2 Sneaky Confidence Killers

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about two confidence kids, killers. And it's as important as it is to know the steps to build confidence, it's also very important to know what takes confidence. Because you could be doing a lot of things to strengthen your confidence and sense of self esteem and sense of capability. But then if you're doing a bunch of stuff that actually detracts, you end up being kind of net neutral, right? So we want to become aware of the things we're doing. Obviously, one of the big ones that we talk about a lot on this show is, you know, the relationship between you and you, how you talk to yourself. And in a recent episode, we talked about the most important decision of your life, which is related to this. So if you haven't listened to that one, it's just a couple of back. Give it a listen. After this episode, we also have an upcoming episode that's the fourth in a series of life skills for confidence or confidence life Confidence skills for life. And the fourth one there is about self talk. So we're gonna get more specific strategies on how to treat yourself. So that's a huge one. But there's two sneaky ones that they kind of go hand in hand. So I'm going to lump them together in today's episode. And by seeing what you're doing here or how you're playing, as it were, each day in your life, you're going to discover things that you can shift, things you can optimize so you can show up with more confidence, more progress, more sense of possibility, capability, and ultimately feeling like you are the captain of your ship. So what are these two killers? Well, let me demonstrate with a little story. Imagine this scenario. You wake up in the morning, you reach for your phone, maybe to turn off your alarm or whatever woke you up, and you flick it open to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or your well, let's start with those. Or maybe your email, actually. Or do you go to your text messages? Do you go straight to your phone? When you first wake up, what do you do? Do you start listening to something right away? What do you do when you first get into the office? If you work. If you work in an office, maybe you work from home right now, whatever is when you first sit down to start your workday, what do you do? These are just. Maybe we're going to highlight certain things because one of the most sort of detrimental things for our confidence is to fall into either reactivity or passivity. Those are the two confidence killers I want to talk about today. Reactivity and passivity. And those ways of being that I just described. How you start your day, how you show up to work, those set you up for reactivity and passivity. So let's talk about what those are. Passivity is kind of being in a more sort of a lower energy state. You're probably more sedentary, maybe even lying down, and you're just receiving information. You're taking it in. Now, passivity in itself isn't a problem. If you want to sit down and watch a movie or something, you're going to be in a pretty passive state. So inherently, passivity isn't bad or wrong. It's just if it becomes habit and it becomes default, it becomes what you do, no matter what becomes default. When you're, you know, when you're chilling out, watching a movie, you're intending to be passive, but is that how you want to be at work? Is that how you want to be in a relationship? Is that how you want to be in your health? Typically, not typically want to create something. We want to be more active so that passivity becomes a pattern and there's an inertia to it. There's a momentum to it. We get into kind of a. Just a little bit of almost laziness where I'll see this in myself. I've had periods where I come into the office and I'm like, boom. You know, recording one of these or taking action or I got my clear plan of what I'm gonna do. But let me check that thing at my desk. And then I'm sitting at my desk and it's just. It's easier to sit at a desk and just, you know, receive stuff than it is to, I don't know, create something or do something or output something. Right now, of course, once you get in the creating or the outputting or same thing for working out, it's easier to be passive and just lay in bed and hit the snooze. And it takes something to get up and get active. But once you do it, once you start getting up and getting active, once I start the recording, once we start being in something, the energy starts to shift. But if we're not aware of it, we can fall into these passive states. And once we're in that, we kind of just desire to keep doing it. I mean, even the example of chilling out and watching a movie, haven't you ever seen how you watch, especially if it's Netflix shows? You watch one, you're like, oh, it's pretty good. Yeah, let's watch another. Oh, wait, Netflix is already automatically starting it. Well, I guess I'm not gonna get up now, right? And so you can do again and again and again. And then after doing that for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hours, how active do you feel? So passivity kind of has this gravitational pull towards it that makes it more and more difficult to switch into active. And we typically combine. So there's passivity that might just be like total chilling out or procrastination or avoiding. But then there's the other side of it, which is reactivity. So a lot of the time we're doing stuff in a passive state that's taking in information. That also increases our reactivity. Because reactivity being, I wait for something to come to me and then I do something about it. And so maybe you're opening emails and then you're deciding what to do based upon the emails that you saw, or you are scrolling through some sort of social media and you are reacting based upon what information is coming your way. Make sense? So the reason this is problematic for confidence is because you are all over the place. You have no idea what's coming your way. And there's a sense of probably a lack of priority of what to respond to, in what order and what's important. There may even be emotional reactivity too, where certain things are provocative or scary or frustrating or irritating, or you're not sure or discouraging. You might have all these emotional reactions, and then maybe you're not even doing that much with the information. You're just kind of taking it in. And this is the opposite of an energized, directed, determined state. And that that's the place that confidence is born. That's the place that confidence is created from. And that's how we sustain confidence, is to be in high energy. And when I say high energy, I mean energized. That doesn't necessarily mean you're jumping off the walls with seven cups of coffee. You know, being in a flow state is an energized state. Being in a grateful state is an energized state. Being focused, you could be still at your desk focused. You're not jumping up and down, you're not being crazy, but you're in a high energy state. So we want to be in that place taking action, creating things, basically flipping passivity and reactivity to being on offense, where you're like, you know what? I am going to, what is it? I'm going to direct, I'm going to decide, I'm going to take care of things. This is what I want to do, this is what I want to create, this is what I don't want to do. This is the order of things. And you make those decisions and you follow through on them. Can you just feel even as you're listening to it, doesn't it feel more empowering? Doesn't it feel more energizing? Maybe it's even galvanizing or inspiring you to want to start to shift that way. So just take a moment and reflect on your own life. You know, have you ever been in a place where you maybe a time in your life, it could just be a week ago, it could be right now, it could be a year ago, five years ago, it doesn't matter when you just felt fully on it, fully confident in a certain area of your life. Maybe it was in your workplace, maybe it was in your love life, maybe it was in dating, maybe it was in your health, where you just felt like in charge, believing in yourself, doing things, just really fully living with confidence and reflect on that time. Were you being passive? Were you being reactive? Or were you being proactive? Were you on offense? Were you taking massive action? Were you taking risks? Were you being decisive? Were you creating momentum in a certain direction by just doing a lot of things one after another? Like, just see for yourself. Because if you see for yourself what your pattern is and it might be slightly different than what I'm talking about, that's fine. Whatever you discover is useful for you. Because then you want to say, okay, how do I bring more of this now? Where can I apply this in my life? In fact, what area of my life might need a little bit of a tune up? Where might you tighten up the ship and find yourself in maybe a better place because you're switching out of that? So let's take stock here. I gave the example of waking up in the morning when you first get to work. I think the beginning of things is very interesting because it kind of sets the stage. But in general, are you in a more passive reactive state right now in a certain area of your life? And if so, just let's take a look at it, see what is. So let's name it, let's acknowledge it. And then the question would be, what's the effect of that really studying? Like, how do I feel? Does it serve me? Is it productive? Is it empowering? Is it energizing? Or is there some sort of. Maybe if we deal with the things that are not those things, usually it gives us some payoff. There's some like easy addictive quality to it. Like it just feels good. I don't know, I don't want to think about the effects. Come on, man. And so, okay, let's just take a look at it though. Because living in denial of something or ignoring it doesn't actually allow us to be our most bold, authentic selves who's living our full potential. That's what we unleash with confidence. And confidence is not some one time thing or something that you magically pull out, you know, somehow just comes out of nowhere and you have it when you need it. No, confidence is a muscle. And this is part of the gym. Am I living in a place of being on offense, being proactive almost the whole day? And maybe there's some times where you're kind of chilling or being receptive, but for the most part, how much are you outputting, creating, deciding. And if you're being more passive or receptive, you know, what are you taking in? Because it's very different to go on a walk or on a run or just sit outside and breathe and listen to the birds and feel the wind against your face. That, that might be passive, that's going to be recharging, that's not going to put you into a reactive state, that's going to put you into more of a proactive state, that's going to put you into a higher energy state because you're not bombarding yourself with stimulus the whole time. Stimulus that's making you have all these different emotional reactions. And the reason we keep doing it is because we're addicted to it. I mean, let's be honest, how many of us on some level are addicted to tech? I mean, we don't call it that, but. Because everyone's doing it. But it's a fascinating time that we live in. I mean, we have these devices and we use them. You probably use it for social life. For sure. Dating, relationships work. You know, I'm texting with my wife throughout the day, sending Marco Polos to people. I got slack on my phone, I got messenger's on my phone, I got different investment tracking things on my phone. So different types of family, relationships, friendships, work. I mean, it's all on there. And there's just so many ways that we can check it when we don't need to, that we can just pick it up because it's there. And every time we do it, I like to think of it as like. And this isn't like a. Some abstinence thing where it's like, you can't use that device, you know, lock it in a drawer and never look at it. It's like, how do we regain a sense of. I'm using this in just the way that I want. I'm using it as a tool. And I am deciding, I am the captain of my ship. And, you know, once you've decided, I've seen this for myself, sometimes I'll decide like, okay, I'm not gonna look at my phone at this time. I do this instead and that and that. And then the next day I'm doing it again. Right? That's where I talk about the addiction quality to it, or the, you know, maybe you want to call it habit or compulsion or something if you don't like that word, addiction for this. But to me, I just use. I. You know, I call it like that because it's got. It does have this. You know, these different parts inside of us are choosing at different times. And it feels like, wait a minute, I'm doing this thing that I thought I chose not to do. Wait a minute. And to me, that's addiction. It's like, oh, hold on a second here, who's the captain? So are there any tweaks that you're seeing? Any changes you'd like to make? And if so, what might they be? Where is there some slippage? Where is there some things that you think could be significantly better? And what would you want to shift? Even if it's just small, you could brainstorm a few things right now. Here we go. This isn't like a. Oh, maybe later in my life, like right now. Is it something in your work? Maybe you have some messy pile of papers. It's like, oh, God, I gotta get to that. Ugh, I don't know, maybe later. That's not me, by the way. My desk is pristine. Pristine, I tell you. And look, don't get overwhelmed. Like, oh, my God, jeez, I could change 700 things at once. No, we're just looking at it. What could it be? You're not going to change everything at once. But we want to pick one thing. Is it changing what you do when you first wake up in the morning? Do you want to go on a little challenge or cleanse or whatever you want to call it? What if you didn't look at your phone for the first or the last hour of your waking day? What? Unheard of, unacceptable. Reject that one immediately. What would I do while I poop? I can't. It's impossible. I gotta look at something, right? I mean, it's funny, but it's true. So maybe you want to play with that one. I've definitely done that at different times in my life and I have clients of mine have done that. Maybe there's something you want to do with your work. I remember I read this book called Deep Work, which I think is fantastic by Cal Newport and, and setting. Can you. I mean, first of all, you could learn about that concept. He probably has a TED Talk or something about it. If you don't want to read the whole book, just go to YouTube and type in Deep Work. But it's really about blocking off time with no distractions to really focus in on and building it like a muscle. Because the more we check things repeatedly, the more we atrophy our focus muscle and our ability to stay in sustained concentration and do deep work. So I'm throwing a lot of potential ideas out here just to see what sticks, because I know that and I've seen this not only with so many clients, but my own self. And this isn't just like a set it and forget it. Like you get into a certain state and you're done. I feel like the same thing with your health and fitness. You might have a period where you're working out and you kind of period where you get a little off your game. And then we want to tighten that up. And it's the same thing with this right here. We want to tighten it up. Because I'll tell you this, if there's a day where you wake up and you're not like checking your email and random stuff on your phone in the beginning, instead you wake up and I don't know, maybe you still want to have your phone, you want to listen to some music or something, but you put on some music that makes you feel good, get some water, go do some exercise, come back, eat some breakfast, maybe talk to somebody, maybe you are using your phone but you're communicating with a friend or doing something that feels like it's connecting or connecting with the humans around you. If you live with other people, then you go to work. And right when you get to work, you know, like, these are the top three things I am for sure gonna get done today. And you start on the number one. What's his name? Brian Tracy calls it eat the frog. So you start with the thing you least want to do that day and you just crush it in the first 60 minutes and it's a focus 60 or focus 90 minutes, where you're not looking at email, you're not doing other stuff. And then you're like, you know what? I'm going to look at my email, but it's not going to be until 12:30 or 1:00 clock after lunch when I'm kind of late. Passive and lazy. Anyway, after eating. Depends on what you're eating. You don't have to be lazy or passive after you eat if you're eating whole foods and not super rich things. But in any case, imagine that. And then you have this focus burst of activity where you're doing your emails or whatever you need to. What's that next project? What's that thing? Oh my gosh, I'm nervous about that thing. All right, let's go do it. And you lean in and you strike and you attack. And look, you don't finish it all on a day. Maybe it's something that's big or overwhelming. Great. You attack it and you want to add even more juice to this. Track your wins a couple times a day. Write out, hey, I did that thing. Way to go me. Give yourself that pat on the back. It seems silly, but it boosts your energy. Acknowledge what you've done. Acknowledge it to yourself. Maybe acknowledge it to someone else. This is just a hypothetical workday. This is what sounds good to me. Maybe you don't work in a similar situation, maybe you do something else, but you got to construct your own. But I tell you what, at the end of a day like that, you're going to feel radically different. You're going to feel more energized, more capable. And here's the thing, confidence is a byproduct of action. So the more you get into offense, the more actions you're taking, the more confidence you start to stockpile. So let's turn this into an action step right now. Time for action. Action. Action. During this episode with me, you've been brainstorming a lot of different things, right? Different ideas are coming to you. Okay? Instead of, I'm gonna think on that more and maybe pick something later. No, just like, what, what is one thing? One tweak and it might be stopping something or starting something or changing something. A little habit, a decision. What is it? What's one thing? And what you want to do is you want to make it micro, make it small so it's sustainable, and do that for a week. So, for example, if you're like, I'm not going to look at my phone in the morning, that's a common one. I first wake up, okay? Instead of saying, I'm not going to look at my phone until 10am or lunchtime or something extreme, just say, you know what? For a week, I'm not gonna look at my phone for the first 20 minutes after I wake up. That's it. Maybe if you have an alarm on your phone, you're gonna hit the alarm and then you're not gonna put it down and go do something else for 20 minutes or whatever I'm making up. See how it's a small thing or five minutes. You wanna make it something that you can win at. You want to do it for seven days and then you're going to start to build momentum and you want to go a little further. You know what? I did it for seven days. Let's do another seven days and let's make it 30 minutes or whatever it is for you. I'm going to. I got this big pile of shit on my desk I got to take care of. Instead of, oh my gosh, I'm going to set aside four hours over the weekend to do it. It's like, oh my gosh, no, hey, I'm going to spend five minutes each workday and just set a timer and hack at this pile for five minutes in five days. That's 25 minutes. It's about a half hour. And you might even find that after you've done the five minutes, maybe you want to do another five minutes, another 10 minutes. You got some momentum now, but you want to set this up. These are called microhabits or mini habits. They start to build upon themselves and get you momentum. So I want you to pick one small thing, tweak that you're going to make that's going to put you out of passivity and reactivity into more offense, proactivity, taking on your life. Feel like you're the captain of your ship, being the master of your destiny and building confidence like a maniac. Fantastic. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com. Sam.