3 Daily Habits To Building Unlimited Confidence

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today is going to be fun because we're going to be talking about what you can do on a daily basis to build more confidence. In fact, habits that you can set into place that the more you practice them, the more they become a part of who you are and just what you do each day. And as you probably have discovered in your life, when you're first doing something, there's effort. You have to figure out how it's going to work in your schedule. But once something becomes a habit, it stops taking so much effort, and it's just something you do. You probably have at least one habit in your life, maybe more and more. And some of them are positive, and some of them might be negative. And, you know, perhaps your one habit is you roll out of bed and have a cigarette and a coffee. That's a habit very easy to do. Might not build the life that you want, but what we're gonna be talking about is how to cultivate habits that are gonna give you confidence. And I'm excited because we have co host Amber with us today. Coach Amber. Hey.

Hey.

Awesome. Good to have you with us today. And what we did is, is we each came up with our top three that we'd recommend. And she came up with a list independently of me, and I came up with a list, and we're gonna compare. I wish I had, like, a drum roll queued up. Maybe we'll do that in post editing. And so let me ask you, actually, are your three, Amber, just in any old order, or is there, like, top one, two, and three? Like, one is clearly the most important, and then the second and the third.

No, they're just in random order.

Okay. All right. Well, yeah, I think mine are like that, too. I don't know if there's. Because they all kind of work together, and you want to do. You kind of want to do all of them. So let's kick it off. What's your. We'll go back and forth. What's your first. In fact, one other thing I'm going to say about this, just if you're listening to this, take just one moment right now to think about do you have, do you currently have any habit that you do for confidence? And that could be any sort of confidence. That could be social confidence, that could be self confidence, feeling good about yourself. That could be. Feel better about yourself in your relationships or at work. Just is there anything you do on a daily basis and just notice that. And maybe there's already stuff you got lined up, maybe there's nothing. And either way, that's good information for you to have. So that way, when you're hearing us talk about this stuff, almost maybe start thinking about it like a buffet. And you get to pick one of these. And I wouldn't recommend picking all six, just picking one of them. And which one could I implement in my life? And which one sounds best to me? Because if it sounds good to you and you're drawn towards it, you're probably more likely to do it consistently. So I wanted to just kind of make that, make it an engaged process here when you're listening. So, Amber, what do you got for one of your habits?

Okay, my first habit is working out.

Working out. Getting ripped. I like it. Yeah, that'll give you the confidence you seek.

So I wrote working out because I think that's actually the best thing you can do for body confidence. If you're struggling with your self image and your body and feeling comfortable in the body that you have, working out is the best thing you can do, even if it doesn't change your body drastically. I don't think anybody could tell that I started working out if they just looked at me now. And like six months ago, like, I've always worked out, but I started lifting weights and stuff. However, since I started doing that, I like my body so much better and I feel much more appreciative of it. And I just, I feel so much more comfortable in my skin.

Yeah, I found that's really interesting. I found that with working out, too. I've been doing it pretty consistently also with weights and strength training and stuff for maybe a year and a half now. And what I found is that pretty much immediately after starting to work out, this is way back when, a year and a half ago, within like a couple of, maybe even like a week, I felt better about my body, which is interesting because I hadn't like, nothing had really significantly changed in that week. But I think that that sense that we have sometimes of not liking our body, it could just be like a, you know, nitpicky kind of self critic thing. That's a whole other issue. But it could also just be like a sense that we know we're not really taking care of ourselves and so we sort of feel bad about it. And then as soon as you do, you instantly feel better about yourself.

Right? We value that which we invest in.

Ooh, indeed. Yeah. So there's investment there, you know, with time, obviously, with effort, maybe money. It's a gym or personal training or something like that. Have you found Amber that. So there's body confidence. What about like working out? Is it affected confidence in just how you feel throughout the rest of the day?

Yeah, I think when I work really hard in the gym, I feel more proud of myself. Like when you do hard things, when you set challenges for yourself and you follow through, you feel better about yourself and you feel more confident.

Yeah, I think I've seen that in myself too. There's an element of like overcoming challenge, sort of victory, small victories that then translates over. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that we learn, I think what we can learn from, from working out and physical health. So much applies to like social fitness and self development because so much of the time there's a story in our heads about what we can or can't do physically. I can't lift that. I can't do that. But just like with, you know, social confidence, I can't talk to those people. I could never get a girlfriend or a boyfriend like that. I could never achieve that in my career. But just like with the fitness, the physical fitness, if you just keep showing up and keep doing the work, you can do stuff that was impossible for you six months ago.

Yeah. And also what you mentioned in, I think Confidence University that you're building now, which is discomfort tolerance and how it's like, if you apply it in one area of your life, it can be transferable for other areas of your life.

Yes. Dude, you're stealing one of my three. But let's go into it now because. Absolutely. So discomfort tolerance for those who don't know it. By the way, check out confidence university@theconfidenceuniversity.com it's epic. By the time this episode airs, it should be available and if not, it will be soon. In any case, what I talk about in there is there's discomfort, say going to the gym and you work out and you push your Edge, you're going to feel discomfort in the form of fatigue or burning or something and yet you persist in the face of it. If you didn't, the second you started to breathe more quickly or break a sweat and you just are like, eh, nuts to this and you stopped, which I've definitely had that experience when I tried to work out at home over the years, I would just do that. But if you stick with it, you break through and you develop strength or capability in your physical body. The same is true for, let's say you want to be more assertive and there's a discomfort with that. But if you can persist in that discomfort, and I think I talk about it in confidence University, the idea of doing things on purpose like taking a cold ice shower, in fact, let's just transition. I was going to save this one because it's one of my cooler ones, but I'll just, out of my three, I'll give it up now. It's to do something. So some people have heard this one, which is do something once a day that scares you. I'm gonna modify it as a daily habit. Do something intentionally that makes you uncomfortable once a day. So fear is one kind of discomfort. But there are other kinds of discomfort. And I would broaden it so it doesn't have to be something that just terrifies you every day that that's a lot to take on. But a small habit, an easy habit to fulfill is I'm gonna do one thing per day that's uncomfortable. And you know, maybe going to the gym is your one thing, although we all know that we can go to the gym and kind of take it easy and go through the motions. So the uncomfortable part of that daily habit that I'm suggesting is to really lean into that discomfort. So maybe you're doing some push ups or a set of something and it's like the last one or two and you just really do the thing that's uncomfortable. And another thing that I recommend is when you take a shower, give yourself a blast of ice cold water for 30 seconds or for a minute and do that at the beginning of your shower and the end of your shower. And that that's a great way to get your daily dose of discomfort. And there's a million and one things, you know, asking the waiter to take your food back because you didn't like the way it was prepared or returning something or interrupting someone or disagreeing with someone. I mean there's a million and one speaking up at a meeting. There's a million and One ways, if you're looking for it, to find a place that makes you uncomfortable. And so the daily habit that, I mean, this is. This was my. I was going to save this for number three because it's the best one. But if you do this and you look for this opportunity every day and you did it consistently for like 30 days, you'd be amazed at how you've changed, not just in what you're able to do, but how you've oriented yourself from being someone who's like, I avoid stuff that's uncomfortable to like, I relish the challenge. I dive into the discomfort. And that's where on the other side of that is where all the glory is, all the freedom is, all the love and connection that you want. Everything is on the other side of that, of that chasm.

I actually applied what I learned from Confidence University with that particular part. And I went into the city and I interviewed like five strangers because I was dealing with writer's block. And so I just decided to ask some people some questions about what I was interested in. And it totally cured my writer's block because I was really inspired by what they said. But like, some people definitely didn't want to talk to me, or maybe my questions were too personal or. I remember the first person I went up to, it was a woman. I was like, excuse me, could I ask you a few questions for an article that I'm writing? She's like, well, how long would that take? I was like, just like 10 minutes. And she was like, that sounds like an awful long time. But she ended up really liking the questions that I was asking her. And we talked for way longer than that. But anyways, it was uncomfortable and I did it because I wanted to increase my discomfort tolerance.

Good, nice. That's a fascinating response on her part. I'm busy. I'm a very important busy. Oh, oh, these are great questions. Okay, I'm available. Yeah. And then on the other side of that, there's the immediate benefit of actually being, you know, curing your writer's block real time.

Yeah.

And then of course, the long term benefit, though, of being the kind of person who just can go out and do that sort of thing and face discomfort. That's fantastic. So, okay, so that we got yours, one of mine. Let's take a quick break right now. And when we come back, we're gonna hear other daily habits that you can do. You can implement starting right now, today to not just a little bit shift your confidence, but if you do one of these habits or Several of these habits, I mean, totally transform your confidence. So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this. If someone tells you there's one magical thing you can say to any woman anywhere and her knees will go weak with lust for you, be wary. This sounds appealing, but it's just a sales tactic. In reality, creating healthy, lifelong confidence with women comes from transforming your psychology and practicing new skills daily. When you do this, the results are real, lasting, and more rapid than you can imagine. So when you're ready to ditch the pickup lines and make a real shift, check out Dr. Aziz Dating Program at 30days to dating mastery.com. your future girlfriend will thank you for it. Welcome back. Okay, so let's dive back into more of those habits. Amber, what's your second one?

My second habit is making a plan and following through. So in the morning, writing down what you want to accomplish that day and actually doing it, no matter what. So this is especially useful for people who maybe have a procrastinating tendency or don't really value their own word. So some people are very good at following through when other people ask them to do things. But if they set an expectation for themselves, like, I'm gonna work out for myself today, then they don't really follow through. And that has a really negative impact on your confidence.

Yes. That's really good. I sort of talk about this as keeping our word to ourselves and how we have to build trust with ourselves. And like, any relationship, if you. This is a big thing for productivity. But if you break that trust, just think about that. If you were. You're talking about working out earlier before the break. Let's say you said to a friend, like, hey, let's be workout buddies so we can both, you know, get stronger and sexier and whatnot. And then you show up at 6 in the morning, because that was the agreement. And then they're not there. And then you're like, dude, what happened? And the next day, they're not there. It's not. It's gonna take, like, once or twice. And then they're like, oh, I'm totally gonna be there. And you're gonna be like, yeah, right. And so it doesn't take much to. And we do the same thing with ourselves. And what I often encourage people around this is to be. To slow down and be intentional with your word to yourself. Because sometimes we have these flights of fancy, and we're emotionally charged. Like, yeah, I'm totally gonna do that. And we say that to ourselves. We're all hopped up on some Fantasy about something, but we don't actually slow down and be like, okay, am I really gonna do that? Am I really committed to that? And if so, let me tell myself, okay, I'm gonna do this. And if not, just like, no, it's just a fantasy. That was fun, but I'm probably not really committed to that. So we sort of pick what we really want to say to ourselves, and then, yeah, following through is huge.

Yeah. What I do in the morning is I write down what I want to accomplish that day. And next to it, I write down how much time it will take me, and I write when I'm going to do it that day, and I expect to not want to do it that day. So whenever something comes up that I made mandatory for myself, my brain just naturally doesn't want to do it anymore. Because now it's work. But once I start getting to work and starting on the actual project, that feeling naturally goes away. And even if it doesn't, if I just feel like, ugh, for like, 30 minutes while I'm doing something, when I completed it, I feel so much better.

Yes.

And it's so worth the 30 minutes of discomfort.

Yeah. Back to discomfort. That's really interesting. I found for myself some things. Like, I have it set. Like, I'm gonna go to the gym on these days, Monday through Friday in the morning. I have even set when I'm gonna do runs in the afternoon on my calendar. Like, I'm run this day and this day doesn't matter if I feel like it or not. And those I have that level of kind of regimented quality to them when it comes to tasks from work. I've found that different systems I use at different times. Sometimes I use that really kind of mapped out process that you're talking about. Sometimes I found that that, like, doesn't work. My inner teenager is like, no. And then it's all this like, you know, it's like so much emotional crap to deal with. And I'm like, I just want to get the tasks done. So what I found. And I'm just gonna throw this out there because each person's got to find what works for them. What I found to be helpful is having a set time where I'm going to work on projects. So, like, from 9 to 11 or 9 to noon on this, you know, the next day, Tuesday or whatever, I'm gonna work on these projects. And what I'm gonna do is like, basically I have a list of things that I can choose from. And I. But this is interesting. Because if someone. I don't have too many problems with procrastination at this point. Because if you do, then this could be a death trap. But if you don't, if you really just kind of, you know, you plot along and you're gonna do stuff, what I'll do is I'll look at the list and I will go towards two things. Sometimes it's like what am I most energized by? What sounds most fun. And sometimes it's what is the least pleasant, what is the most uncomfortable. Let me do that first. So if you have that kind of discipline and you've developed your discomfort tolerance enough, then you, you know, for me, I experiment with some more flex approaches and I find that that helps me. It's like I choose which one I'm gonna do, I do the fun thing and then I have natural energy for it or I'm ready to take on the challenge and I just do the uncomfortable stuff.

Yeah, I definitely still have problems with procrastination, so I can't do that.

Yeah, no. I think I used to do a lot of what you're talking about and I still do sometimes. And sometimes I have to on stuff like, especially for me, stuff like tasks that are like, like dm, not even work related, just life like dmv, haircut, dental cleaning. I am the worst when it comes to those. I'm just like, I have. Yeah. Yeah. So I might need a little bit of what you're talking about to hammer out some of those.

Yeah. Because if I don't have an actual result to achieve by the end of the hour, I will just do something for an hour that may or may not get me closer to the result. But if I have a result that I'm going after, then, and I give myself one hour to complete it, I will get the result by the end of that hour and take out all of the distractions and everything that doesn't really get me closer to that result.

I'm going to get my result. I love it. Okay, this is good. There's, there's a whole nother topic there about. I love this about productivity and how we work with ourselves. But let's, let's keep it to the habits. So that was Amber's of, you know, make a plan, stick to the plan, do it, map it out. I think that's fantastic for productivity and the more productive, productive you are and the more you get shit done, you naturally feel better about yourself, you know. So we got your workout in. You got your productivity down the Thing that another habit that I would suggest, and this is something I've done for a long time, is meditate. And that's a big one. And it's kind of the ones at this point, there's been so much research on it that everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. That's good for me, right? Like eating my vegetables. Right. But a lot of people, we don't do it. And so I like to make it very accessible. And basically, it's even starting at five minutes a day where you just sit and you're like, what do I do? And I think for me, the easiest and best form of meditation is just to focus my energy on my body. And so I feel what's going on. I feel my breath moving in and out, and I feel the sensations in my body, whether it's physical sensations or emotional sensations, but I stay out of my head, not thinking about my feelings. I just feel my feelings kind of from the inside. What is the energy of this emotion? Not the story around it, just the feeling. Is it tight, squeezing, warm, relaxed, pressured? And I just stay with that. For me, that's like the easiest thing to stay anchored to. And, you know, of course, my mind repeatedly pulls me up to my focus on it and this problem, this to do thing, and then you just bring the attention back, back to your body again and again and again. And I've had different phases. Sometimes I do it for an hour a day. Currently, I'm doing it for 30 minutes each morning. And whether it's 30 minutes, five minutes, just something is so helpful because so much of our challenge throughout the day and confidence issues, I think, come from one. We just don't want to feel anything uncomfortable. Back to discomfort tolerance. So when you start your day by saying, I'm going to sit here and feel whatever you show yourself, like, I'm not afraid to feel anything. And that is like a deep, deep form of confidence. And then, not to mention, you get better at disconnecting from the wacky stories that go through your head that tell you, like, you're gonna die and people hate you and on and on. And so your ability to kind of disconnect from those and just let them go, obviously extremely valuable for confidence.

I'm not really a huge meditator, but you sold it very well. So I never was. I was never able to just sit and, like, feel. However, I do sometimes go on walks in nature with no music or anything, and that's kind of meditating for me. Because you're away from all the advertisements and people and music and influences from people, from other people. And it kind of. I feel like it cleans my mind.

Yeah, no, that's a great one. I love to run. Sometimes I'll run, listen to an audiobook, but oftentimes I'll run with no headphones as well. Just to be in silence. And that's, that's really. And that's another way to think about meditation is just being in silence, not inputting more stimulus because we get so much of that so much of the time. So that's a, that's a really good one. And also for people who want to. This is not necessarily guided. Well, this is kind of a way to be with the sensations in your body that I was talking about the sort of the main form of meditation that I do. If you go to. I talk about it in. I talk about it some in the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. But I talk about it more specifically in Not Nice, my latest book. And you can go to notnicebook.com and there's a bunch of additional resources for that book available there. First of all, you should definitely get the book. If you haven't, it's awesome. But I have a download there an audio called the Peace Process, which is the name of that meditation. That's the name that one of my mentors gave it. And you can just download it's like a 20 minute audio. And I kind of guide you through it. And that's when you're first starting with this stuff. It's way easier to have someone guiding you than to just do it by yourself. So go to notnice.com and check out the Peace Process meditation there. Okay, we're gonna take one more quick break and when we get back, we're gonna talk about our third tips for daily confidence. Does working with Dr. Aziz actually work? Can you really break free from social anxiety and live a life of confidence, success and happiness? Here is what one client had to say about his experience.

If someone is thinking to come to a weekend intensive with Dr. Aziz, I go do it. Go do it. I know he's in Portland. You're probably somewhere in the east coast or Hawaii, who knows? But I'm telling you, it is worth it. Personally for myself, I was really skeptical about coming here. You know, flew from Los Angeles, investing all my time, money. I don't know if it's gonna work. There's parties back home waiting for me, you know, friends wanting to hang out with me this weekend. But now that I'm here, now that I'M almost done with this weekend intensive training. I said, wow, you know, I'm not this Sunday now, and I'm not the same person as I was when I was Friday. I have, like this whole settlement mentality. I just feel like I am unstoppable. I can do anything. The world's mine. It's really. It's awesome.

To get started on your journey towards lifelong confidence with Dr. Aziz, simply go to socialconfidencecenter.com coaching. All right, welcome back. So, Amber, take us home. What do you got for your third tip for daily confidence?

My third tip for daily confidence is to talk back to your inner critic, as you would call it. And so there's different ways that you can do this. I know you teach, like, some strategies in your courses. And my favorite technique is from Dr. David D. Burns from his book Feeling Good, which is a double column technique. And so basically what you do is you create two columns on a piece of paper. And on the left side, you write your negative thought or the thought that's causing your negative emotions. And on the right side, you like, kind of talk back to it in a more positive, logical, objective voice. And it really shows you that you can solve your own problems and you're actually a great coach for yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That one. I mean, any. Any process where you are intentionally sitting down to. To respond to that critical voice in your head or that freaked out, anxious voice or whatever the voice is that's causing you suffering, it's so valuable. And it's just like we kind of don't do it. We try to just half assedly do it in our heads. And it's way different when you sit down and actually write out what Amber's talking about. So I would definitely encourage that. It's funny because your third tip is very similar to my third tip, which is to take one moment each day. And you know this. I would suggest putting your hand on your heart. If you feel like you can't do that at work or whatever because people might see you, then do it in your car or do it when you get home or just freaking go into the bathroom stall and do it. Doesn't matter if you need privacy to do it, but put your hand, literally put your hand physically on your heart. In fact, as you're listening right now, I would encourage you to do it. Just put your hand on your heart and close your eyes if you can. If you're driving, obviously don't. And just breathe and feel. Feel your hand right there. Feel it, there's usually a warmth that comes from that. And then in that moment of connection with yourself, you're just going to be on your own side for just a second, Whatever that's going to look like. Maybe it's saying something encouraging to yourself, maybe it's giving yourself a little pep talk. Maybe it's just having empathy. Like, maybe you're really struggling in a moment. You're just like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that you're hurting. And you treat yourself like you would a friend. Whatever is needed, you're kind of just guided to see what would feel as. You know, there's a gesture, there's a pause, there's a putting your hand on your heart. It's all like a little ritual you can do once a day, maybe multiple times a day, obviously, but just at least once a day. And that's a very easy to integrate way to make being on your own side not just some nice theory, but an actual moment to moment practice of how you live, how you operate. And I think these two habits go really well together. Yours with the double column is like a more in depth one that's really going to help you start to unravel the way that your critic hooks you. So definitely doing that. And then this little hand on the heart one is just a great booster throughout the day to, to really implement it, bring it into your awareness. Awesome.

Yeah, I learned that from you in one of your podcast episodes. I think you have a specific podcast episode where you talk about being on your own side, and I've never heard that before, and I think that's a really great way to put it. Like sometimes it feels like it's you against you, like you don't like who you are. And just hearing about that idea completely changed that for me.

Well, that's awesome. Yeah, that's an interesting rabbit hole to go down. Well, who's not liking who? What. What's happening? But awesome. Oh, so, but before we go today, we gotta end with what we typically want to end with, which is putting this into action. Time for action. Action, action. So your action step for today, man, you got, you got a buffet of options, as I mentioned earlier. So my suggestion for you would be to pick one of these six habits. You've heard three from each of us. Or maybe you have one of your own that we didn't mention. But, you know, it works wonders for you. Maybe you wake up in the morning and you, I don't know, drink yourself a green smoothie and that like sets you off on the right path for the whole day. Or you push around your younger brother and you feel like a tough guy and maybe that's your confidence ritual. Probably could upgrade that one. Maybe take one of our six. But in any case, whatever you have something you know works or one of these six, like right in this moment, decide. Decide what it is and commit to doing it in whatever form it's going to look like in your life for 10 days, whatever. And pick small. So if it's meditating, literally pick five minutes. If it's working out and you're not working out at all right now, maybe it's like walk a mile or something. Whatever it is for you. So pick small something that you want to make it an easy win, but you want to get into the habit. Get into the practice of doing this once per day for 10 days. Awesome. So thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for being with us, Amber. Awesome. I love your insights as always.

Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

Nice. Until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com.

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