Confidence and Commitment - Creating Commitment That Inspires You

Ah, commitment. The dreaded C word. No, not that C word. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about the dreaded commitment that most guys tend to have a feeling of. It's confining, it's a lack of freedom, it's a loss of some sort. It's anxiety provoking. It's terrifying. I know myself, I was terrified of commitment for a number of years. I discovered that there's two levels to social anxiety. The first level is what I was working on for a number of years myself and what I help a lot of guys with today, which is the surface level of social anxiety. That's the I'm scared to go start a conversation with that person. I can't speak up in groups, I can't speak up in meetings, I can't go meet new friends. I can't go approach that woman and start a conversation with her, get her number and go on a date. That's all the surface level of social anxiety stuff. What I discovered is I started to overcome that in my own life. And if you want to learn more about that, check out the About Me page. I have a video all about my own journey with this. But the short version of it is I was trapped in social anxiety horribly for a decade, but I was really working on the surface level of social anxiety and I didn't know there was another level. I thought, man, as soon as I figured this stuff out, I started to make some progress and be able to talk to women and give a talk in front of a group. I was like, this is great. I got it all figured out. Have you ever had that in your life? You're like, I figured something out and now I will never feel pain ever again. You know, as soon as I get to X, then everything will be great. As soon as I get that salary, as soon as I get that, you know, as soon as I can get a date with a beautiful woman, hey, it's all done from there, right? It's all downhill. But the reality is there's always another problem. There's always more anxiety, there's always another challenge. And so I discovered that the second, deeper level of social anxiety, the fear of creating deep, authentic, real relationships with other people. Now that could be close friendships, but it's most apparent when it comes to creating an intimate, close relationship, having a girlfriend, having a deep monogamous relationship with someone, terrifying to me. I didn't even know it was scary at first because I didn't get there. And then as soon as I started to get There I started to be more of myself. I kind of shed the pickup artist facade and just started to be more authentic and found that it was way more effective at meeting women than trying to be this pickup artist guy. So I was able to introduce myself, go on a date, be real and authentic with them, and it would be an amazing connection that would start to form, and it was great. She was loving it. I was loving it. And then all of a sudden, right about week two or three, this creepy feeling started to come in from down in my stomach, bubbling up into my solar plexus and chest. And it was like, I'm not at ease right now. Pretty uncomfortable. I started to feel more and more anxious, and I didn't know why. And I knew it was about being with her, though, because it was like, hey, it's easy. You want to go on a date? And I was like, anxiety, fear, terror. No, no. And I was like, this is crazy. Why do I not want to do this? I just want to do this. A week ago, what has changed? And what would I do? I tried to white knuckle it through it and just ignore it or be cool on top of it or something. That didn't work. I even tried talking about it with her, and she'd be like, why are you anxious? And I'm like, I don't know. And I didn't. I honestly didn't know. And so this happened a number of times. It was incredibly painful to pursue a woman that I was interested in. That was beautiful. I had the skills to create the conversations, create the connection. We go out a few times, we get physical, or maybe even not. We just get close intimately, and I freak out. I mean, that's the best way to describe it. I just freak out, and then I have to break up with her. And it was terrible. It was really painful. And this happened. I mean, after the second or third time this happened, I started to create a story. And you might have a story about commitment, but my story was, I can't be in a relationship with a woman because there's something terribly wrong with me. Yes, it's a very refined, specific story, but there's something terribly wrong with me. I'm defective. I'm broken in some way. I'm a. A mutant in some way. Not physically, emotionally. There's just something wrong with me. And if you were to really depress me and say, aziz, what is wrong with you? I'd say, I don't know, just something I'm just not capable of relationship. And then you say, really And I'd say, yeah, well, look at my last three attempts. Four attempts, five attempts. I mean, the number kept on growing. So I kept on trying. Because wanting to connect and have a deep relationship with someone is a basic human need. So I kept on trying to do it, but it just never worked out. So I came up with this terrible conclusion. There's something horribly wrong with me. I'm not capable of relationships. I guess the question is, do you have a similar conclusion about yourself? Is that something that you're telling yourself as well? Because, you know, I believe deep down most guys want to have a deep, amazing connection and have a girlfriend or a wife or a partner that is just the most amazing woman they could find. That they didn't feel like they had to settle, that they didn't feel like they were just taking what they could get. Or as a friend of mine calls it, the low hanging fruit. But someone who they really are just totally inspired by. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, she has amazing interests, she's passionate, she's alive, she's feminine, she's graceful. She's just everything you could want. I think if a guy finds a woman like that, he wants to keep her, he wants to be in a relationship with her on some level. Maybe you want to have a series of dating experiences and sexual experiences just to experience what it's like I did. But then at some point you want something more, you want something deeper. It's a pattern and trend I've seen again and again with guys, including in myself. So we want that. It's a basic human need. But then we have this idea that I'm not capable of it and it's terribly painful. This one thing that I want in my life that everyone wants, and it's the most important thing in life in some ways. And I can't have it because I'm messed up. So if you're there right now, I want to convey one thing to you. That story is bs. It's a belief system, it's an idea, it's a conclusion. And it's false. Now, I didn't believe this at first, but the reality is that it's actually very specific things that you are doing or not doing that are blocking your ability to connect with a woman and create that deep, satisfying, passionate, committed relationship. Very specific things. And those things might be not speaking up in the way that you need to. You know, for me, it was not asserting myself, not being able to say no. I had no boundaries. I couldn't say no. If she wanted to go on a date, I felt like I always needed to make her feel okay about herself and always say yes. And I was always taking care of her emotionally and just so worried about her, treating her like a. Like a bird with a broken wing. And I couldn't say no. I couldn't have boundaries. I couldn't say what I wanted in the relationship, what I wanted to do on a practical level for dinner, what I wanted to do with my weekend, what I wanted to do with my free time, where I wanted to go on dates, what kinds of things I liked and didn't like sexually. All of that stuff, I just felt like I couldn't say I didn't have permission to do. I felt like I'd be a bad, selfish jerk if I did that stuff. Now let me ask you this. If you imagine going into a relationship with those rules that you can't say what you want, you have to always take care of the person and make sure they never feel anything negative and that you can never say no to them, how long would a relationship like that last before you started to feel anxious? Maybe two or three weeks. So it was very specific things. And it might be those specific things for you, but it might be other things. Perhaps, you know, a woman gets close to you and you get kind of cold and mean with her. You don't know how to be vulnerable. Perhaps you don't know how to communicate clearly. Perhaps you don't know what to say when you're struggling and suffering to bring her closer to you and you just kind of, you know, freeze her out, or you try to do something to make her jealous, or you just have these tactics that just don't work. But the reality is it's very specific things that you can learn and you can shift. It just takes a level of self awareness. That's where confidence coaching comes in, because I can help you figure out what's getting in your way. And sometimes it's really obvious, those specific things, and sometimes it's more subtle and you have to dig until we can find it. But the result is that you can create an amazing relationship with a beautiful woman, just like the one I described before, where you don't have to settle. And I've been blessed to find a woman like that in my life. Her name is Candace, and she blew me away the first time I met her. She was so intelligent. She was my teacher when I first met her. She was levels above me in her ability to communicate and be honest and authentic. And I learned so much from her. And she also happened to be incredibly hot. So I had the hots for the teacher, and I pursued that, and we ended up getting together, and now we're married, and now we have a kid, and it's the most enriching experience in my life. And thank God I could figure that stuff out. So I want you to be able to figure that out. You know, I didn't believe it was possible. And I. First of all, I had two ideas. One, that commitment is this cage. And the reason it was a cage is because I was making it a cage. All those rules that I had. So you have to discover what your rules are for commitment and how they can find you. The second thing is I just didn't believe it was possible. As I said before, I had the belief that sooner or later, someone loses interest and it ends. And I remember telling that to Candice when we first got together. You know, it was going really well, and I was like, I'm really. I don't know, I'm anxious because I still felt the anxiety, but it just took me some time to work through it with her. But I was like, I'm anxious. And she's like, well, you know why? And I said, well, you know, this is going good now, but sooner or later it's going to end. And she convinced me that that's not the case. She's like, you know, that's one option. People can be together for a while and have some chemistry and their chemicals take over, and then they eventually tire of each other. But that's not how I see relationship. That's not what I believe. I believe that you can continue to deepen your love for each other and you. And you can get to know that one person so well that you know so much about them. You know them in their core. You know their. Their ugly spots and their blemishes, and you know them in their. In their full glory. And you appreciate and you just are fascinated in getting to know more and more about this person and knowing and discovering their soul. But then it gets even better because they're not a static thing that just stays that way. They keep evolving and growing, and you study and explore that together. And they know you in the same way, and they support you, and that is the most enriching thing in life. And I was like, wow, no wonder I'm into you. Let me write this down. This is great. And that's what has been created between us. And it's amazing. And there's so many things that we do that creates that relationship when it comes to learning how to communicate. And that is a huge piece of having effective commitment. I talk more about that in the video, how to keep the spark alive. It's all about communication. It's all about how you can relate to your partner in a way that intensifies the connection. Trust me, it's not what you think, like what you read in a Cosmo, like, you know, show up at the door naked and greet them. I mean, it's not stuff like that. It's really, how do you create an amazing connection with the person? Because then when the amazing connection is there, then the passion and the spark just flows. So. So one thing I hope you take from this video is that wherever you are, a commitment can be a level of enrichment to your life that you could never imagine until you felt it. As long as your rules around commitment support you, foster you, you know, we've learned to give space to what she calls autonomy. Man, in me, that's meaning to do my own thing. That's like, you know what? Instead of spending Friday night through Sunday all weekend together, let's hang out on Friday, a bit of Saturday, and then Saturday night, I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna do that. I could never ask for that. And that might sound simple that you might be thinking like, God, Aziz, that's so basic. But you have your hang ups too around commitment. We just have to find what they are. And if that one doesn't relate to you, I guarantee there's something that's getting in your way. The second thing is that commitment is a level of freedom. It's a level of expansion. And then when I had that reframe, it's like, oh, wow, I'm free to, like, feel so nurtured and supported in my life and not stuck in that loneliness and suffering and pain. So I could go on and on about this for days, and probably one day I will create a program about creating an outstanding relationship. Maybe I'll even teach it with Candace because she, as I said, is an amazing teacher. But then again, watch that story that there's something wrong with you and you just can't do it. Trust me, it's not true. It's very specific skills that you can learn. I'd be happy to teach them and share them with you and discover them, but with you through coaching. So if that's something you're interested in, reach out to me, send me an email, and we can get started. So until we talk again, may you have the courage to be who you are to find that person that inspires, excites and delights you. Pursue them authentically as you are, knowing that you're awesome and create that outstanding commitment and relationship. I'll talk to you soon.