Deep Confidence: Overcome Your Fear Of Rejection

How much does your fear of rejection hold you back in your life right now? And really think about that for a moment, because sometimes we avoid so many things that could lead to a sense of rejection that we. Our life just becomes this really enclosed little bubble, and we don't even realize how held back we are by this fear because we don't really come across it. We've constructed our life in such a way that we're so safe that we don't even brush against rejection. Right? So if you. And this is what I did for years is if talking to a woman, going over and starting a conversation or chatting with a woman that you find interesting or compelling or beautiful increases your fear of rejection, which, if you're a guy, it almost certainly does. And it did for me then what I did for many years is I just didn't do it. I just didn't talk with them. I just didn't even try. And so I didn't even really feel that fear of rejection because, hey, I'm not going to get rejected because I know I'm not going to try. So really take a moment and look at your life. Where are all the places you're avoiding? Where are you holding yourself back and just not even trying because of that fear of rejection? And if you were to try, then you just get flooded with fears of rejection, of failure, of not being enough. What if people saw and thought less of me? All that stuff can just flood in, right? And that's that fear of rejection. So I'm saying this right now to help you awaken that fear. And you might think, well, geez, thanks, Aziz. Now I'm feeling fear. But that's actually a good thing because if you're in avoidance and denial mode, that's the worst place to be. It might feel safe, but it's that you don't feel alive there. And I spent years there. And you know what I'm talking about. If you're there right now, you don't feel alive. You feel alive when you're able to just pursue the things that you want, even though there is fear. So that's what this video is all about. Well, how do we overcome this fear of rejection? And the way to do that is to move towards rejection. This is the thing that most guys, when I'm working with, they're like, I was with you until now. Now I'm going to go, because that's the last thing we want, right? That's what we're trying to avoid. That's the monster in the closet that we don't want to address. But the reality is the only way out is through. But here's the thing, we got to be strategic about it, because if you just go out there and try to do the thing you're scared of and you get rejected again, it can just further reinforce things. Right? Have you ever mustered up the courage? I know I did this. I would muster up the courage. I'm going to try to ask a woman out. And I did, like, once every six months at best. But I would. And then I would get rejected, or she'd say yes, but then not call me back or whatever, and I would just feel even more crushed, even more deflated. So we have to approach this systematically. And across all the programs that I have in my work with people, we always integrate some level of the systematic approach to overcoming rejection. And what that is is called embarrassment inoculation. So embarrassment inoculation is much like an immunization or getting a vaccine or something where they give you a small dose of the toxic material, the thing that would make you sick. They give you a very small dose. Sometimes it's not even alive. Sometimes it is, but it's such a small dose that you might feel a little sick from it. And then, as the theory goes, the next time you get exposed to that thing, you may or may not get sick. You hopefully won't get sick. You're protected from it. You built up an immunity through inoculations. And embarrassment works the exact same way. You can take on regular doses on regular intervals, small doses of embarrassment. And that helps you build up an immunity and a tolerance so you can take more and more risk, more feel more and more embarrassment, and not have it make you so sick. And I often tell people when I'm working with them, it's like I, through many, many years of practicing this, have burnt out my embarrassment circuit. And so what it takes to get me embarrassed now is so over the top. And you can do that as well. It's like conditioning yourself. And all it takes is practice and repetition. And what you do is you find small stuff. You don't want to take on a huge dose of a toxin and get sick. You want to take a small dose of that embarrassment. So you find little things that produce enough embarrassment to make you nervous, but not enough to blow you out of the water. Little things like. And this is one of the most powerful things I teach, again, it's really simple. All the simple stuff, when applied regularly, produce dramatic results. And what this is is called friendly greetings. So you're basically going to go to a busy street where a lot of people are. There's a lot of foot traffic. It could be in an indoor mall. If you're in a place where the weather's terrible or something like that, there's a lot of foot traffic. Then you're just going to walk and you're going to say hi to people as they pass you, maybe actually several feet before they get to you. If you wait too long, then they're not going to hear you or they're already going to be past you. So when they're a little ways in front of you, you're going to try to make eye contact. You're going to look at them even if they're not looking at you yet. And you say hey or how's it going? Or hi. Any form of friendly greeting that fits you. And you're going to do this with. I say start with 20 people. 20 people. Do you feel a little nervous imagining yourself doing that? And some people, they hear that like, ah, piece of cake. And then we go out there to do it and right before they're doing it, their hands are shaking, they're sweating and they're like a 7 or 8 or 9 out of 10 in terms of fear and anxiety and that's good. Now if it's too much and you're alone and you're not with me, then you want to pick something lesser. So maybe walking up and asking a person, what time is it? Sometimes that's a really low level one that people are willing to do. Just go find someone out on the street somewhere and say, excuse me, do you know what time it is? I've never had anyone get a negative reaction from this. The worst they get is, oh, I'm sorry, I don't have the time. All the fears about what? You don't have a cell phone in this day and age? What are you, a creep? All the fears that people have, it never happens. And these embarrassment inoculation things are designed to make you a little uncomfortable. So. So friendly greetings is a powerful one. Another one is stuff that you do that actually is designed to be a little embarrassing. So one thing is to go to a drugstore, the Walgreens or Rite Aid, whatever is in your vicinity, or if you're in the uk. I don't even know what a UK drugstore would be, but the equivalent where they sell pharmacy type stuff, go in there and find an employee. Don't just find them yourself. Find an employee and say, excuse me, can I ask you A question, say, yes, where are your condoms? And then if they tell you, say, can you show me where they are? The point is to be a little uncomfortable, to be a little embarrassed. Find things that embarrass you. One that I love from David Burns, who was a teacher of mine. He's an amazing cognitive therapist. He's written a number of books. He's very well respected in the field. He did one with clients where they would be on a busy sidewalk with foot traffic and they would just lay down on the ground for like 15 seconds, 20 seconds and everyone would notice them or a lot of people would notice them. And that is the point. And was that guy embarrassed? You betcha. But then he did that a few times. Everything changes for him. I've done this with a client. I was just talking with a guy last week who started doing the friendly greetings. And in just a one week period, I mean, he's motivated. He committed to doing 20 people a day for five days that week. Five days in a row. It doesn't take that much time. Probably took him like 15 minutes each day. But he walked down the street and he noticed a powerful shift just in five days. Whereas the first day he was hard to look at people. He couldn't talk to people that were in groups. He couldn't do it with attractive. A woman walking the other way. He couldn't greet someone if they had headphones in there. He had all these reasons why he couldn't do it. And then each day he just tried again and again. And eventually by the last day, I was just asking, I was checking, I was like, how about with groups? He's like, yeah, no problem. Attractive women. Yeah, no problem. The guy who has the headphones in, oh yeah, I just wave my hand so I get his attention. So he built that up through embarrassment inoculation so he's no longer so embarrassed by doing it. And you can do the exact same thing. And if you want to get a whole host of what I call missions or embarrassment inoculation exercises or experiments, social experiments, check out 30 Days to Dating Mastery. I've linked to it on this blog post. And there's a way to guide you day by day in emails through a strategy session where you learn exactly what you need to and then a mission that's just like that kind of thing. And you build up your tolerance so you can start from not being able to make eye contact with people to being able to approach the one that you find most enticing and beautiful and starting a conversation and asking her out. So you'll learn that all in that program if you want the tailored approach. So get out there and apply this stuff. Let me know how it goes. Send me an email. I love to hear about success stories or challenges or things you want to tweak on this and just to know how it's going for you because you can make a shift in your life. So until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are.