Give Up To Get Confidence And Freedom Now

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. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about the joy of getting giving up on your goals and dreams. Yay. Let's all give up together. And I know that might sound kind of crazy, but stick with me in this episode because I have found in my own life and working with clients that giving up. And I'll explain exactly what giving up means in this episode. But giving up can actually set you free in the most beautiful and profound ways. And this is true for anything in life. But especially, especially in the realm of becoming more confident, more free, more expressive, more you in the world. And the pushing and the striving and the trying to get there ends up being the thing, the very thing that prevents you from having what you want to experience. So I'm excited. Let's dive right into it. What do I mean by giving up on your goals? Well, you have an idea, you have a desire to be a more confident version of you. If you're listening to this show, right, you know, you want to be whatever you call it. I want to be free of social anxiety. I want to be more confident or I want to be able to. Maybe it's not some general idea like more confident, it's more specific. I want to be able to go talk to those people. Or you think about a certain situation at work and you're like, ugh, I wish I could be more expressive here. I wish I could be the fun, free version that I am with my friends, with someone new or at the, you know, the dinner party or on a date. But I get all clammed up and nervous and restricted. So I want to be more free. I want to be more expressive. And you might have a long list of all the things that you want to be able to do as a more free version of you. And guess what? I want you to have those things, too. Experience that freedom. Absolutely. I want that for you. And it Turns out that that grasping at it, that wanting of it, causes a lot of suffering. And. And here's the crazy part, doesn't actually get you the experiences that you want. That's the part that people kind of squint their eyes at when I say that. They're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, it's. It's gonna make. That's how I'm gonna get there, Aziz. I mean, you talk about bold action, you talk about doing things in the world. I. I have to make it different, and then I gotta get there. And that might seem like it's going to work, and maybe you've pressured yourself and pushed and strived, and I got this thing, and then you got it. But so many things in life, maybe all of life, but especially confidence, is a bit more of a byproduct than something that you can go out and do. So, for example, falling asleep at night. Have you ever tried to just make yourself fall asleep at night? Come on, go to bed now. Got your sleep schedule. You get into bed, you're supposed to be asleep by 10:13. So you can wake up at 6:14 with 8 hours and 1 minutes of sleep. According to my sleep tracker, that's what's optimal. And so you lie in bed, and it's 10:12, and you're like, okay, we got one minute. Go to sleep now. And then what happens? You lay wide awake, freaked out, stressed out? Doesn't work, right? You gotta let sleep come to you. So sometimes people hear this and they say, what? Okay, so just let things come to me? Do nothing? Is that what you're saying? And first of all, you gotta smile because what's up with that? Flipping from one extreme to another. Why do we do that? Why do we go to the complete opposite? That's not what I'm saying. There's all kinds of things you can do to set yourself up to sleep. Well, to use this metaphor, right? Well, maybe not getting into bed at 10:12, trying to be asleep at 10:13, that's one problem. Maybe you need to get into bed at 20 minutes before then, maybe even before those 20 minutes, you do some things to help you wind down. You stop looking at your screen. You drink some calming tea. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever is you want to do. Breathe and look at the moon, whatever it is you want to do, to slow down, make sweet, sweet love, right? Whatever it is you do. And then you setting yourself up to sleep better. But guess what? You could do all the things, all the things, and you still Might not fall asleep at 10:13. Right? Maybe you've done that. In fact, I have some people that I know in my world who have ongoing issues with insomnia. And they are. They're the. They'll. They're an encyclopedia of sleep hygiene and all the things you could do. And this is where it gets really frustrating, because it's not just about the doing. It's about how you're being. And I see this all the time in people that I work with. So they're building up their social confidence. And they've spent years avoiding putting themselves out there, years of avoiding the dinner party, years, avoid the risk, the social risks of asking someone and trying something. And so it's like, okay, I'm gonna do it. You know, Aziz has this line. He says, confidence is a byproduct of action. Okay, I'm gonna take some action. And I say, great, thumbs up. That's like getting your sleep hygiene in order. Awesome. Do it. And they take the action. You approach people, you speak up, you ask someone out, and then, damn it, it didn't work. I didn't get what I wanted. This isn't working. And the issue there is not the actions. The issue is the attachment. The. I need this to go a certain way. And there's so many different words for it. I mean, attachment. And that idea is for Buddhism, there's a more modern idea called outcome independence, which is the same thing, just rebranded. But when you take an action, if you're fixated on I this result, then not only do you suffer before, during, and after, you also are less likely to achieve what you want. And so if I need to be more confident tonight at this party, if I need those people to like me, if I need this to go a certain way right now, urgently, then you're going to suffer before, during, and after. And you're gonna be less likely to experience what it is you truly want, or you go into this cursed land where you do get what you want, but you still don't feel how you want to feel. So let's not make this very abstract. Let's make this very practical. You have some social engagement that you're going to this weekend, and you have a desire. This is how I want it to go. I want to feel confident when I'm in the room. I want to be able to approach people and start conversations, and I want people to laugh at my jokes, and I want people to think I'm great, and I want people to want to date me, and I want people to be My friend, whatever it is. And those visions of what you would like of a more free you is not the problem. The problem is the four letter word in there. Need it. I need it. It's an emotional intensity around it because underneath that is I need this or I'm not okay. And look, Aziz, I'm not okay. I'm lonely, I'm anxious, I'm a loser. This is not you. This is me from many years ago. If I was talking to them, the adult Aziz here when I was a youngin. No, man, I'm not okay. Look. Look at that person over there. They're dating. Look at that person over there. They're so comfortable in groups. Look at that person. They're so pop. I'm not okay. I'm not okay. I need to make this happen tonight. You know where this story is going, right? What's gonna happen tonight or this weekend at the thing? It's probably not gonna go well. Why? Because you're gonna be really anxious ahead of time. Need to make it happen. Need to make it happen. It's not even happening. That moment's not even existing right now. And it's four days ahead of time and I need to make it happen. What do I need to make happen? All these events need to go according to my plan. AKA I need to control. Other people might not say that. Like, no, I'm not controlling. I'm just gonna show up in this super awesome way and do all these awesome things. Okay, if you showed up in that super awesome way and made all those awesome things happen, what then? Well, then everyone would like me, and I'd be popular and I'd be rich and famous and successful too. Okay, so you're going to, by controlling yourself, ultimately control everyone around you. AKA control events, circumstances, situations, people's thoughts, people's feelings, people's perceptions, reality around you. Like Neo in the Matrix. That's all. Is that too much to ask? I just want to have total control of the code behind all things. And so you're anxious ahead of time during your. Maybe you're anxious, maybe you're grasping, maybe you're frantic, maybe you're worried, maybe you're. It's not going well. It's not working. That's why you're at the party. And so and so is talking to so and so. And then you jump into the conversation and I need everyone to think my joke is funny here. And then you do the joke or you don't because you're so scared. So you're more just quiet and Nodding and smiling. And then people seem to want to move on. And during, during that experience, you're. Who knows what's actually going on because you don't. And I'm speaking from experience here. When we're wracked in that anxiety of needing something to happen, we don't know what the hell's going on. We're not perceiving reality accurately. We're overlaying it with so many filters. The metaphor I've used recently, you might have heard me talk about this in a previous episode, is the augmented reality glasses. So you got those glasses on and there's. Yes, there's people in front of you, but you're seeing all kinds of stuff. You're reading into gestures seven layers deep. I hear this all the time. I'm working with someone. Like, yeah, you know, they, they didn't think this about me. Or they're more interested in these other people, or they read micro expressions and read into rejection in the sense that so and so was talking a little bit more, you know, in that conversation. It was a group conversation. There's four of us all talking. And so and so was talking to so and so 18% more than they were talking to me. And they. I know it. I know that they thought I was this. I know this. So we're not. We don't know what the hell is going on because we're so attached. And then afterwards, with that level of grasping, there's only a few potential outcomes. One, at best, is like a sense of relief. Like, ah, maybe you did make the funny joke. And haha. And you got a phone number. Someone's gonna date you, they thought you were hot stuff. Maybe you made a new friend. Cool. You might leave that party feeling excited, exalted, exuberant, and other words that begin with ex. And then though, something happens. Maybe on the drive home, maybe that night, maybe the next morning, maybe you get to ride that euphoria for a good couple hours through sleep sound in your bed. Right at 10, everything's turning up, Milhouse. But you wake up the next morning and something's not quite right, you know, Was I as funny as I thought I was last night? Because when I made that joke, I'm gonna scan through this in my memory. I think Tim kind of gave me a little. I think his. It was like a smirk. I think he thinks, he thought it wasn't very funny. He. He thinks I'm full of myself. Screw Tim. I don't care what he thinks. I do care what he thinks. What if other People thought that too. And that new friend, that new date, they didn't reply to my text. What if they never reply?

Oh, no.

Right. So the control breaks down. You don't have any control over what they did and what they do. And you don't. Maybe you got it that one night because you were hot stuff. You were on that night, baby. But what about the next day? What about the next date? What about the next work meeting? What about the next presentation? What about the next. The next, the next, the next. You got to be on. You got to be on. You got to be on. You got to be on. And you know what that means? It just means you're anxious because you can't sustain that. You can't even make that level of control happen more than once in a blue moon. And even then, I doubt you really made it happen. Anyway, so this is where we. Drum roll. Give up. Yay. Give up. AKA surrender. And what exactly are you surrendering? You're surrendering the need to control anyone outside of you. I mean, heck, you're actually surrendering quite a bit of control inside of yourself too. Now, I know this one gets a little slippery slopeish because I do believe in total ownership about how you show up and the choices you make and the actions you take and who you choose to be in the moment. Absolutely. And come on, I mean, total control all the time, that's the aspirational goal. But I don't know anyone that pulls that off. The good news is you don't need to control every thought and every feeling and everything you say to yourself. I'm gritting my teeth as I do this because that's what control feels like. But let's start with out there. You don't need to control anything. What if? What if? And if that feels a little dangerous or threatening or scary or suspicious. And you're squinting your eyes as you hear me say this. I don't know about all this disease. How do I get the things I want? Well, you could still go to the party in this example. Maybe you got something lined up this week and you can still go. I don't mean give up on your life and just descend into a slothful delivery based fast food existence with just you, Netflix, pornhub and some video games. Which is an existence that I did live. Although back in the day when I was playing a lot of video games, watching a lot of porn and I didn't didn't eat too much fast food at that point I'd already gotten a bit healthier but still, it wasn't the greatest food. And the delivery game was not what it was back in 2006 or whatever. Is that the year? I don't even know the year anymore, man. 2000, 1990. I don't know what's going on. Anyway, a long time ago. Now I'm tripping out on it. What year was that? I was 21 years old. So 2001. Yeah, it seemed a little late. 2006. All right, 2001. In 2001. Thank you for taking that little trip down memory lane with me. In 2001, the delivery game was not what it was. The iPhone didn't even exist. Holy cow. Holy cow. Can you just go on a memory trip with me for a second? Can you think back to a time in your life where there was no iPhone or other smartphone? Whoa. What do we do? My kids will ask that question because they grew up in a world where this stuff already was, you know, ubiquitous. And so sometimes my wife and I talk about that, and they'll say things like, what did people do? How did you survive without Instacart? In any case, you can still go to the party. You don't have to give up on your life like I did for a number of years. And maybe you have at times, maybe not, you know, permanently, but you give up on your life for that weekend, just call it a wash. I'm just staying in tonight. There's nothing wrong with staying in. That's a beautiful thing to do, but you know. You know what I mean, right? Where you're just kind of checking out, numbing out? You still go to the party. You still do things in your life. You still approach people. You still take social risks. Nothing is different in the doing. It's in how you're being. Are you grasping? Are you fighting with reality around you? Are you trying to make everything with those gritted teeth be how you want it to be? That's the thing to give up on. And I found the most profound liberation not just in giving up on what happens this Saturday with so and so, but giving up what happens with every outcome in my life. And this is a really interesting one. Cause, you know, I grew up in the world of personal development. After my giving up on life phase, then there was a personal development phase. And that's like, hey, I create what happens to me. I manifest my reality. I make things happen. And I did make a lot of things happen in my life. And I suffered a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot as I was making things happen. So I'd oscillate between I'm making things happen and this is awesome and fear. What if I don't make things happen? What if the next thing I want to happen doesn't happen? What if I lose the things that I made happen happen? Oh, my God. So it's exciting and it's powering and liberating, and then it's also terrifying. So I got to a certain stage in my life where I was like, okay, I mean, this was better than the Warcraft 3 and porn days. I mean, those are pretty sweet. Those are pretty sweet pastimes. But my life got a lot better after that, so that's good. But then you gotta shed. You gotta shed the old way for a new way. And the new way is wu wei. I did not plan that, but that's pretty awesome. I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back. What's wu wei? Wu wei is a term, a Chinese word term, phrase from Taoism, which means effortless effort. Effortless effort. Wu wei. I was explaining this to my son, who's 10, and he's like, what is that? And I said, well, oh, let's use this example. You know, he's learning. He likes to play the piano. We got a piano a couple months ago, an E piano. Not the full thing. E piano is where it's at. I was like, it's the future, baby. Why buy the real piano with all the strings when you could get an E piano? It's a quarter the size and the money. So we got this E piano and there's an app I got, I don't know what's called, like, learn piano or something. That's really awesome. And they both, my kids really love playing with it. And it's cool because it's. It's really excited, their interest in the instrument and. But there is times where they're playing and they're trying to, you know, they gamify it so you, you know, you learn notes and then you pass, you get to the next level and you can unlock a song. And if you hit the notes of the song with the night with the right rhythm and the right. The right notes at the right time, you get enough stu to get to the next song. And so at times, though, both of them have been in this place where they just get fixated and frustrated. Like, I didn't pass, Damn it. They're trying. They get more and more tense. And of course, then they're not passing even more. And I've highlighted that with my son. I was like, you Know when you play the piano and you get really upset and then have you had other times where it's okay that you didn't pass? And he's like, yeah, I learned it much faster. Then I'm like, no. So that right there, you're still playing the piano, but it's Wu Wei. When you're just flowing with it and you're still doing, but it's more like it's being done. It's not. I'm doing it. It happens through me. And this. You don't have to be some Taoist monk in the woods to make this happen. I don't know if Taoist monks lived in the woods, but, you know, it's a cool vision. None of us have to be Taoist masters or Zen masters or Buddhist masters or the Buddha. You can just start by letting go a little bit right now. And the key word there is need. What if it goes from I need it to it's okay. It's okay if it happens or if it doesn't, I will truly be okay. And here's the. It's the hardest sell, because people like, no, but I don't feel okay. I feel empty. I feel. And it's. Yeah, as long as that's driving you, you still won't get what you want. And I know it's a painful reality of life. When I was so desperate for love and connection and so afraid that I wasn't going to get it, I just kept on getting it. And so then people say, okay, yeah, you got to, you know, manifest focus on the Law of Attraction. Focus on what you want, feel how you'd feel if you already had it. And it seems to work great on paper, but it never really worked that well for me because I try to feel like I feel when I have it, but then I don't really feel that. I feel like I'm trying to trick myself. And I'm like, well, I know I don't really have it, but I really want it. Okay, don't want it too much. You feel like you already have it. No, I don't feel like I already have it. I feel like I don't have it. And then I'm just going crazy. And I found it much more liberating for myself to just let go of trying to make anything happen. And it's. I'm going to take inspired action and see what happens. So it goes from I need it to let's find out, or even better, I don't know. I don't know. So the other day, someone asked me, like, what's your. What's your big vision like? Big vision, like, yeah, you know, 10 years from now, where do you want to be in your career? I was like, well. And I used to be like, well, 10 years from now. You ready? Like, rolled up my shoulders, like, I'm about ready to get into the game. Like, okay, here's my goal. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And the goals are always, like, insane, right? Perfectionistic, reach a billion people. And applying this over the last chunk of time. I mean, I've been really interested in this for a handful of years now at this point, but really in a deep way, I'd say in the last year of like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna change how I approach my life and to what I would say is like a higher, deeper level of freedom. And it's being informed as I work on my next book, which is going to be called Doubtless. And it's how to be in that state of flow with life and trusting in yourself and trusting in something bigger than yourself, which has been a very different type of programming than I've run for many years of my life. And so this person asked me and I said, you know, I don't know. I had a big smile on my face. And they're like, what? This is a very driven person that I know. He's got. He's got the bhag, they call it in certain personal development circles. Big, hairy, audacious goals, right? It's like, how big is your goal? The bigger your goal, the more cool you are. And so he's got bhags and business, and he's asked me and I was like, yeah, I don't know. It's like, you don't know? It's like, well, I know what I want to do now. I know the current projects that I'm excited about and energized and want to focus on. So I know that. But I have no idea where I'm going to be in 10 years. I don't know. I don't know what I'll be doing. I don't know where I'll be living. I mean, I think I'll be living in the house that I'm living in now. I love it. I think I'll be doing the work that I'm doing now in some way, shape or form. I love it. I don't. I have no idea. There's a big smile on my face. There's such a level of freedom. And joy and I don't know. I don't need to know. Let's find out. And so what if you don't need to know if you'll sleep tonight at 10:13? What if you don't need to know exactly what's gonna happen on Saturday when you go to that party? What if you don't need to know if you're gonna be in a relationship in three years or not? And if you think. If you think like, no, I need to know and I need to make sure that that happens or else, then the thing to do is not to go try to force reality to be that. The thing to do is to actually pause and look inward, which is going to be your action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step today is going to be to find one thing, small or big, that you sense or think that you need to be. Okay. That could be an external goal. That could be money. That could be a certain type of attention from somebody. It could be something, oh, I need so and so to get back to me tonight about this thing. Or it could be something much bigger in your life. Like, I need to have a child by the time I'm X age. Small or big. Take the thing that you need with that, you know, teeth gritted, n and see if you can breathe and soften and find your way to I don't know. And it's okay. It's okay. I'm going to take action towards the things that I want in my life that I want to create. And it's like a handing it over to. Handing it over from you to something bigger. And there's more. I'll share about this in upcoming episodes and other places, but let's start with that for now. And sometimes just seeing the pattern of the grasping and the suffering it creates is enough to start to open you to something different. So thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

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