How To Overcome Being Shy and In Love

I'm a shy person, and I always have been. I'm not nearly as bad as I use to be, but I still have difficulties whenever I'm around new people or women I have affection for. It brings along many difficulties, but I am learning to deal with them as they come.
During my high school days, I never had the courage to stand up for myself and tell the person I loved how much I wanted to be with them. This, of course, led to many heartbreaks and failures.
Being shy is not something which should be taken lightly and is something which needed to be changed. However, there wasn't anything I could do overnight to make myself not shy any longer.

Nonetheless, these few things have helped me become at least reasonable in social situations:
I try to talk first. I ask "how are you?" Even if I am feeling shy, I force myself.I try to be curious and ask questions. If anything is on my mind, I ask.I try not to think about what the other person is thinking. I simply do my thing and live with it. They will think what they want to think no matter what I do or don't do anyway, so why worry about it?
OK, OK, these have only helped in the long run, but not in a short period of time needed for something like say, asking a girl to prom.
So what can you do today to display your love?
Write a letter. Letters can be seen as desperate or cheap. However, if written to display true feelings and meaning and the other person feels the same way, they can go a long way.
Talk. Force it. Keep repeating in your mind, "If I don't talk now, I may lose her/him forever." Ask them questions. If you love them, you obviously find something interesting about them or have something in common. Talk about it.
Take it slow. No, do not try to be friends--that hardly ever works in your favor. But take it slow as in, ask to go out somewhere you feel comfortable with. Do you have a favorite cafe? Ask them to come with you. You don't have to mention it as a date, but let them know you are interested, especially once you are there. Do not let the relationship slip into the "friend zone."
Sounds easy, right? OK, probably not. You are most likely sweating at the thought of doing these. However, you have to! Do it for yourself. Do it because your only other choice is to lose the one you love without a fight. So fight! Fight with yourself and force yourself to become unshy for just this one moment of your life. Do it and you will overcome your worst nightmare. Do it and become who you ought to be. Do it and perhaps you will have the love of your life.
Read more about love as Love Quotations or check out some Love Poetry.