wishes & the customers seemed feel satisfied emotionally too (don't know if that's a weird thing to say but it seemed that way).

Maybe a little bit of a rant but all of this to say I guess this week was pretty good! My takeaway from this experience is that being assertive really worked in some situations (dealing with customers, but also other business related stuff) and also with colleagues only I noticed social talk is still awkward even if you put yourself out there lol. But it felt better at the very least.

If you got this far thanks for reading. My life is pretty messy atm but I feel for the first time I "got" how some other people must feel talking to others (aka not frantically internally panicking 24/7) and it was touching even a bit seeing myself having these moments where I got to such a place as well. There may be hope yet is what I guess I'm saying, lol, thanks for partaking here in this positive experience of mine.