Assume People Like You

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. Aziz, and today we're going to talk about a silver simple trick or hack that you can use to improve your social and confidence, improve your relationships, improve basically anywhere you go in the world, if you're feeling self conscious or nervous or worried about how other people are thinking of you, you can use this. And it's not only a simple kind of surface level hack, it actually goes way deeper down into the core of who you think you are and what you believe about yourself on a fundamental level. And basically it's going to show you if you got something there that you might need to clean up. And you know, honestly, who of us doesn't have stuff that we need to improve about how we see ourselves? But we're going to get into some specifics here that are going to be useful for you. If you're benefiting from this show, please go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you're listening to it on, and give it a review that will help me reach more people, which is the goal. Operation Mass Liberation. Remember, let's find all those people out there are feeling alone, less than suffering, stuck. Nothing's going to change any of their story that they have that's keeping them in a cage so we can all break free. And that's what I'm here to do. As long as I'm here to do it. Okay, what is the. The trick? Well, it's in the title of the episode, so I'm not going to have some grand reveal here. It's to assume that people like you, I call this the approval assumption. I actually wrote a whole ebook about it. But what does that mean and how do you do it? Well, when you assume people like you. Well, let me rewind actually, what do you like when you assume people don't like you? Can you think of a situation like that? Now, if you Have a social anxiety. That means it's kind of all the time. Or wherever you're experiencing social anxiety, that's where you're going to have this feeling that, that imagining. People aren't going to like you, they're not going to approve of you, they're going to judge you, they're going to be critical of you, they're going to be dismissive of you. So tune into that for a second. What does that do to you? And you might need to get specific in your life. Maybe it's a dating scenario. You imagine someone's like, oh, I don't want to talk to you, or like, okay, I'm on a date with you, but geez, this guy's boring, or she's not good enough, or a thousand other reasons. You spend time with someone who's a potential friend and you're like, oh my gosh, why would they want to be with me again? And I don't know, maybe think this about me, maybe think that about me. So pick a situation that's relevant for you and imagine when you're with someone and you think that they're going to judge you or they are judging you, what does that do to you? How do you show up? How do you express yourself? Are you free? Do you hold back? Are you hesitant? Are you a fraction of yourself? Are you just giving off like a of ton, tiny little bit of you and the rest you're holding in reserve because you're tender and you're scared and you don't want to be hurt by their judgment. Pay attention to that. Because that, whatever you're noticing there, whatever that feels like, whatever you think of when you imagine it, that is the opposite of assuming approval. Because the truth is, when we talk about not caring what other people think, I mean, that's a high desire. That's a high standard. I mean, you might be in that state of total liberation, but maybe you are going to care and to not care at all, to not be phased at all by what other people think. You know, it's a state you might get into and you might be able to sustain it more. But the truth is we kind of are affected, right? I mean, to some degree. We just don't want it to be overly affected to the point where you're completely constricted and you can't even be yourself. So you can think of it like extremes. Like, like one extreme is like, oh, I'm so self conscious. I'm so worried about what anyone might think of me. I better not make any Social mist. I better be perfect, which means I better just stay totally silent and be very pleasing. If someone does talk to me, that's one end of the spectrum. If you go to the other end of the spectrum, that's like, I don't care about anybody at all, man. I don't give a. Whatever. It's like, okay, maybe someone's in that place, but they might also be kind of having a bravado over compensation to the fact that they do care. So what's something that's more in the middle? Well, it's like, okay, I do want people to like me. I mean, who doesn't? But if someone is judging me, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to instantly agree with all their judgments and change who I am to accommodate them. I'm going to assess it and say, what are they. What are they judging me for? If they even are, and they think I'm talking too much. They think I shouldn't believe whatever I believe. They think I shouldn't do whatever I do. Well, do I agree with that? Do I. Do I think that I shouldn't think that? Do I think I shouldn't behave that way? So what you're doing is you're bringing you into the equation. Now, the problem is that if you've experienced social anxiety for a long time, or niceness, or people pleasing, your sensors are all wackadoodle. They're all misinformed. You're taking in information that's inaccurate. It's distorted. And so you tend to just assume people are going to disapprove of you, even though there's no evidence for that, that's not actually happening. You can't even tell if it's even really happening because your sensors are all mucked up. Like, imagine your windshield in your car. You ever. Just the other morning, I got in my car, it was really cold, and there was a bunch of frost on the windshield, and I needed to turn the defroster on hot to melt it down so I could get driving. And I did it for like 30 seconds, and I couldn't totally see. And I was like, let's just get driving. And so there's this little tiny patch at the bottom of a windshield where I could see through, and I was kind of hunched over. Very, very safe, by the way. And that's kind of like your sensors for if people are disapproving of you or not. They're. They're all mucked up. You just assume that they are, but you're not really Seeing clearly. And so when I talk about assuming that people are going to like you, you're just flipping that scale. So it gets into a more healthy, normal, a healthy balance to healthy middle path. So what would that be like, to assume that people like you? Yeah. In dating? Yeah. At work? Yeah. Socially? Just. Yeah, Generally. Why is the default assumption that people are going to dislike you and judge you? Why not the default assumption that people do like you and are going to judge you positively? And then maybe on occasion that's disconfirmed and you're like, oh, actually, if they didn't like me. Whoa, really? That's unusual. So let me give a few examples just to make this real practical. But the other day, there's a guy that was coming to our house to deliver some gravel, and we have a big gravel driveway out in our country home, and it hadn't been graveled ever in like 30 years. So that was deferred maintenance. That was on us when we moved here. So anyway, I found a great guy, friend of our neighbors, and he's delivering these truckloads of gravel, and then I'm spreading it around, and I interacted with him a few times. I liked him. And then he. I was using some plate compactor to compact the gravel down. He's like, hey, I got one of those if you want to borrow it. I was like, okay. So I show up to his house and he loans me this thing. And when I get there, it's like country living to the max. I mean, this guy's got a barn shop out in the back of his property that's the size of, I mean, you know, 30ft tall, 50ft, 60ft long. Just this massive, massive structure. And he's got tractors and dump trucks and machines. And, you know, I have a newfound fascination with machinery. So I'm looking around like, oh, what's that? What's that? And I just. Okay, imagine this. Imagine you went to a mechanic shop like that, and you were a little kid, you were seven years old, and you didn't have a thought about whether this guy likes you or not. You were just guided by your fascination. And you walk in, you're like, oh, look at that. Or what's that do? Or, what's this do? And that's what I was like. Like, oh, that's cool. What's that? Oh, this, this, this, that. What's that? And you start asking him questions. And childlike might make it seem like naive or immature or foolish, but it's not. It's actually really open and bright and Energetic and magnetic because you're assuming approval. And when you do, it creates this. This flow, this smoothness. There's something that draws that out in people. Now, if this guy was a curmudgeon, like, get off my property, then, sure, you can't. You're not gonna completely mind control people with your assuming approval hack, but you're gonna generally bring that about with more than more people than you could imagine. And so I just start assuming, you know? And when you assume approval, you also assume a lot of other things. You assume the guy wants to talk to you. You assume he wants to take the time to answer your questions, as opposed to like, hey, I don't want to bother you. I gotta go. I don't want to. You're probably doing your own thing. I don't want to bother you. Have you ever been around someone like that? Have you ever been that person? You're like, well, listen, I don't want to bother you. And the person's like, you're not bothering me. Well, I gotta go. You can't even hear them. The ice on your windshield is so damn thick that all you see is that you just see your own freaking story coming back to you that I bother people and I'm too much and, oh, no. And instead of seeing what's really there in front of you. And so I just start asking him questions, and then I leave. He loans me the plate compactor, and I start driving away. And that evening, I just kept on thinking about his yard and his tool machines. I said, you know, I like that guy. I think I'm just gonna ask him if I can hang out the next time he's working on one of his machines, his tractors, and just ask him questions. Just spend an hour at his house, be like, what's that? What are you doing there? What's this? And then maybe ask, well, how do you change the oil on this? Not that he has to show me. He could if he wants, but just to be around him and ask him questions. And all that comes out of assuming that he's gonna want to say yes to that, Right? Cause if you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna be a bother, who am I? Why is that guy? I want to spend time with me. And this could be in your dating life. This could be in your career. Like, ooh, who am I? For people to listen to me at work. Oh, my ideas are not good. So this. This points to what I was talking about at the beginning of the episode. Going one layer deeper. This is where your beliefs about yourself influence whether you assume approval or not. Because look at the stories you're telling yourself about why someone would want to be with you or not want to be with you. It's like, oh, why would he want to talk to me? Why would she want to spend time with me? Why would they listen to me? What's the core story or stories about yourself underneath that I'm not worth listening to? I'm a bother, I'm not desirable, I'm boring, I'm not capable. I'm not intelligent. And so what's happening is you have these limiting, toxic, untrue labels that you put on yourself. Then you believe them, and then you operate from them. And so you don't let yourself shine. You don't share, you don't reach out, you don't put yourself out there. And then as a result, people aren't that interested in you because you're not really giving them much. And then it confirms your little story. And you got this loop. And that's called a closed loop, which is what we're going to be talking about in next week's episode, actually, which is one of the top three reasons people are stuck. And that's number one, closed loops. We're going to talk more about that next week, so stay tuned for that episode. But you got to shift this. You got to change this. And the way to do it is to start assuming approval. It might sound like, well, how do you. How do you do that? I don't even know how to do that. Well, start with, what if you did that? What would you do? Can you think about that? Let's say, what's an area? Maybe an area you're imagining earlier, where you tend to assume disapproval and get uncomfortable. This could be in any area of your life. Your dating life, your social life, your work, wherever, with family. And then imagine assuming approval, like, oh, yeah, they're into me, they like me. Of course they want to spend time with me. Of course this person is going to want to see me again. What is it like to actually imagine that? Don't just wait this out and wait for me to keep talking. Take a moment to actually imagine this. This is the work. This is the part that's actually going to shift things for you. And of course, you got to go put into practice with an action step. You do the action steps at the end of these episodes. Right? Okay. All right, just checking in. So imagining what it would be like now, there might be some fear or block that comes up, like, oh, I don't know. That sounds too simple. I couldn't really do that. Sure, it sounds great in theory, but I can't actually do it. Okay. All right. Well, what's probably happening there is. It's uncertain to you what's going to happen if you assume approval and the real you starts coming out on that date or in that meeting at work. And it's scary to you. You're afraid that if more of you comes out, that people are not going to like it. And that comes from a fundamental belief which is the core root belief of social anxiety. I talk about this in my very first book, the Solution to Social Anxiety, which was written back in 2013. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. 10 years. 10 years ago. My goodness. And in there, I talk about. It's this core story that there's something wrong with me. I'm not enough. And everything spills out of that. That's the seed from which the whole BlackBerry bush of social anxiety grows. The thorny, terrible BlackBerry bush doesn't even produce sweet fruits. It's just brambles. And there's this story of I'm not enough. I'm not okay. And so the whole theme of that book, the message of that book and really the work that I do with people is, I know you have that story, but what if that story's not true? And what if that story is keeping you on the sidelines of your life? And what if the only way to free yourself from that story is to take the risk to test it out and discover that something new is different, is real, that there's something truer going on, in which you are actually desirable, lovable, and worthy as you are for who you are, including all the sides of you and all the quirks and all the flaws and all the shortcomings and all the gifts and all the brilliance, all of it. And we say, but not that part of me. No, this. No, not this. Not that way of being. And that might come out on the date. Maybe the silly side, maybe the foolish side, maybe the guy who talks too much. Maybe the one who shares something too vulnerable. I don't know what's going to come out that's uncertain. So you know what? I'm going to stick to the certainty of I'm not enough. They're not going to like it. And that's the whole social anxiety dance. And as long as you're choosing that, you will stay in that, and that will be your life. It doesn't change with age. It doesn't change with getting nose job. It doesn't change with earning more money. It doesn't even change when someone gets into you and you have a partner, you fall in love. You might think that's going to upgrade everything for you, and it won't. The only thing that's going to change it is you fundamentally challenging it. Now, if you're with that partner and you start practicing being more real. And revealing all the sides of you to that person. It can be a corrective and healing experience. But most people don't do that. They get the partner, they try to maintain the relationship. They try to make the relationship certain. They only show parts of themselves to their partner. Because they don't want them to see the other stuff. And then after two years, five years after they have a child, six years later, something happens and it falls apart. And they say, oh, they were a jerk, or she was. She was mean or whatever. And the truth is, they didn't want to face that fundamental story. And take the fundamental risk that actually is going to liberate you. And so here's another opportunity to do that by assuming approval. To take that risk and say, what if I did assume approval and I just started acting as if they like me? And you know, the funny thing is, it's one of those. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. That quote from Henry Ford, it's one of those things. If you believe it to be this way, it is that way most of the time. And if you believe it to be the other way, it is that way most of the time. And so it's very likely that this guy is going to let me go hang out at his shop and hang out with him. And if not, someone else will. It's very likely that when I. When I approach people. That of course they like me. Of course they want to be my friend. Of course they want to spend time with me. Most people do. And then when you imagine the opposite, most people don't want to spend time with you. Most people overlook you. Most people think you're not worth it. And I know it is so damn convincing to say, you see. You see, I knew it was that way. But there is no that way out there. You are a fundamental part of the equation. There is no out there that exists independently of you. You are the lens of consciousness through which it's being viewed. Right? That's the whole crazy banana stuff behind quantum theory in the last 70 years. It's that things are changed by the observer. The observer creates the reality. It literally alters the positions of molecules and space and time, like, wtf? I don't even know. But I do know that how you show up matters. And so if you are ready to really make that shift, it's a choice. And let's talk about that choice in your action step. Time for action. Action, action. So your action step for today is to choose to assume approval. That's it, Just choose it. I'm just gonna start assuming approval. You'll discover a lot along the way. You'll figure it out. New things will come to you. You'll experiment here, you know, maybe you'll hold back there and say, oh, I didn't do that. Oh, then you know, if you were holding back and you didn't do it, say, oh, huh, Was I assuming disapproval? What's that like? Just study it. Study the formula, study the pattern, and then the next time, take a crack at assuming approval. What would I do? And if you, if you freeze up and you're like, I was too scared, I couldn't, I don't know, don't beat yourself up just afterwards say, okay, if I was assuming approval there, what might I have said? What might I have done differently? And it starts to create a pathway, a vision, a sense of possibility in your imagination of what you could do. And then you can, you can do that next time. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. I look forward. By the way, if you're not watching this episode, if you're listening to this on Apple podcasts or whatever, if you go to YouTube and type in Shrink for the shy Guy, you can see these episodes now. We're recording them on video as well. And you can watch me talking to you in case you find that more entertaining. Alright, 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're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.