Give Yourself This Gift...

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 to today's episode of the show. Today will be a relatively short one because, hey, you might have a lot going on. It's Christmas. Now, you may or may not celebrate or acknowledge Christmas, and you might. And so wherever you are and whatever's happening, there's one thing that you can relate to, which is gifts. Now, if you celebrate Christmas and one way that people celebrate that, at least United States, is a lot of gifts. And I used to judge that a lot when I was younger, in my 20s and more anti the man. And now that I have little kids, I'm, I've softened. I don't judge it all so much. I don't judge anything as much as I used to. But you don't have to celebrate Christmas for this to be relevant. And if you do, then, you know, Merry Christmas. But, you know, around this time, people might be giving gifts and it could be for other holidays, other celebrations, the new year. It's a time that a lot of people come together, be with family, have downtime and share things, including gifts, monetary gifts or items or things. But it also might be other gifts as well. And what I want to focus on today is a gift that you can give yourself. And no, this isn't buying yourself some like, you know, bubble bath soap or something. Although, hey, you know, you do you, you want to pamper yourself, get a pedicure, great. But no, I'm not talking about something so kind of cheesy. When you look up like self care on the Internet, it's just a lot of crap like that, right? Like get a pedicure, take a bubble bath. And again, there's nothing wrong with those things. I just neither of those would be what I would do for self care. But this is a different kind of gift. But it does have a profound effect on you and your confidence and your experience of life. Probably more than the pedicure, probably more than even the new gadget or the new whatever thing that we're excited about getting as a gift, you know, what is it? Well, let me give a little story to illustrate it, and then I'll share more about. Exactly. And how to apply it. I was just talking with a client recently, and this is an amazing, beautiful, intelligent, capable woman. And yet she took this confidence assessment that I have, and her score was just in the gutter, man. Just low on all fronts. And so she sees herself as not enough, not desirable, not attractive, not capable, not worthy, boring, all of these things. And it's shocking when you see it from the outside. Guys are like, what are you talking about? You're, like, charming and interesting and very motivated and intelligent and beautiful. And like, what. What is happening? Right, but what's happening is not that mysterious. It's that her perception of herself is different than my perception of her. Probably different than a lot of people's perceptions of her. In fact, I asked her, I was like, what's the name of one of your best friends? And she told me, and I said, well, what would that friend say about you in terms of interesting or desirable? And, of course, it would be way different, radically different. So she could even intellectually acknowledge that her friend sees her differently than she does. And she could intellectually acknowledge that her perception of herself was maybe not totally accurate, was distorted. But. But. And you might relate to this, and here's the big but. It feels true, right? It feels true. So I guess that is what it is. And this is the gift that you can give yourself. Because what I was explaining to her, and I'm going to explain to you now, is after doing this for so many years, 20 years of my own growth and many, many years of helping other people, I've realized one thing. And you might have heard me say it before in the show, but I'm gonna say it again, and hopefully it lands in a deeper way now, which is confidence is an inside job. It's never about the circumstance. It's never about the paycheck or your waist size or your face or the popularity out there. Now, those things can help, maybe, and they also might not touch your confidence at all. And you might have experienced both. I've talked to people who have, oh, I could just get a, you know, a response from this person. I could just earn this amount of money. I could just get this title. If I could just get a partner. If I could just get the recognition or approval from somebody, then I'd be set. And it didn't faze them at all, you know, they got the job, they got the approval, they got the paycheck, they got whatever. And they're just as anxious, just as stretched, just as low in their belief of themselves and their confidence. But also, I'm not saying it never has an impact. Maybe you do get a sense of confidence. Like, look at these people. They think I'm popular. Ha ha ha. And you feel better about yourself. Why do you feel better about yourself in that moment? Only because you are taking in that information and adding it to your identity. So you're saying, oh, they think I'm attractive. Well, then maybe I'll think I'm attractive too. Right? So you have taken in that information and added it to your own perception of yourself. It's an inside job, regardless. And it's the same explanation as to why someone might love you and say you're great and you're beautiful and you're smart and I love everything you're saying. And we're like, no, I'm nothing, right? Because my perception of me matters more than other people's. It determines your reality more than other people's. So what's the gift? What's the gift? Well, what do you think? Based on what we're talking about so far, what do you think? I'm going to say that you could, maybe, should maybe you would choose to give yourself now, here on this holiday, close to the solstice, if you prefer those things, close to the new year, if you prefer that. But what could you give yourself right now? But what are you withholding from yourself? Love, approval, acknowledgement, acceptance, praise. Why are you being so effing stingy when with yourself, what's up with this starvation campaign? You know, I was talking about that with this client. I was like, you know, for years she's been so hard on herself that she has not let herself feel worthy or interesting or beautiful for maybe a decade. That is a long starvation, man. That is painful. And it just goes on and on and on. And maybe one day I'll get there, but it ain't working. So when, when do we get there? Right. No, we must make a choice to give yourself the gift of being on your own side, of loving yourself generously, of praising yourself, of saying, hey, I am going to be the one that needs to shift this. I'm going to be the one that has to get on my own side. I'm going to be the one that has to challenge this toxic perception of myself to see the beauty, see the strength, find the positive qualities and show up and see through the BS story. It's just about avoiding R risk. It's about not wanting to be vulnerable and opening to life. So I'm going to believe these stupid stories that say I'm not enough and then I can stay small in my safe comfort zone. That's not true. It's just a perception. And you can choose a different perception. You say, well, how do we know it's really true? With a capital T is ease. Am I beautiful or not? Am I worthy or not? Well, that's a very interesting long philosophical and exploration. Maybe you go get a PhD in that sometime, but I'm not that interested in a PhD in abstract philosophy. About, is the human being inherently worthy or not in some global sense? I don't know, dude. It's a theological argument. Go have that one with your preacher friend. What I'm here to say is, functionally, in terms of what's going to make you feel most alive, live your best life, have the most confidence, energy, capacity to give and receive love. A much more practical spirituality in philosophy is it doesn't matter what is globally true. It matters what your perception is. And if you see yourself as valuable, as lovable, as worthy, then that is so. Then your reality conforms to that. Then reality around you changes to reflect that. So what do you do? Right? Will you stop the illusion that it's just something that's happening to you? This voice in your head is not happening to you. You are doing it. Now, it might not seem that way because habits have a way of feeling automatic, don't they? And it's confusing because we're a collection of parts. And oftentimes there's something that our frontal cortex wants to do. And then there's our brainstem wants to do something very different or our emotional limbic system wants to do very. That's why have you seeing yourself walking towards the fridge at 10pm and you're like, I should just go to bed. I don't even know what I'm doing. Oh, I'm. Ooh, it's whipped cream. Who made that? Right? That's. Your emotional centers are driving you to go grab that whipped cream and squirt it in your mouth, probably as a numbing agent to try to make you feel better or remove pain temporarily or get some rush, right? In your left brain, your analytical brain is saying, oh my God, stop it, stop it, stop it. Right? So it's confusing for us because it's feels like it's these different parts. It feels like I don't have control. And look, I'M not saying that you snap your fingers, you have instant control and your critic goes away forever and you just love yourself and there's never a challenge. And if you set it up that way, you're destined to fail. No, it's a process that you commit to you recommit to you fall off the horse, you get back on the horse. It's a skill, it's a muscle, it's a practice, it's something I'm going to apply daily. And then, and then I'm gonna slowly, over time, build this capacity, this measurable capacity of being on my own side. Then you can see in your own experience that everything changes. So that is the gift that I'm gonna suggest that you choose to give yourself. And it's probably not the first time you've heard this if you listen to my podcast, but the reason I keep coming back to this and talk about it again and again and again is because it's the foundational principle for me and my own journey, which is where this all started. And for all the people, the thousands of people I've helped over the years, the number one thing I'm doing people is this. Regardless if they want confidence in their career, their social life, their dating life, everything, it is. Can you be. How can you get right with yourself? What can you praise yourself for? So I'm gonna leave you with an action step that I left this client with. Okay? Alright, here we go. Here's your action. Time for action, action, action. Your action step for today is to tune in. Like, what would be the praise that you hunger for? What would you absolutely love to hear from a spouse, a loved one, or a love interest who might not even know that you're interested in them? Your boss, A supervisor? Someone who's really successful that you really admire? A family member, a parent, a sibling, A friend? Like, if you were to receive praise about you, acknowledgement, appreciation, specifically, you know what's amazing about you and you imagine someone saying that, what exactly would you want to hear? Now, don't just roll your eyes at this exercise and say, oh, God, this is so cheesy. First of all, pay attention. If you're cringy, if you're resistant, if you don't want to do it, if you think it's stupid, well, that's probably your critic talking and it's probably got more control of you than you might realize. So instead, what if you slow down and actually write it out? What are the five things I would love to hear? What is my heart aching for? Because that is you starting to fill your own cup. Because remember, just one thing I know about confidence. After all these years, where does it come from? That's right. It's an inside job. All right, well, I'm gonna let you get back to your day, your holidays here. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day, your week. I know we're coming up close to the new year, so I look forward to spending 2025 with you. Thanks for being on an incredible journey. I don't even know how long this podcast has been going on. 10 years. This is episode 576 at a weekly pace. So you can do the math on that. 10 years would be 520. We're looking at 11 years. Holy Shabango. Well, here you go. The gift that keeps on giving. If you're interested, go back through the annals of time and listen to me from 11 years ago when I was just a young buck. Now I'm an old wizened veteran. You know what you gotta look out for there, kids. Anyway, thanks for being with me. What a journey. I hope this supports you in becoming the most confident, free, bold version of you. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I will see you in 2025. 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 blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.