Does Being Less Nice Get Easier?

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. Hey, welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about every everybody's favorite topic, niceness, and how to be less of it. And if you listen to my show for any length of time or read my book, Not Nice, then you know what I mean by nice. And if this is new to you, if you feel a cringy reaction inside that says, oh, my God, being less nice, that's a terrible human thing to do. Well, actually, the opposite of nice is not to be intentionally cruel or hurtful or mean or a jerk or an asshole or any other label. The opposite of nice, as you will see, is authenticity, is realness. Because niceness for the vast majority, I mean, someone could use the word in a slightly different way, but if you really study how it's used, and what I'm trying to point to here with this term of niceness is that fear that we have of being disliked, that fear of conflict, that fear of upset, right? And then from that place, we act polite, we act quiet, we don't speak up, we don't say the truth. We avoid things because we're trying to keep the peace. We are terrified of any sort of turbulence, discomfort, friction, or conflict. That's what niceness is. And now if you're terrified of something and it feels extremely threatening or dangerous or bad or wrong, then you just might avoid it if you're a human. That's what we tend to do with the stuff that we don't like. We avoid it. And there is a massive downside to avoid it because you're avoiding your own authenticity, your own expressiveness, your own truth and saying what needs to be said. And there's a whole host of consequences. Now, this episode is not all about sort of the basics of niceness. You can find that in previous episodes of this show. Just type in nice@shrinkforthshyguy.com in the search bar. Just type in nice and you will find a number of episodes about it. But this one is specifically addressing something that people will ask me as they're going through this process. They say, aziz, does being less nice and more real get easier? We're gonna unpack that. You might have wondered that yourself. Well, so first things first. That's an interesting question to ask. Why is someone asking that question? Well, because it seems hard, right? It seems hard to be real. Can you relate to that? Does it feel hard to be authentic, to say what you want to say? And maybe hard comes across in a number of ways. Maybe it is you feel tense or nervous or scared or uncomfortable before imagining maybe in the moment things will come to you, they may want to say, and you just feel kind of locked up and tense and scared. Maybe there's situations where you intend to be more direct or assertive, and then you get in there and you notice that there's some old pattern of pleasing or saying something you don't mean or staying silent or just escaping the situation. And it seems like there's a momentum to those old patterns. And to do something different feels hard. Can you relate to that? That's pretty common. And the answer, the short answer to that question is yes. Yes, it does. Hooray. So that's the carrot to go for the pot of gold, as it were, that your efforts, your growth will pay off. And this is true for anything that we practice. Right. You're like, man, it is hard to whatever you're sport of choices or activity of choices and fitness level. Right. You know, but maybe someone who's been pretty sedentary, and for them to jog a mile is really hard. And they'll say, man, does jogging a mile ever get easier? And the answer is yes. Depending on what? What do you think? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, yeah, depending on how often you do it. That's the big one, right? Frequency, practice, repetition. That's why in the group programs that I run, in fact, I have a group specifically dedicated to this. It's called Total Social Freedom. And that group is entirely focused on over three months, 90 days. How do we get you from being restricted, inauthentic, and afraid of other people's perspectives and opinions to becoming more boldly expressive than ever before in your life, and just to be free of that fear, what they are going to think of you? And if you're interested in this in the Description, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com for this episode, and then there'll be a link to learn more about total social freedom. I love that program. So when we're in this process, we need to practice. And so repetition is going to be a part of it. And that might sound easy, but we're going to address that in this episode because simple, yes. Easy, maybe not, right? Like that person who wants to exercise more. It's simple. Just start walking more, jog more, do whatever your activity of choice is more. Find time, schedule it in your day, practice it. Right. It's all pretty simple. It's not complex. But then do we do it? What makes it complex is our emotional experience. So that's the other thing that needs to change. Not just massive repetition. What the massive repetition really is doing is changing your perception of reality. So what's different about becoming less nice and more authentic than, say, getting physically stronger is that the changes are not in your physical muscles. They're in your perceptions, your beliefs, your stories, and your emotional capacity. I'm going to share more about what I mean during this episode, so you're going to understand that by the end of this. But those two things combined, repetition and changing your perception, changing your perception of reality is going to make being not so damn nice, way easier, feel way more natural for you. So are you excited? Does that seem valuable for you? You know, and let's just. Before we just dive in with the how to and all that stuff, it's always important to set our target, get clarity. Because otherwise, you know, I don't know. Okay, it sounds good while I'm listening. But then going and doing it right, that resistance kicks in. So we always have to know what's our why, what's your vision? And why do you want it so important for anything small or big? So for you, what would being less nice look like? What is more authenticity? And where would you want that to show up? Is it in your work life, in your dating life, in your social life? And what would it be feel like? What do you imagine is possible if you could more boldly be yourself? Forget about all the steps in between. Just focus first on where you want to go, because that's where the energy is. That's where the inspiration, that's where the motivation, that's where the commitment, that's where everything comes from, is the direction you want to go. Okay, great. You want to take more time to connect with that at some other time, by all means, it's time well spent. So how do we make this a reality? Well, repetition, repetition is going to be the through line. It's the one to fall back on and What I found is that when people start to engage in this process, they reach a threshold moment where being too nice is causing some problems in their life. And they might know that it's because they're too nice. They might think it's because they're too nice, but they're not quite sure if that's really the cause of all these things. But they come across my book, Not Nice, and they're like, oh, yeah, that seems related to me. I want to read that. And then as they start to read it, they're like, oh, my God, this is affecting me in so many ways in my life. And there's many people who've read that book who have told me, like, you know, I didn't even think that was a problem for me. And I looked at, wow, look at all these ways where I'm not being real with people. So we reach some moment of threshold or of problem with it, and then we are motivated, and then we read a book, and then we take some action. Right? And maybe you've already done that. Have you taken some actions to be more expressive, to be more assertive, to say no, to ask for what you want, to be more bold in different ways. If so, well done. Congratulations. That's the process of growth and liberation. And there sometimes it's a snag, which is after a little flurry of activity and maybe even making some progress, it tends to die down. We tend to kind of slow down and stop. Or, you know, the initial action is uncomfortable. It takes a lot of energy. It's like, oh, here we go. I'm leaning in. I hope this doesn't. I hope that. Oh, God. And then we do it, you know, but, okay. After a little while, our willpower can kind of tend to drain away. And then we're just left with, oh, man, this is daunting. So the key is not just a flurry of activity. The key is consistent practice. And one of the problems that I've seen that people do is they try to take on way too much at once. They're like, that's it. Nice meat is done. I'm going in. I'm gonna talk to this person at work. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And they're just like, I'm gonna do it everywhere at once. And sometimes that's what you gotta do. It's like, hey, I gotta be real or I'm gonna die. And then you just start to be more real. But that's partly what makes it unsustainable. Is it's so intense and so scary or destabilizing. So I am a big fan of incrementally building up, just like fitness, right? You know, build up your stamina, build up your capacity, build up your baseline, and so start to practice. Look for several opportunities per week, just maybe two per week, to practice intentionally being less nice and more real. Where? What opportunities? Well, that is determined by the fabric of your own life. Like right now in your life, where might you be a little bit more real or authentic? Where might you say what needs to be said? Is there anything that you would benefit from saying no to? Small things, little things. About your schedule, about your time, about your activities, about who you're doing something with or what. Small no's. And as you reflect on that question, you might say, oh, there's this big thing, I gotta say no to this person at work or I gotta end this relationship. And then you get all freaked out. That's what I'm talking about, is go slow. Look, if you've been in that relationship for a year, two or three or whatever, and you're thinking about ending it and you kind of know you're gonna, you don't need to do that like today, do you? You've already gutted it out, probably six months longer than you wanted to anyway. What's another month or something just to start to build some momentum and get some sense of capability. So where might you want to say no to little things? Also, where might you ask for something in your life? Is there anything you'd want to ask for? Anything you want to ask if you're in a relationship, your partner for. Maybe something about time together, activities together, your intimacy, your sex life? Is there anything you want to ask for in another relationship or with a colleague or at work, or from a supervisor or from an employee or whatever? Where is there a conversation that might be beneficial to have? And those conversations don't have to be really intense, like I've been having this resentment steaming for five years and now I'm going to tell you about it. It could just be like, oh man, I've been avoiding talking with so and so at work about, you know, they're slow in getting back to me with those things and that doesn't work. We need to tighten that up, you know, that kind of thing. So just start to investigate. And you will see plenty of stuff. Everybody has, everybody does. And if you don't, there's probably some level of like, no, I just don't see it. I'm just being real as fuck, man, I don't know. I just tell it like it is. Like, okay, all right, maybe, maybe, but sometimes even I've come across people who are very direct and they're like, I don't have any problems with being too nice, maybe, but remember, the opposite of nice is not to be a jerk or even to be super direct. The opposite of nice is to be real. And sometimes people that are super direct and super real might have a different kind of authenticity that they have a hard time being with, which is maybe a more tender side of themselves, a more vulnerable side of themselves. There's no problem telling people what to do, or this is what I think or whatever. But to reveal an insecurity or a concern or something, that's where they might not do it. So we all got something great. So just something to reflect on there. We may circle back to that in our action step, perhaps. So what does that do for us? Well, if you just take that on, if you just say, you know what, I'm going to consistently find opportunities to practice this. This is where I've seen people that in total social freedom, the program I mentioned, or in my year long mastermind program, people that really transform in this in a profound way. They don't just say, okay, I'm gonna do this because this is an assignment in this program I'm in. It's like they're like, they take it on, they start to look for opportunities in their life to be more real and it becomes their own. Those are the people that transform in profound ways. And it makes sense, right? It's like they're doing it as a long game consistently. Now that in itself is gonna make it easier to be more direct, to be more assertive, to speak up. Absolutely. The repetition will help. And we can also help it even more. And the way that we do that is actually combined with the repetition. So I don't think you can do this other side of the coin without repeated practice. You can't just solve this problem from the safety of your couch. You know, we gotta be. Well, in this day and age, you can do everything from your couch, but you're still gonna have conversations from your couch on the phone or on text or on zoom or whatever. So you're still gonna be interacting and expressing and doing these things. Maybe you are literally on the couch these days, but we're still interacting with other people. Right? In some way, shape or form. But what I mean is we must get out there and start practicing. And then we're also at the same Time, though, continuing to examine the nice conditioning and upgrade our rules and our perception of reality. So let's say you are going to speak up, or you did speak up, and you felt really nervous, and then afterwards you thought, oh, my gosh, was that too harsh? Or, oh, my gosh, people don't like me, or whatever it is. Instead of like, well, I did my repetition. I'll just do it again. And just sort of mindlessly powering through. We want to slow down and we want to examine and we want to say, huh? How am I creating this? This is the first powerful step to real freedom. Because the discomfort is not inherently in speaking up. Like, speaking up for yourself doesn't have to be uncomfortable. It's not like it might seem that way. It might be like, oh, my God, those two things go together. That's it. Like, speaking up or being assertive is inherently uncomfortable, and you just gotta get used to it and gut through it and okay, but. But actually, there's a way that we're being with it, and we just want to get really curious. How am I creating this? What am I saying to myself? What rules do I have? That's a very important thing. Anytime you feel guilty, what rule did I say I broke? I'm so anxious that person's not going to like me anymore. Okay, what am I afraid of? Well, I told them no. They invited me to two different things, and I told them no two times. My God, friendship's over. Okay, so what is my rule? I shouldn't say no to a friend, huh? Okay. And then you want to take some time. You want to chew on that one, you want to reflect on that one. You know, go for a walk or a drive with no music or no input and just think about that. Is that really true? Where did I learn that rule? Is that how I want to live my life? Because remember, you are the captain of your ship. You are in the driver's seat. You determine these rules. Now, they might be things that you learned or were conditioned from a different age, but that doesn't mean that you don't have choice over those things. And that's the other part of this. That's kind of the mental side of it. The other part of this is the emotional side. And some of this stuff, it's like, I don't even know where I learned this rule. I don't even know what's going on. It just feels like my skin's gonna melt off. I feel like I'm gonna explode inside or whatever. So what's happening There is most likely your nice conditioning, most of which you don't remember, is still part of your emotional experience now to this day. And there's a lot of fear or pain or other uncomfortable emotions that have been bound up in your emotional psyche or energy system. And then you've kind of constructed your life to avoid all that kind of stuff so you never have to feel this. And now something more is possible, which is like, I'm willing to be uncomfortable to create something better, something more in my life, better relationships, better. More success, more opportunities, more confidence. And so on that pathway, I'm willing to feel, I'm willing to be uncomfortable. And so in the early stages of this, or even the middle stages of this, you're going to be more expressive, you're going to be assertive, you're going to do something, say something, ask for something, and it might feel really uncomfortable. And you want to get better at, at being with the feeling without adding what Tara Brock calls the second arrow. So let me give you a little example. Just the other day I went for a day long hike. Sometimes I just get this intuitive message like, just be out. You gotta go do something crazy. Now it's more specific than that. It's not just a vague do something crazy. It's usually some form of be outside all day, using my body as strenuously as possible. So I had this impulse, intuition come and then I was. And it's always like, it's not like, oh yeah, I'll schedule that out in a month or two. It's like, no, when can we do this? Can we do this today? Can we do this tomorrow? So I've learned this has happened a number of times for me and I've learned to just follow it. And so much amazing stuff happened on that hike. But anyway, I looked it out, I looked at my schedule, I could move things around and have a middle of the weekday where I could do it. And I was like, I'm going to do it so the very next week I could take advantage of it. And I did. And I did something called the Wildwood Trail, which is here in Portland, Oregon. There's this amazing thing called Forest park, which is this huge forest right on the edge of the city that they haven't logged or cut away. So it's just this massive network of trails through this forest. And, and there's one trail that goes through the whole thing, kind of winds back and forth endlessly and it's 33 miles long. It's called the Wildwood Trail. I was like, that's it. I'm gonna do the Wildwood Trail. So I schedule it. It's kinda last minute. I'm like, packing in the morning. I got this Uber ride that's gonna take me to the north part of the trailhead, and then I'm just gonna walk down. And you end up in the city from there on the other side. So I'm throwing stuff together in a pack. I haven't really thought it through that well. I'm just trying to remember what I need and whatever and get water and snacks and stuff. And then my. Who's five and a half, Armand is like, I'm coming with you. And he says this sometimes, you know, if I'm just during the day, if I'm going somewhere or whatever. Even sometimes if I'm doing, like a meeting and I'm walking on my phone and walking and talking for the meeting outside, he'll be like, I'm coming with you. And so today he's like, I'm coming with you. And I'm like, oh, sweetie, you know, that sounds so fun. I would love to do a long hike with you. Like, let's do a long hike on Saturday. And he's like, no, I'm coming today. And I'm like, okay. And I'm like, you know, hustling around the house, trying to figure out and think about what I need in the pack. And the Uber ad's gonna be there in five minutes. And I'm like, okay, I gotta do this. And he just trails me like a little shadow and he starts crying. He's like, daddy, I wanna come, you know? And I turn towards him at one point and I pick him up and I hold him and I say, I love you so much. I would love a day with you. I can't wait to spend a day with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You can't come with me today. And then I put him down, I packed a few more things, and I started to leave the house, and I got out into the yard and he was just following me. And then he starts saying, like, you're saying that I can't come, but I could come. You're choosing. And I had explained to him earlier, like, dude, I'm going to be hiking, like, a really far distance. You can't do that. And he's like, yes, I can. He's like, you're choosing. You're choosing not to go with me. You're choosing to do something that I can't do. I looked at him, I said, I know, I know. I am, I am. Darling, I love you. I'll see you tonight. And I walked and I got into the Uber and I mean, it was like he was crying. It was heart wrenching. My heart hurt and I love him so much. But what I felt in that moment was love, like an overpouring of love. And there's pain there, but it doesn't feel. I don't feel bad, you know, it's like heartache or sweetness or his longing or pain, which, you know, 10 minutes later I'm out of the house and my wife says he's moved on to something else. Right? So it's a little kid. It's not this crushing experience for him or anything. He just really, really, really wanted that in the moment. And he certainly, if we got out into the woods, like less than a mile or two out there, he'd be like, I want to go home. Anyway. So I'm in the Uber and we're driving off and I just was reflecting. I was feeling the, you know, the love. I was feeling some of that ache that was experienced there. And I did not feel any guilt. I noticed that. I said, wow, that's interesting. There would have been another time in my life where I would have felt tremendous guilt. I would have felt guilt just even not taking a day off of work to go hike in the woods. Which is actually ironic to think of it as a day off of work because while on my all day hike, I'm like reflecting. I got ideas for books and podcast episode. And so like, I'm kind of doing a different kind of work. I'm receiving a lot of information. But in any case, taking a day off, technically not in the office, that's guilt producing and it would have been in the past. And then especially like someone that I love wanting something from me, and me saying no to them would have been horrible. I would have felt so bad about myself. I'm a bad dad. I'm hurting him. I'm, you know, on and on. It would have been really intense and unpleasant and I didn't experience that. Why? Well, one is having the courage over the years to claim things for myself and the family and say yes and say no when I need to. That's part of it, right? The practice piece that we're talking about. And the other part though is giving more and more permission and I call this in the total social freedom program. It's also in not nice. The book, you Bill of Rights, your new rules, what you're allowed to do. And one of Those Bill of Rights for me is I'm allowed to say no when I want to or when I need to. And I can say that no to anybody for any reason. And the shift is the guilt shows you how much you actually have given yourself permission. Because you could say, I have a right to say no to anybody. And then you say no and you feel horrible, guilty, awful, bad, shame, terrible. Like, okay, you've said it, but you don't actually believe it. You haven't actually truly given yourself that permission. And that's going to come with work, with practice, with immersion, with being in a community. That's why we have the total social freedom. We have the community of people to create that new permission for you to be more authentic. Because, you know, up until this point, it might just be you and a lot of old conditioning in your mind saying, I don't know, that's not that great. That's pretty bad. You probably should just do what your kid wants or whatever that version is for you. So let's talk about how to turn this into action. Time for action. Action, Action. Your action step for today is one. Remember those questions about where might you be more authentic or expressive or direct? Or where might you say no? Where might you ask for something? You probably got some answer during that, some sense of where it might be. Okay, good. Now go act on it. Can you act on it today? Can you act on it tomorrow? And not just once like, oh, I got through it. It was terrible. Never again. Yeah, this is kind of going to be like your exercise regiment for the next couple months. Look for those opportunities and then really take some time to reflect. Make it a reflection process to learn. You got that? Not nice Book is a great companion. And again, if you want to take it even further and immerse in a community. And one of my promises for total social freedom is you will do more in three months than you have in the last three years in terms of being assertive and direct and speaking up for yourself and really changing that way of being. So I'd love to share that experience with you. We get to do monthly live group coaching calls with me personally in a small zoom room. So an exciting opportunity to start working together in a more intensive way. And I think it will be a great experience. So if you're interested, if this is resonating, go check that out. Go to Shrink for the shy guy and look at this episode and then there'll be a link down below to find out more about the program and apply and most importantly, whether that's the direction you want to take or not? What is your plan? Or are you ready to be consistent? Cause if not, then this doesn't really stick. It just becomes. It's never easier because, you know, it's like, oh, when is running that mile easier? Well, if you just never really get out and exercise much, it's never gonna get easier. So we don't wanna delude ourselves and say, like, oh, yeah, somehow, like, a year from now, I'll be naturally more assertive. It's like, no, you gotta build that muscle. And when's the best time to do it? Well, there's that old saying, right, that when's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When's the second best time to plant a tree? Right now. So let's get out there and start planting trees. You're awesome. Thanks for being with me. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are, to be the most authentic, bold, free, expressive version of you. Because when you do that, the world benefits. And, of course, also to know that you're awesome. We'll talk 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 vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.