3 Tips To Overcome Social Anxiety & Shyness | Dr. Aziz - Confidence Coach

Does shyness or social anxiety hold you back from living the life that you want, being the person that you want, creating the relationships or the job that you want? If so, watch this episode because we're going to get into three tips that I've learned over the last 14 years that help people rapidly shift out of shyness and social anxiety and into unstoppable confidence. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and this is the show for you if you want to maximize your confidence in every area of life that matters and regardless of what area you're looking at, your dating life, your career, your social life, social anxiety, and sometimes people call it shyness, but they're two different things. But when they. When people talk about it, they usually refer to the same thing. It's this, like, feeling of. It's hard to put myself out there. I'm inhibited. I'm scared that people are going to judge me. I get really anxious or uncomfortable, whether it's approaching someone that I don't know, someone that's attractive, someone that's powerful, someone at networking, speaking in front of groups. I hate small talk. It's like this overall inhibiting force that holds us back. And if you know that experience, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. And most people struggle with this for their entire lives. It starts usually around the age of, I don't know, middle school, 10, 11, 12, 13, something like that. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but it kicks in. And then all of a sudden, I'm uncomfortable around people, and then our whole identity starts to form around that. I'm messed up. I'm less than. I can't do it. And on and on. And look, it's a big journey. This is probably not the first video that you've seen about it. And if you just found me, I'm so excited because watch all the videos on this channel. Check out my podcast, drink for the shy guy. Check out my book, the Solution to Social Anxiety. There is so much you can do to transform this, but I want to share with you right now three tips that I've discovered over the last 14 years of working on this in myself and now with thousands of people all over the world to help them go from social anxiety to being a much more free, bold, confident version of themselves. So here are the tips. You ready? Number one, you have to get on your own side. You have to. You must get on your own side. It is essential. There's nothing else that's going to transform this More than that. So what do I mean by getting on your own side? It means by taking control of what I call the toxic coach inside of your head that is berating you non stop. It's the voice of self doubt, self criticism, self loathing. Honestly, it's the voice of self hatred. It's intense and it stops you in your tracks. It sucks joy out of your life and it makes you believe things that are false, that are extreme, such as I totally messed that up and everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Like thoughts like that will go through our heads and when we are like hooked in with that voice or that voice is hooked into us, we just believe it. It's like this sort of mind virus that's just like stuck on there like Metroids, sucking your brain out and it will demolish the quality of your life. And here's the thing, a lot of people have, that voice tells them they suck and they either totally implode or they go out and I'm going to make something happen. Oh yeah, I'll show you. I'll make a bunch of money or create this or do that. And then they do. And that voice doesn't stop. Yeah, well, you didn't do it fast enough. Yeah, well, they're into you, but they think you're stupid. Yeah, well, sure. So what? She loves you, but no, everyone else thinks you're a failure. Your dad thinks you're a failure, whatever it is, right? And it just keeps going and going and going and going. So you must take control of this process. And there are many ways to do that. Some of the key ones are to write down, catch it, what it's saying and start to refute it. This comes from the idea of cognitive behavioral therapy. David Burns is an awesome author about that. I talk about that in my book the Solution to Social Anxiety. It's over there on my bookshelf. That's why I keep looking that way. If you're wondering, definitely start with that. Another way to do it is to sit down and journal with this part of you, have a conversation with it, like, okay, what's going on? Why are you so upset? What is it that you want of me? And just actually have a dialogue with it. Because so much of the time it's sort of subconscious. We just sort of believe whatever it says and we're trying to get through the day, not upsetting it and not taking more criticism in from that voice in our head. And instead you gotta get realize that you are in charge, you are in control. You need to dialogue with that part and not have it as this like evil oppressor inside of your head. I could go on and on for days about that. There's specific videos all about that. But that's my first tip, which is you gotta get on your own side. One other thought about this, actually. Not only is it dealing with that critic in your mind, getting on your own side is also dealing with yourself or that part of you that gets really scared. Because here's another thing I found in this process, and this is actually, well, one of the steps. I'm just going to jump to it right now. Tip number three, get to do what scares you. We'll get into that in just a second. But look, as you're doing this stuff or your day to day life, fear is going to come up. Social anxiety, right? Anxiety is going to come up, fear is going to come up. And we got to learn how to deal with that. We got to learn how to get on our own side with that. Most of us, man, I had the most toxic relationship with myself and with my emotions for so many years. So either I deny the emotions, I try to run away from them, or if fear comes up, I would just want to do something to make it go away. Video games, pot, porn, alcohol, whatever I could do. Distraction of some sort, just get away from it as fast as I can. Or we get really frustrated and angry with it. Ah, this fear is here again. Damn it, what's wrong with me? I'm so pissed off. I suck. I'm always gonna have this. And neither of those is getting on our own side, is it? So instead we want to slow down. We got to learn how to take care of ourselves. And there's different techniques for this too. Self soothing is a really powerful one, which is the ability to tune into the feeling, find it in your body and start to speak calmly to yourself. Start to treat yourself with love and compassion such as, whoa, you're anxious right now. Or we're anxious right now. We me, I, you. Who knows what's going on in there, right? There's a lot of parts, but hey, wow, you're anxious right now. I get it. So you treat that part with love and compassion and connection and you speak to it in that way. And if you really want to get the skills and the knowledge on how to do that, check out my program. You can check out the book, the solution to social Anxiety. But I. But also check out my program, the confidence code. The whole first half of that program is all about how to eliminate that toxic coach and get on your own side. And there's specific strategies on exactly what to say and how to speak to yourself and how to calm, basically calm your nervous system, which over fires when we have social anxiety because we think everything's a threat. You know, that person judging me is a threat. That person looking away as they talk to me is a threat. Right. And we're just constantly on edge. So get on your own side. That means dealing with that toxic critic and being able to soothe and calm yourself when you're anxious. Okay, what's tip number two? Tip number two is compelling future. You gotta have a compelling future. So much of the time, if you've dealt with social anxiety and it's been two years or 20 years, what happens is we start to say, I guess this is how it is for me. And that's what I believed for many years, for almost a decade. This is just how it is for me, stuck like this forever. And that's not a compelling future, is it? Because my future looks bleak. How does your future look to you right now when you imagine three years out, five years out, 10 years out, right now, just first impulse, subconscious, without thinking about it too much, Is it exciting? Do you feel empowered? Do you feel like, wow, good things are coming my way? Or I'm going to be able to create something that I want. I'm going to be able to find the relationship that I want, create the family that I want, grow the business that I want, excel in my career in the way that I want, have the friendships that I want, have the adventures or the freedom that I want or something else. And usually what I found when working with people is it's hard to create that compelling future. There's a part of them that says, no, no, I'm going to be stuck this way forever. I'm doomed. And this is what I call the battle for belief. And that's really where all of this takes place. All of the growth and transformation is in here and our ability to say, you, you know what? No, something else is possible for me. I will create something else. You know, people say, I'll see it when I believe it. It's actually the other way around. Wayne Dyer has a great thing about this, where he says, you believe it and then you see it. And so some part of you has to be willing to say, look, yes, I can create something different for myself. Yes, it's possible for me. Look, listen to people's success stories. Go to my website, socialconfidencecenter.com and read the success stories Go to the coaching page and. And watch those videos of people's transformations. They're just like you. Find other success stories online. Study them, Watch them say, wait a minute, this. If it's possible for them, it's possible for me. And then start to envision what is it that I would really want for myself. And here's the thing. If that voice in your head, that toxic coach, says it's not possible, you gotta do tip number three to prove it wrong. Tip number three, baby, is my favorite one. Do what scares you. Do what scares you until fear has no power to stop you at all. That's the ultimate goal. And you got to get this. This is the biggest tip on overcoming social anxiety, is a lot of people say, okay, exposure work. You know, cbt. Do the behaviors that are uncomfortable. All right, all right, I'll do that. And then they'll go do one thing, and they'll say, it didn't work. And I'll say, why didn't it not work for you? Well, I did it. I was still scared. So the fear is the marker of success. No, no, no, no, no. Your ability, your action is the marker of success. You got to do what scares you until fear has no power to stop you. I'm not saying do what scares you once, and then the fear will go away. No, we're conditioned. We're like, there's so much programming in us. We have to do a lot to overcome that. But that doesn't mean you can't take the actions way sooner than you think. So if you're uncomfortable making eye contact with people and you've been avoiding it for 13 years, eventually you must make eye contact with people. And guess what? The first time you do it, you're probably not going to feel, like, all relaxed and great. The 30th time you do it, you're probably not going to feel completely free and confident, maybe the hundredth time. But here's the thing. People want it to be like this smooth, steady graph where it's like, oh, yeah, it goes away. Goes away. It goes away. I'm free forever. I want that, too. On certain things, and it depends upon the amount of repetition you could do. And certain things might take a lot longer than you think. And certain things, you might feel free for a while, and then the anxiety comes back, and then you're free again. I have that in certain areas of my life. And guess what? Doesn't matter. Because the goal is liberation. And the first, most important step in literation is I do what I want I can go out and do anything that I want, regardless if there's fear or not, it's irrelevant. Okay. Fear's not going to stop me then as gravy or as bonus, if there's no fear. Great. So, for example, things that used to scare me don't scare me at all now. So making eye contact with somebody, having a deep conversation with somebody, sharing with somebody, asking someone, you know, kind of. I was going to say probing questions. That doesn't sound good. Kind of deeper questions where we get in there, all that stuff like that. Real contact with people used to make me very uncomfortable and scare me. Not at all anymore. Why? Because of thousands of hours of repetition. Thousands, Literally. But other things, like leading live events that I do and there's specific ones that I run, not like guest speaking at someone else's, but like running my own, where people are coming there and I feel this responsibility. I gotta make sure everyone has an amazing experience and I'll get anxious beforehand and some part of my toxic coach will say, you're not enough. You can't do this. You know why? Because at the time of recording this video, I've only done nine live events. Nine. Not a lot of repetition. That's not thousands. Released my new book recently. Not nice. You should totally check that out, by the way. The audible version, if it's not out now already, should be out very soon. And so proud of it. I love that book. My heart and soul was in that book. And the day before the release of that book back in November, the night before, I was so anxious, just raw anxiety tearing through my body. And I was like, whoa, whoa. I didn't even anticipate it. I was like a couple days before, I was all excited. I was sending emails out. And then the day, the night before, just like shredding anxiety through my body. And I was like, ah, this is so uncomfortable. I can't sit still. But here's the thing. And you know, why is that the case? Well, how many books have I released? 3. That's not very much repetition. But the goal is I'll do what I want. So if I want to release a book, I'll release a book. If I want to host a live event, I'll host a live event. If I want to approach someone I'm attracted to, I'll do it. If I want to speak in front of a group, I'll do it. So fear has absolutely no power to stop me. And that is totally possible for you. And then if you do something a lot, the fear will diminish significantly or go away. So this is how we can truly transform our lives and and overcome social anxiety, overcome shyness. So subscribe if you're enjoying this video and you want to see more, a lot more coming out here and coming into 2018, you are awesome. Share your comments below. I want to hear about your story, your progress, your growth. Share any success stories, any breakthroughs you have to inspire others. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.