End Self-Consciousness!

Hey, welcome to your weekly confidence boost. Today, let's talk about how to end self consciousness. So self consciousness is that you're observing yourself and you're feeling uncomfortable. It's a form of anxiety, right? You're feeling embarrassed, you're feeling ashamed, you're feeling worried. So if you really break down what's happening, you are observing yourself through the eyes of others imagined. You're able to project your mind and to say, this is how other people are seeing me and it ain't good, right? Because if you were like imagining that people were observing you and thinking like, wow, that person's badass, then you'd feel something else. You wouldn't feel self conscious, you'd feel self confident. In fact, this was a fun. I'll share this in just a little bit about a technique, but I used to feel extremely self conscious while dancing. And I noticed that the reason I feel self conscious while dancing is I imagine that people are all watching me. Because of course, everywhere you go, everyone's obsessed with you watching you, everyone cares about you. Like they're doing their own life, they're having a, you know, conversation with their spouse and then they're like, hold on a second, honey, hold on a second. It's him. I'm gonna watch him while he walks by us here. Yeah, just as I thought, he walks like an idiot. Okay, honey, what were you saying about our love and early it's like, what? But we operate like that. It's this weird sort of self absorption that we think everyone's looking at us. And so that's the self consciousness piece is we imagine everyone's looking at us and judging us negatively. Okay? And that's where embarrassment and shame and fear can come from. So how do we end this? How do we shift this? Well, a couple of steps, a couple tips for you. I mean, the longer answer is you increase your confidence that self consciousness is a symptom of low confidence. So how do you increase your confidence? Well, that's what these videos are all about. If you want to go further, check out Confidence University. You can also work with me in a live weekend, online live event, my mastermind program, my year long mastermind program called Unstoppable Confidence. These are the ways that we fundamentally shift this. But if you're like, okay, whatever, just give me the quick fix, doc. It's like, okay, I got something for you. I'm not going to leave you hanging. The answer is, come work with me. No, that is the real answer. But a short answer would be, first things first. Just name it. We can have so much shame about that self consciousness that we want to hide it. And that's a problem in itself, right? Because it's like, oh, if people knew I was self conscious, then that would look even worse. Oh God, I'm even more embarrassed. And it just, you know, if you hide shame, it just grows. So first things first is call it out. Call it out to yourself at first. Like, wow, I'm really self conscious about that thing about my appearance or about my speaking or about my hair or about my whatever. Just call it out. Then the next best thing to do would be to share it with somebody. Share it with somebody close to you. Share it with somebody you love. Share it with somebody safe. Hey, you know, I'm really self conscious about this, this thing about my appearance. I'm really self conscious about my ability to speak up and how I get nervous. I'm conscious about getting sweaty when I get anxious, whatever it is. And then the next step is going to be to own the thing and keep doing it. Because if you hide, oh my God, I'm self conscious, okay, better not do it. And you kind of restrict or implode, then you're trapped forever. So you have to expose the thing that you're self conscious about. I know. Who wants to hear that one? I remember a long time ago, I was talking to a woman about this and she had a lot of self consciousness about her arms. And she said, like, my arms are, you know, saggy and have too much skin and fat on them. Zoom out. Where does that even come from? Well, first of all, this is a beautiful young woman and like, you know, it comes from like insane toxic messages about how thin she's supposed to be that are not even realistic. Right? So that's a whole nother video. That's a whole other conversation. But short version is you need to wake the fuck up and realize that there's a lot of people who are benefiting and profiting on you hating yourself and your appearance. So fuck that. That's something we gotta step up and challenge. Now you can see I got passionate about that. But I said, okay, what do you imagine people are thinking? Imagine the judgment. Well, they're thinking that I look fat and it looks gross and okay. And what has she been doing for years? Not wearing shirt sleeves, not going anywhere. She'd have like a bathing suit on. She would just wear these long sleeves with these kind of larger sweatshirts and other things like that. So hiding the thing, right? You know, for example, someone else who's Self conscious when they speak in a group of people doesn't speak in groups of people. Someone who's self conscious and giving up impromptu speech or speaking up to an audience doesn't speak up. Someone who's self conscious about recording videos. I talk to a lot of people about that. Oh, how do you record those videos online? You know, you're confident doing it. It didn't start that way. It's not like, here's a camera on your face. Aziz, be comfortable. In fact, I remember this was in high school. So I did. When I was in high school, we did shoot videos, make kind of funny, silly movies and videos, and we learned about editing software and everything. It was really fun. I enjoyed that. But it was always like doing a character doing something silly. I remember one of the first times it was like the camera was on me to talk openly and authentically. It was in my senior year of high school. And they had us record a message to ourselves that they were going to show us that, like our 20th year anniversary or reunion or something like that. I don't know. I didn't go to my. I think our 20th year reunion was recently. I didn't even know about it anyway. But I remember I was so self conscious when the camera was on me and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm ugly. I have acne. Oh, I'm so nervous. And I just. I felt like I wanted to just like explode and get out of my skin and run away all at the same time. Right now, here I am talking to you, looking at my own face all day long on video, right? So this stuff can transform and it can change, but it will never transform and never change if you hide it and you hide the self consciousness and you don't do the behavior that makes you self conscious. You have to lean into it. And not just once like this woman. It's like, wear a shirt sleeve and not just once. You gotta wear shirt sleeve again and again and again and again. She's like, yeah, but that's really, really, really uncomfortable. And I said, I know, but it's the only way out. And there are ways to make it less painful. She's like, how? Well, the story that you're imagining other people are saying about you or thinking about you is in here. It's not real. So what you do is you do the thing that makes you self conscious. And then before, during, or after, you have a dialogue with the imagined critic, right? So, oh my God, look at your arms. So gross. You practice responding. That's what I would do with clients. I do it in my group program now to this day, she was a one on one client, but I just, you know, we'll do role plays and have people practice it or I practice it. Then you build up this resilience, this tolerance to be like, you know what, bring it on. I can respond to that. I can handle that. That's not going to destroy me. And then you start to own your reality. In my reality, a human body can look a thousand and one different ways. A million and one different ways. In fact. How many humans are on the planet right now? 8 billion. You know, the human body can look 8 billion different ways and I'm just one of them. So in my reality, it's okay to wear a shirt sleeve if you don't have like weird thin, starved model arms. In my. It's. In my reality, it's okay to give a presentation and stumble on your words a little bit here and there, especially as you're learning. Right. Some people say, no, that's not okay. I have to be perfect. Well, that's another symptom of needing more confidence, my friend. So thank you for being with me today. I hope this serves you. And again, if you want to go further, I'd highly recommend it. I can't wait to hear about. Whoa. Almost just fell off my chair. It's getting crazy, man. These videos are high risk. Thanks for being with me. You're awesome. I love and appreciate you. I'd love to hear about your journey, your growth, your progress. Until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome, my friend. Bye.