Dr. Aziz explains how avoidance keeps people trapped in social anxiety. People-pleasing and subtle avoidance behaviors feel like lack of desire, but they mask deeper fears of rejection or being overwhelmed. Confidence comes from stepping into life instead of hiding.
If you want to build confidence in any area of your life, there is one thing that's going to stop that and keep you stuck in social anxiety. Niceness. People pleasing, honestly, for the rest of your life. And that is avoid it. Which is why I say avoidance is the enemy. What is avoidance? Well, it's usually pretty sneaky. I was just talking to someone about this yesterday on a call. You don't say to yourself like, wow, I really want to go for that thing, but I'm afraid so I'm going to avoid it. No, we don't do that. That's too conscious. It's more subconscious than that. I don't have a time delay. I just don't feel like it. We come up with an excuse and then what we're really doing is we're avoiding. And what are you avoiding? That might be a very important question for you to ask yourself. For this gentleman, it was the fear of rejection, the feelings he was going to feel if he got rejected. For other people, if they're going to get what they want and then they're going to be overwhelmed or trapped, what is it for you? What are you avoiding? What are you really afraid of? Let's go. Create confidence by stepping into our lives instead of hiding and eking out our existence in fear.
