How To Actually Build Real Self-Confidence (Not Fake It)

Let's talk about how to actually raise your self confidence and self esteem. There's a lot of stuff that's on the Internet that is suboptimal. And I think if you really apply what I'm going to share in this video, you'll have a radical shift relatively quickly in your self confidence and a growing sense of capability in the world. So I'm really excited to share this with you. And I'm Dr. Aziz, I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and I've written many books on confidence. I've been relatively obsessed with this, you might say, for the last 20 years, starting with my own massive lack of confidence. And that's what led me down this journey of clinical study and working with clients and now coaching and teaching and helping people from all over the world on this. So this really applies no matter where you are in your life, whether you have extreme low self esteem or low confidence or it's relatively high with a lot of people that I work with, people on the outside might not even fully notice it, but inside you notice it and you really want to shift this and it does impact your work, relationships, connecting, being fully, freely, yourself around other people. So it has an effect and you really want to be more free of it. So I'm excited to share some of the key principles with you. The first thing is I want to share why some of the most common stuff doesn't work. And one of them is just kind of tell yourself that you're good. Keep telling yourself like, oh, I'm great. This is gonna go really well. I can do this, I'm awesome. Whether that's official affirmations in the mirror, or you repeat it to yourself a bunch, or you write it down, or you look at it on a sticky note at your monitor. Have you tried that kind of stuff? What I found is people either have never tried it because they're like, I don't think that's gonna work anyway, or they've tried it and they're like, yeah, I kind of maybe did something for a minute and then they don't stick with it or it just loses its effect. No. Why is that? What's often happening is you have a perception of yourself, right? That's your identity. I'm a smart guy or I'm a dumb guy, I'm attractive or I'm ugly, or maybe it's in between. But something you have a number in your head of how smart you are from 1 to 10 and how attractive you are from 1 to 10. You're like 7. Pretty good, right? Or maybe you're like, it's a 2. I'm a loser, right? So whatever that is, you have a perception of yourself and directly trying to go at that number and raise it like your mind's like, you're a two, you suck. You're ugly. And then you're like, you know, I'm a 9, I'm a 10, I'm a freaking champion. It just doesn't compute. It's like trying to eat something that you can't digest. Your body's like, meow. In this case, it's your mind, your identity. The structures of how you perceive yourself or what seems real is different than that. And so it feels like you're trying to input something that's not real. And then our mind tends to reject that stuff. Just like if your buddy's like, dude, this is. People believe in like an alien society, galactic empire. I don't know that like, is out there right now interacting with humans in some subtle way. And maybe you get to invite us into the Galactic Union. I don't know. Again, I do not know. Maybe this is happening right now, but what was my point? Nevertheless, perhaps it is happening right now. But when I hear that there's a part of me that says, like, that doesn't map onto my sense of reality, right? So I slog. It is probably not. And that's what we do, unfortunately, with positive affirmations. Because there's a part of you that's actually crystallized into seeing yourself in a certain way. Does this make sense? And this is actually good news? Because. No, not that you've crystallized into seeing yourself as a negative way, but you can see that that's what happened. Because if you see that's what happened, you see that this is a process that you have done, usually without knowing it, right? Unconsciously, we just kind of accumulate this identity over years. And then we're like, yeah, that's just how it is. This is just how I am. And we have not realized that we've actually made a bunch of conclusions or decisions about who I am, what I'm capable of, where I fit in the world. Now the good news is if you created it, you can create something different. I refer to this as an identity upgrade. This is what I'm dedicated and helping people, ultimately a shift and their confidence. Not just a, I could speak up or I could get a date or whatever. It's actually a full scale identity shift. You see yourself in a completely new way. And so that's where we want to start with this. Not just positive affirmations, not just positive self talk. That could be a. A part of the process, but it's not in itself at all sufficient. So how do you really upgrade your identity? Well, one, you see that you have a crappy identity in some ways. No offense. I'm not saying you're crappy. I'm saying that the perception that you have of yourself in certain areas, and maybe you think like, no, I'm awesome at work, or no, I'm, you know, of course people love me and I have a partner. But then in another area where you're lacking confidence, whatever led you to want to watch this video about building confidence and self esteem? Right. There's an area of your life where there's a negative identity that's locked into place. And so we have to shift that negative identity at its root. The first step in that is naming. I have a negative identity here. Why is that a useful step? Right. Aren't we just naming what's there? Yes, but until you do that, until you really see that you're in the story and you just kind of believe what you're telling you, it's like, this is how it is. What do you mean? And all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I came up with a conclusion about how I am. Oh, that's a very different thing. Does that mean I have agency to change it? Hmm, maybe. So how do we go about changing it? If it's not through affirmations, what do we do? Well, we have to say, okay, my identity is a reflection of how I see myself. And part of that is based on reality. And so in order for me to see myself differently, my reality has to be different. So what does that mean? That means we actually want to start with specific actions in the world. Because, for example, let me ask you this. If you knew that you were smoking hot, you were very attractive. Whether you know you're single or not, it doesn't matter. Just imagine you're single back in your young stag days, and you knew that you were very attractive. And I don't just mean physically attractive, but let's say you knew you were charming. And look, for this one, you could even be in a relationship. You could be having a partner, but you're going to a party or something and you approach a group of people and you knew. I'm interesting. People love talking to me. I'm generally also pretty darn physically attractive. So that's. I'm easy on the eyes, you Might say, what would you do at that party when you first walked into the room? You'd probably go talk to some people, right? I mean, you know, it's going to go well because you're awesome and let's say you believe the opposite. I'm repulsive in some way, shape or form. What are you going to do? Well, you're probably not going to go to the party at all, but let's say you got dragged there by a friend. What are you going to do? I don't know. You're going to go to the bar and, you know, kick some back to see if you get some confidence or you're going to. In this day and age, who needs the bar? Who needs anything? We have these sweet, sweet devices. Do you sleep with yours, too? Good night, honey. My wife's like, are you talking to me? No, talking to my other friend. So we're glad. You just look at your phone, look like you're doing stuff. I'm just texting other people. Very socially. Yeah. I'm very important in other ways, right? So we. We avoid and then we observe ourselves and we create what's called a closed loop. I avoid it. Those people aren't going to like me because I'm a loser. So then I avoid them. So then I conclude that they wouldn't like me because I don't have them as friends. But I don't not have them as friends because they don't like me. It's because I didn't try. But look, I'm alone. Look, no one likes me. You see, we just go around and around and around. It's a closed loop. And it's very satisfying to the part of us that never wants to feel discomfort or pain or rejection or life. We can just stay small and safe in our little box. That's where I belong. Besides, someone like me doesn't deserve more. Look at my low, small, loser identity. The perfect con is what I called it at a recent workshop that I led. It's like a conversation that you pull, as in a con artist. You've convinced yourself of something that's not true. And so you have to ultimately start doing things. So how do you do this? Well, a great question to ask yourself is, if I knew this is the best way to. Instead of saying, I am attractive or I am competent or I am whatever. It's like, if I knew or if I could be competent, if I could be attractive to people, then what would I do? Now, all of a sudden, a whole realm of behavior opens up to you and you want to start to do that behavior now. There's a process to this. I lead a year long mastermind program that's based on this. We have a whole thing in there called the identity upgrade process that I teach people. And systematically, you don't just like, okay, take action, huh? And you just run out there and push yourself to do everything at once. Because what often happens is it's like a rubber band. You just pull it, you pull it, you pull it. And then what happens? You know what's gonna happen? Should I do it? Okay, it snaps back. And then here we are back at that small constricted self again. So we have to stretch it, but systematically over time. Does that make sense? Okay, so you have seen it's an identity that you've created. You've started to test the edges of it by doing new things that are outside of that identity. I mean, that's like a whole focus of my work. There's a million videos on this channel. You can watch out about that. So I can't go into massive depth on just that point. But that's a huge thing. Do what scares you until fear has no power to stop you. Is one of my many phrases about, okay, then what do you do? And only then do I find like, the conscious upgrading self talk stuff can be really helpful. Where you look at stuff like, hey, I went and approached those people. What actually happened? And the reason this is so important is because you're not just making a bunch of stuff up. You're saying, well, actually one went well. They responded positively to me. Ha. Cool. And you don't have to try to puff up reality with some imaginary intergalactic federation. You could just say, yeah, oh, people do like me. Now, does this mean everybody like me? It just means like, no, but my conversations can go quite well, obviously, look what just happened. And isn't that just, isn't that grounded in reality? It's just more stable and real than some puffed up, you know, compensating identity of I'm the. I'm the best. And then also, but what if it doesn't go well? I hear this often with clients, like, but what if it doesn't go well? You know what? Well, then you get to realize what actually happens. Well, I try to go talk to those people. And then what happened? Well, I kind of ran out of steam and wasn't sure if they were that interested in talking to me. And so I kind of tried to keep it going for a minute. Okay, what was that? What happened then? Well, I don't know, it was really awkward. As in uncomfortable? Yeah, very uncomfortable. Okay, and then what did you do? Well, I said, hey, have a good rest of your evening. And I walked away. Okay, and then what happened? Oh, then I horribly beat myself up. Okay, questionable necessary step there, but all right. And then, and then what happened? Well, I guess I just, I went, I did, I went on with my day. Oh, okay. We just realized that we have this natural resilience that especially if we can reduce that fourth optional step of beating yourself up mercilessly, then things can get a lot better a lot quicker. So hopefully this gives you some of the key insights that you need to really be progressing and live and freeing yourself from this old story. And if I could just close this video with one personal note is I believed for many years that I was a loser, very unattractive, not worth people's time and attention, like really in my bones down, believed it and live that out for many years and my social life reflected it. A lot of lonely, not much interaction, one, maybe two friends, usually just one friend in my life. No dating, a lot of video games, a lot of self doing stuff on my own, a lot of comparison, feeling less than, feeling left out, all that. And that's my life for many years. And then I did exactly what I'm describing here. Although I had no frickin system at the time. It was me just like bumbling around but ultimately discovering this stuff piece by piece very slowly and applying it and realizing that oh, my identity is, is malleable, it can change. And then my life around me started to change in the most amazing ways. Incredible ways. Dating opportunities, career opportunities, growth, income, health, a beautiful relationship that's continuing to flower to, you know, 15 years after I met my wife, beautiful kids, just a life getting better and better. And I'm not perfect and I'm not the best and I don't need to be. And that's ultimate liberation. So I hope this serves you in boosting your self confidence, self esteem again. If you want to go further, there's a. How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? But if you want to check out my website, drazeez.com-a z I z.com there's videos, there's free training resources, there's my podcast, you can get access to there as well and check out the Mastermind program. This really speaks to you and you want the support, the system, the guidance, the community to really make this a radical change. I would absolutely recommend that you can apply there on the site, too. Thanks for being with me. Until we speak again. We have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep that you're awesome.