The workplace can be a bustling center filled with personalities and people of every background. People come together at work from all over the country — and even the world — and bring forth a plethora of different skills and talents to contribute to the betterment of the business. In an environment like this, it can be difficult to find your place and stand out in your own right, especially if you have an introverted personality.

Being an introvert is not challenging, but being an introvert in a workplace surrounded by go-getter extroverts can be daunting. Often, introverts feel so left out of the workplace conversation that opportunities for growth fall by the wayside as extroverts step in for the taking.

If you have excellent coworkers who support your growth, you may have an extrovert co-worker who sticks up for you on your behalf and relays your individual talents to supervisors. This can be beneficial to introverts, but it can also set them back in their development toward being more vocal about their desires.

In other scenarios, introverts can feel like they aren’t pulling their weight on the team because a coworker has outpaced or outperformed them. These are all real concerns that introverts at work worry about.

What introverts in the workplace need to realize is that there are calculated moments when your introversion will benefit you and calculated moments when it will hinder you. The best thing you can do as an introvert is to learn when these moments are present and how to disable them from crippling your development.

5 Ways Introverts Can Stand Out at Work

1. Use Your Quiet Time to Get Ahead

Most jobs have some amount of downtime, whether that is one or three hours of the day. This quiet time can serve to make you more productive or less productive, depending on how you choose to use it. For introverts, this quiet time often turns into the most productive part of their day.

Introverts thrive in silence. It is some of the only time they are able to improve creativity and efficiency while maintaining a comfortable environment that enables them to be successful. Use this to your advantage. Save your downtime and your quiet time throughout the day for your highest priorities and important tasks.

2. Set Up One-on-One Meetings With Your Supervisor

If group meetings tend to be the place that you shy away the most, use one-on-one meetings to really communicate your ideas and skills to your supervisor. Take the opportunity to be out of the spotlight to get your most impressive ideas on the table and your foot in the door.

Your supervisor can also work as your mediator should your introversion keep you from performing to their high standards. Or, in the more difficult position, supervisors can help you manage relationships with potentially difficult co-workers or people in the office you feel deter your attention and focus.

3. Take On Individual Projects

Group projects are the introvert’s nightmare. Introverts will tend to do one of two things in a group setting: either do all the work so they can avoid confrontation or they will shy away from work thinking their counterparts can do a better job. Both of these are probably the incorrect method for completing group projects in a work setting. Everyone within the group needs to participate and do an equal share of work for the project to be equitable for everyone.

If you are an introvert who falls back into one of those two above options, consider going to the manager for individual projects. Businesses are always growing and innovating and there is rarely a time when all the work is done and little needs to be complete.

Go see your manager and ask them about new projects, new focuses, ideas, and notions being shot around the conference table. Find an area of your expertise that you can then request some private work in. Your manager will appreciate your motivated attitude and you will score some much-needed confidence points.

[RELATED: How To Market Yourself When You’re an Introvert]

4. Be Strong When You Need To Be

This is probably the most challenging piece of advice to give an introvert: be confident and strong. These traits don’t come inherently well to introverts as they tend to be slightly more meek and calm in scenarios than forceful or demanding. However, having this resource in your toolkit can be extremely beneficial to the introvert in the office.

When you feel even a tinge of passion about a specific topic, whether that is a debate during your weekly brainstorm, a project needing to be completed, or research that must be done, you need to find the confidence in your voice to stand up and ask for these tasks. Don’t sit on the sidelines while others have their glory. Join the glory by promoting yourself in your workplace. You will be surprised how much happiness employees gain from being confident at work.

5. Make Your Strengths Known

Introverts are extremely strong employees. Some might argue that introverts make the best employees for a number of reasons. Introverts have strong characteristics that make them optimal for the workplace including time sensitivity, empathy, concentration, and productivity.

If you possess a specific skill or strength that is required to complete a certain task, volunteer for that task and make your qualifications known. If the project calls for someone with excellent spreadsheet knowledge and you happen to have that, stand up and tell your managers that you are the right person for the job.

Being an introvert at work doesn’t have to be impossible or difficult. There are plenty of opportunities for all employees no matter what their personality type; it all depends on whether or not you have spotted these opportunities as they pass by. Be the introvert in the office who always knows what’s going on by reading memos, checking bulletin boards, meeting with your supervisors, and more.

If you know your office inside and out, there is nothing you can’t accomplish, even if you feel your introversion is holding you back.