3 Ways To Overcome Your Fear Of Sharing Your Creations

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 Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Azeez. And are you afraid to put yourself out there to share your work, share your creations? If so, you're probably in the vast majority of humans. I've never really met anyone who doesn't have any sort of wariness or fear or concerns or self confidence or insecurities around putting themselves out there. Now, some people might be able to do it more freely than others in spite of those fears and, and the goal of this episode is to make you one of those people. So that I'm not saying that you have no concern whatsoever, but it doesn't stop you. And isn't that the ultimate goal? Maybe we'll take a step back and zoom out for a second. Whether you're overcoming social anxiety or you want to be more confident, I often tell people confidence is not the absence of insecurity. Being free from social anxiety, that means you have absolutely no thought or concern at all about what anyone might think. Those are unique, unrealistic fantasy desires. The truth is that you can have an insecurity, be concerned about someone's perception of you, but it has absolutely no power to stop you from doing what's meaningful for you, for creating and sharing those creations and basically living the life that you really want. A life that you really want to live that's not based upon, well, I can't if I have a fear or I can't if someone's going to judge me. And we're going to get into that in today's episode. I am so excited to be here with you today. I'm excited to be alive. Oh my God. I went down for about a week last week, just really sick. The sick as I've been in a while and just day after day of super low energy and coughing and snotting and man, it takes a toll. After a certain number of days, I'm Just, well, I guess this is how it is now. Just give up on being alive. Just settle for right. And it reminds me how we can do that when we're having a period of anxiety or you're feeling down or depressed, or we can just kind of adapt as if this is the new norm, but it's not the new norm. And so I'm really excited to be with you. And I want to share the three specific ways that you can overcome this fear of putting your creations out there. Now, the first question I would have for you are, what are some of your creations? What is it that you'd want to put out there in the world? I talk to people who want to put music out there in the world when I say put it out there in the world. The most common format these days is social media. So it might be sharing a video of yourself or some of your art or drawings or creations, you know, visually on a screen with others. But, you know, it could be just playing. You're learning the guitar and you play the guitar for a friend who's over at your house, right? That's putting yourself out there. So it doesn't have to mean this world stage or you got tons of followers or something. I just mean sharing your gifts, your creations. So what are those for you? Is it spoken word, written word, poetry, blogs, art of any sort? So that could be visual art, you know, the musical art, that could be verbal or even just something you create instrumentally. And even if you don't think of yourself as a highly creative person or this is going to be your job or something, just little expressions of you through creation. Maybe you, I don't know, maybe you pick flowers when you walk and you like to make nice bouquets, right? We're not talking top level, world famous artist here. We're just talking about letting life move through you with a creative side. I'm sure you got something and maybe more, more than one somethings. And maybe there's a desire to share it, but there's also probably possibly a fear of sharing it, right? So how do we overcome that? How do you free yourself of that? So the first strategy I want to share today is a tool that I learned from Dr. David Burns, one of the preeminent cognitive therapists in the world. I was doing my training with him in Stanford. Awesome guy, great cognitive therapist. But one of his tools is called the Feared Fantasy. And I love that tool. I use it all the time with myself, I use it with clients in my group programs, and I want to share it with you today if you're not familiar with it. So the feared fantasy goes like this. You are scared of putting yourself out there, of sharing your gifts or creations, because what. Why are you scared in the first place? Is it because someone might judge it? Oh, no. Right. You know, and usually we're so afraid of the someone might judge it that we just bury the whole thing and we never get to it. Or we procrastinate, or you never quite finish the thing so you can't share it. Or maybe you do finish it, but it's stored on your computer. You know, you have this warehouse of little treasures that you're never going to share with anybody. And all of that comes back to you're afraid of how people are going to receive it. Specifically, you're afraid of people judging it. Right? Because if, you know, you shared your art or your creation or your music, and someone was like, wow, this is phenomenal. You're so great. It's unlikely you'd be. Maybe you'd be a little uncomfortable with that positive attention. But no, most of us, what we're really scared of is someone saying, oh, huh, you made that, huh? Yeah. Good for you, right? Or worse. Especially on the Internet, you know, comments and media sites. This is terrible. And you're awful. You're such an idiot. It goes like that. People get pretty vicious behind their keyboards. So with feared fantasy, instead of running from that fear, it's actually an exposure exercise, among other things. And you face the fears, you face that feared fantasy, and you do it in a way that gets it out of your head and helps you start to relate to it as if it were actually another person. Because you're going to learn a lot about. About who this hypothetical person is. And if you'd want to base your life upon that person's opinions. So here's how it goes. You write out some of the key judgments you're afraid of. You know, this is bad. You don't know what you're doing. This is childish. This sounds stupid. This is awful. I was just doing this recently with a musical artist and he was saying people are gonna say, you know, your creation's not good. You don't have that many fans or followers. That's lame and pathetic and it's sad that you're trying to. Right? So real, real uplifting stuff. I'm surprised why there would be a block in creation there, if that's the self talk, right? Anyway, so you make up your little list and then you actually have a conversation as if that person is there. And you're talking to them. And you can enroll a friend in this if you want. You could just even do it in a journal. But out loud is really helpful. So I'll do this when I'm working with clients. So I'll say, okay, I'm gonna play this part and I want you to respond to me. You know, your latest creation is pretty stupid, I'm afraid. And then, you know, the person practices responding, well, no, it's not. Shut up. Right. And that's usually how people start, is a little defensive and hurt by those statements, naturally, of course, because they're painful, mean statements. And the goal is to become more resilient to them. And the way that you do that is that you don't buy into that inner critic, or in this case, you're imagining it as someone else's critic, their reality. So they say, well, that's pathetic. You don't have that many followers. You say, oh, okay, you think so, huh? Well, I sure do. It's really sad and embarrassing. So it's embarrassing to put something out there unless you have a certain number of followers? Yeah, it is. Okay, how many followers until it's not embarrassing? 100? A thousand? 10,000? And the point is not what this critic says. The point is that you are able to start to challenge that. And when you do this and you have this dialogue, you actually start to get a sense of freedom from this part. It's not speaking truth. It's not the reality. It's a freaked out, scared, guarded perspective. It's part of your safety place. It's trying to get you to not put yourself out there because it doesn't want to feel embarrassment or failure or rejection. And so we challenge it, we talk with it, we dialogue with it. That's the feared fantasy. I would love to go much further with you in how to do this. And really, it unlocks when you actually start to practice it. And when I do, I can't tell you how many times I'm doing this with clients. And we'll both start cracking up because it's so absurd. But when it is just you and you, and you haven't done this exercise and there's no one else involved, it doesn't feel silly and absurd. It feels scary and mean and true. And so that's where you can do it in a journal. But if you can enroll a friend in this, I highly recommend it. And you just tell them what you're doing. Hey, I got these concerns or insecurities about putting my music out there. Put My art out there, put my stuff out there, and I'd love to do this exercise with you that I learned about from that handsome Dr. Aziz. And I want to share with you some of these things. And here's how I want you to practice being. Play this critic in a role play. And then I'm going to practice responding to you. And if you hear me say that and you say, oh, my God, Aziz, I could never. I could never enroll a friend. I could never ask anyone for that. Okay. All right. Well, you know, I think people are a little in a kerfuffle about their vulnerability. You know, I get it. I get it. It's tender, it's uncomfortable, it's embarrassing. But I can't tell you how many people tell me, oh, my gosh, I can't share these things to people. Like, no one could know. I just didn't feel safe enough to share. And I get it. I get it that it's really vulnerable and uncomfortable. But at the. At some point, if you are unwilling to share and be known with anyone close to you, then you're going to have a lonely, painful life, and you could defend that and say, well, it wasn't safe enough to share, and I don't like it, and it wasn't a safe space. Okay, maybe you'll get someone to agree with you. Yeah, it wasn't a safe space. And where in life is totally safe? I mean, do you get on the road? Do you drive anywhere that's not safe? It's probably the highest likelihood of death for you, depending on your age. It's a car accident. You ever get on an airplane? Do you ever buy food? How many people die from some sort of poisoning in their food? I mean, the numbers are low statistically, but it happens. Someone just eats a burger, and then they die. So there's no safety. There's no 100% safety. So what we're doing in life is we're constantly making judgment calls about the risk, and then we're going for it. That's why you get in your car and you drive somewhere. You made a judgment call and said, okay, the odds are 1 in 17,000. So, here I go. I'm going to go drive to work. And you might say, well, obviously, don't do this. Don't try to enroll someone in this exercise if they're a harsh, critical relative who's just a jerk to you. Yeah. You know, but if you got a close friend or someone that you share with in your life or you have a sense that the risk is worth it there. Then you gotta go for it. And not only are you gonna grow rapidly, you're gonna deepen the friendship too. Okay, so there's my pitch for deepening your friendships. Number two, way to overcome your fear of putting yourself out there now that you've done your feared fantasy is to focus on creation, not reception. Focus on your creation, not how it's being received. We spend way too much energy on how it's being received. I would suggest that you almost need 0% on how it's received. Now you could debate that and say, well, I want to know how it's received so I can make it better. Okay, we'll get to that in a second because I don't buy that at all. But maybe you like the energy of positive feedback and that's if so, you can feed on that. And so maybe there is some percentage of your energy to focus on how it's being received. But I would suggest a very small percentage, like 90% on creation, 10% on how it's being received. And what I see though is the opposite. People spend a lot of time focusing on how it's going to be received, looking at it once it's put out there. Did I get any likes, Did I get any comments? Did I get any feedback from anybody? Oh, this person said that's great, but they didn't put four explanation marks. So it's probably not great. And, and we're just so focused on it and it doesn't matter. That's not the point of your creations is to get thumbs up and kudos and hearts and even an attaboy or a good job on your back. That's not the point of the creation. What is the point of the creation? That's a good question to ask yourself. And that's probably the third thing we're going to get into here. But before we do that, we talked about I want to get feedback so I can make it better story. No, no, no, no random feedback from the Internet. That's how you're going to make something better. Really? I don't think so. I think what you want to do is you want to find someone who knows the craft, that whatever you're doing and get insight from someone who actually knows. So for example, if I'm writing a book and I want to improve it in some way, I'm going to go to someone who I really value their skill set with writing and not just any kind of writing. I don't want someone who is really skilled in the technical grammatical style of writing, but they've never written anything engaging or they write academic works. No, I want someone who knows how to write popular self help, who makes it engaging, and who could review my work and give me some very specific feedback. Not just it's good, but very specific feedback on how to craft my creations so that they're even more impactful. And that would be a very small subset of people that I would want to get that information from. They would have to have proven to me that they've written really well selling books in the same area, or that they have a certain knowledge of the English language or writing that I could learn from as well. So there's some specific people as I can think of that I've done that with over time. You know, if you were a music creator, you created music, you know, would you go to another producer? Would you go to a friend of yours who's also made music? Would you go to someone who you really admire? Same thing for photography, Same thing for everything, right? You'd go to someone who knows what's up and then get the input. Random person number 766,332 on the Internet. Why is that information useful to you? I mean, you're gonna have some people out there and say it's great. You're some people out there that say it's bad. Okay, does that, does that really help you improve it in the future? It's possible you'll get something, but even then, would you really want to change the creation? So, for example, with my books, there is a certain subset of people that don't like them. That don't like them because either they're too long or too. Or they're more specifically, they don't like the stories about myself in the books. They don't like the tone of the books. They want something more academic, more backed, you know, with cited research studies. Very basically a scientific case for whatever the author is trying to make. And there are books out there like that. Those aren't my books. And then the people that like my books like that, I have a casual tone like that. I'm sharing stories from my actual work with clients day in and day out, and stories from my own life of how these things work. They like that approach. And there's other people that don't. So should I change the whole tone? Have it be more drier and scientific and just be citing tons of research studies? Well, no, I don't. I don't want to do that. Even though someone out there's feedback says, I Should. Right. So do you see how your creation based upon random feedback is not really going to change for the better? If anything, it's only going to intensify your people pleasing that you're trying to do through the creations. So I'll be really mindful about where you get feedback and bring it in in a much more intentional way. Okay, number three, we touched on this briefly, but I want to circle back to it, which is, why are you doing the creations in the first place? Because if you're doing it so that someone says it's good, that is really weak fuel and it's going to peter out really fast. And then as soon as someone says it's not good, or they don't have enough enthusiastic, over the top praise for you, then you fizzle and you lose your motivation. So you need something deeper. And so this third point to overcome your fear of sharing your creations is purpose. Knowing why you're doing this. And there is no one why you get to create it. You can make a list. Maybe there's five whys. Because it makes me feel good. Because I feel more alive as I'm doing it. Because I just feel like it has to come through me. That's most people that I talk to and really get into it. That's what it is. They don't have some really thought out, rational, intellectual explanation. It's just because my heart says I gotta. I mean, basically is what they're saying, right? It's if I'll ask it this way, sometimes someone's really into music and I'll say, although, like, I don't know if I'm going to make it in music or I don't know if I'm able to make money with my music. And I say, okay, maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But if you imagine going the rest of your life and not really making any music, how would that feel? You could tell instantly in their face, their voice tone. They just kind of deflate and say, oh, I don't. That would feel bad. I'm like, yeah, well there you go. Who cares about the rest, right? That's the purpose, beneath it, underneath it. And you'll know because sometimes it's not that way. So for me, I spent a lot of my life when I was younger creating music, creating music on a computer, playing the guitar. And in the last 10 years or so, especially since having kids and you know, growing this business, I don't create much music. And a little while back I said, you know what, I want to create music again. So I carve the timeout in my schedule and I, you know, got some software on my computer and got my guitar out and got my recording stuff, and I did it for a little while and then I was like, yeah, this. I don't need to do this. It's really fascinating. And I create in other ways, though. I feel that way about writing. Whereas if I were to stop writing entirely, I could take little breaks here and there. But if I were to stop writing, there would be something missing. There'd be a hole in my soul, in my life. And so what is that for you? And that to me, I mean, that's the bedrock of courage and strength and ability to put yourself out there, is just because this is what I'm here to do, because life has to move through me in this way. And if I don't, then I'm going to feel impoverished, and then the world is going to be impoverished as well. And you can link your purpose not just to your own need, but it also is a cycle, right? Because there's someone out there who's going to look at your picture or your art or hear your song or read your poem, and they're going to be moved. And that's a beautiful circuit. And that's why when you're in that state of peer creation, not overly thinking about how it's going to be responded, but just in that moment of creation. How does it feel? For most people I talk to, it feels fantastic. They feel alive and connected and grateful. They might even feel not quite themselves in the best possible way. They're connected to something bigger. They're plugged into the creative force that moves through all of us, and that is also plugged into everything else. So there can be a transpersonal quality of interconnection with this. So that that's what we're going for here, not how many symbols of whatever the social media platform gives positive symbols. Thumbs, hearts, smiley faces, squiggly lines. Something deeper, something so much more significant. Fantastic. So those are the three ways to overcome your fear, to be able to put your creations out there. One is practicing the feared fantasy dialoguing with this imaginary jerk who's going to critique you in such a harsh way. Number two is focusing on what creation, not on reception, on how it's being received. And then number three, of course, we were just talking about is your purpose. So before we conclude, we gotta put this in action, right? Time for action. Action, action. So your action step is gonna be to not put your creations out there until they're perfect and beyond reproach. Because if they're perfect enough, then no one will ever criticize them. And that's what you need to keep doing. Don't put it out there until it's absolutely perfect. Teeth grittingly, bowel clenchingly, anus tightening. Perfect. Yeah. All right. I'm kidding. Obviously your action step is going to put something out there. You got something already. Go ahead, dust it off and put it out there. You don't got something, Create something quick. Create something quick. Volume trumps perfection, especially in this. We live in an era, the glut of the information age. I think we, you know, we're close to peak information in the peak information age and just, it's all just going to unravel from here into it probably already is actually into noise, right? So much information that it's also a lot of noise. And so look, in this day and age, you're not going to have the perfect creation that took you 17 years to make your opus. Just get something out there and more. Get into the enjoyment of the creation rather than the perfection or how it's going to be received. So that's your action step for today. I look forward to hearing more about you and how you're doing. Go to shrinkforthshyguy.com you can learn more about this show. It'll also take you to my website and you can reach out to me under the Contact tab in my page. I look forward to hearing about you and your journey. And until we speak again, we have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level. Now. You're 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.