Intel Mac won’t boot into safe mode

Trying to boot my Intel Mac into safe mode but every time I try it just does a normal boot.

here is what I do. I click on apple then hit shutdown. Once system is off I then hit power button immediately followed by holding down the shift key which I hold down until it it goes to the login screen which then I would release and put in my login info but then it would still only load normal. I now have it automatically just log into my account and when doing the above steps I no longer have to enter my login info and it still just loads normal mode.

what am I missing here?