How To Create An Amazing 2022

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 we're going to be talking about you in 2022. So happy almost New Year. If you're listening to this right when the show came out, perhaps it is already after the first of the year and you're listening to this in the beginning of 2022. And regardless, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to get clarity, for you to decide what you want for this year. And it doesn't have to happen on a new year, right? You can decide what you want on your birthday for that next year of your life. You can decide what you want on a random week and a random month. It doesn't matter when. But the most important thing is to claim that power, to decide to be the captain of your ship and to steer your life. And I think the new year is a great opportunity to do that. And so that's what we're going to look at in today's episode is steering where you want. And let's take that metaphor. You probably heard me talk about this a lot on the show, right? You know, I love the idea that you are the captain of your ship. And let's take that metaphor for the beginning of this episode. So let's say you are the captain of the ship and you want to set sail. You get to decide what island chain you want to go towards. Do you want to go to those. Those islands that, that have lots of coconut potential riches upon them? Do you want to go set out to islands that you've never been to before, that you've only heard about? And there's a party that says, oh, yeah, that's possible. I want to go there too. I think it exists. And maybe another party that says, no, no way. Right? Or maybe you want to quest out to the end of the earth and see what's there, right? To the beyond, the unknown for you. That's part of what you get to do. As the captain is, you get to decide what, where you are going. And obviously this is a metaphor. Maybe you're literally going to set sail on a boat. I don't know. But most likely, you know, maybe for you, beyond the edge of the map is a relationship that is mutual and mature and has great communication and is authentic and real and exciting and deep and loving. You've never experienced that before. You've had other relationship type experiences that have been much less than that. Limited, negative, constricted, blaming, guarded, distant, toxic. And so those are the islands that you know. And to say, hey, I'm going to set sail for some island I've never even been to before, but I know, I believe it exists, that it might be what you want to do as a captain. And it might be uncomfortable to do that because you might have the voice in your head that says for you, come on, no way. And that's interesting how we all tend to operate that way. It's almost like, you know, in different eras of history, before they had satellite images of the Earth, you know, they didn't have maps of big swaths of the globe. I'm listening to this book right now called Undaunted Courage. It's about the journey of Lewis and Clark and their crew across the America continent. And you know, they didn't have maps. The, you know, the United States cartographers and even European cartographers, they didn't have maps of like big chunks of the center of the country. And that was one of the big things that Lewis and Clark were going to do, is they're going to map this whole thing out. And the way we work is we have a map which is like your known terrain, your known what's familiar. Like, these are the kind of relationships I know I can have. This is the, the kind of level of social confidence I know I can have. This is the kind of way that I know I can behave around others. That's within my map. And as the captain, you might want to set out beyond that. And anytime you go beyond the known, outside of the bounds of the map, there's going to be doubt. There's going to be a voice in your head that says there's nothing out there, or if there is, you're not going to make it. And we'll talk about how to deal with that just a little bit later in today's episode. But that's the first part of what you do as the captain, right? Is you decide where do I want to steer this thing? You get to decide. And you might forget that you are the one deciding. Or you might be so bogged down in the day to day that you don't pause to say, hey, where are we steer? Where are we going? I'm so focused on making this boat run that I haven't paused to say, well, where am I? Where are we going? Is it where I really want to go? And sometimes we don't investigate this because, you know, we have a direction, we are going towards a certain destination. But maybe we have a feeling that it's not right anymore. Maybe I don't want to head that way. Maybe I'm on this path to pursue this certain career, or I've been working in this job for a certain number of years and I know it's not right. And that's freaky. It's freaky to question that because it involves change, involves uncertainty, it involves livelihood, it involves money, it involves what other people would think. And so sometimes we just barrel on ahead down a certain path without questioning because it's uncomfortable to do that. Now when we try to avoid that discomfort in the short term, we end up getting a lot more pain in the long term, don't we? And so it is essential to ask yourself, as the captain of my ship, where do I want to steer? What do I want to move towards? What I want to create? What do I want to do? What do I want to achieve? What do I want to experience in 2022? And of course beyond that for the rest of your life too. But you know, starting with the more short term, where do you want to steer? Where do you want to head towards? And maybe you already know, maybe you already have ideas, you already have goals you're working towards. And this is just a reinforcement of that. Now sometimes people have a hard time with goals. They're like goals. I mean, I've definitely struggled with goals too. Maybe you have as well. And you might blame the goals. I don't like goals. But the problem is not goals. Goals are just, they're directions, they're islands to steer towards, right? Imagine a captain that doesn't know where he or she is headed towards. Well then what's their mission? I don't know. Sail around and you might say, yeah, that is my goal. I don't want to have any future goals. I don't want to be moving towards anything. I just want to enjoy the moment, just want to be present. And I think that's a beautiful goal. What I would describe that as though is an experience goal. I think we can break goals down into two categories. There's achievement goals and there's experience goals. And I think both are important. Right. An achievement goal is I want to do X. Whatever X is, it's a variable. Right? So I want to do. I want to experience, I want to achieve, I want to have this thing or make this thing happen. And it's measurable, it's observable. You can see if you did it or not. I want to be in a relationship. I want to develop deeper friendships. I want to grow in my career and become more in a leadership position. I want to increase my income. I want to achieve, run this kind of project, finish this thing, write this thing, do this thing. So whether it's social, in your relationships, in your career, in your health and fitness, these are things that you want to do. And they don't have to be a singular outcome. It can be habits that you want to create as well. But it's all measurable stuff that you can do. That's the achievement side of goals. And then, though equally important, maybe even more important, I don't know. It's arguable, right? Is the experience side of things. How do you want to feel today, tomorrow, this week, this month, this year, in 2022? Do you want to feel confident or feel anxious? Do I feel grateful? Or do you want to feel slighted, cheated and empty and lacking? Right. And we tend to think that the achievement goals will get us the experience that we want. Well, if I just got the promotion, then I feel grateful. Maybe, maybe. Usually not. Usually for not that long. You can check in your own experience. It's just what I've seen myself and clients that I work with is it doesn't last. You'd be grateful for a little while, and then it's like, all right, what's the next thing? Let's go. Right? So making it a conscious goal to focus on your state, your emotional state, your perceptions, your consciousness, your mindset, your inner game, whatever you want to call it, I think is very important. Because if I were to say, okay, let's say you're going to, I want to date more and get into a relationship in 2022, great, so let's say you can date more and get into a relationship and be very anxious and stressed the whole time, or date more and get into a relationship and feel curious, relaxed, and grateful, which one would you pick? I mean, the experience matters, doesn't it? I want to be really rich and stressed out as hell and afraid of losing it for the rest of my life. Okay, you might Say, well, I'll still take that. But actually it's a form of misery, it's a form of suffering. And so it matters to have what you want to achieve and what you want to experience. And I think as the captain of the ship, it's optimal to have both. So if you say, I don't care about what I achieve, I don't care about what I do, it's all about this moment and just being present and just being loving and just being grateful. And that might work for some people, it might work for you. I'm not saying everyone's got to do it one way. I have seen a tendency then that's almost like a pendulum swing of people who've been super achievement driven for a long time kind of swing all the way. And there's a lack of balance there because then the boat doesn't really need to go anywhere, right? I mean, couldn't you just like park it in a harbor and be present and be joyful? And I think that there is something in addition to your own experience, your own emotional state that you're called here to do that life is asking of you, requiring of you, pulling you towards, guiding you towards, steering you towards. And it doesn't have to be one far distant day in the future, I mean like today, right now, and definitely in 2022. So what do I want? Is also asking, well, what does life want of me? Where am I steered towards? What is the next? What feels like the next right thing? What is the next sign? What is the next synchronicity? Where am I being guided and what do I want? What excites me, what energizes me? And those often can connect. Like you're excited about it and you're drawn towards it and sometimes you're drawn towards something you feel like it's really important to do. And you're maybe like a kind of a reluctant hero, like, man, I really can support in this area, or I know this would be useful here. I'm not crazy about it, but I'm willing to do it. So you get to decide how far you want to go, how selfish you want to be, how much you want to give, how much you want to contribute, how much you want to steer things towards your own personal achievement and goals. And I don't have the same level of moral judgment around that that some people might. It's got to be all about altruism. It's like, well, no, it's a mixture of things, right? It's also a level of healthy selfishness like, hey, I want to achieve this goal because it'll be fun for me. I'd love to have that extra free time, or I'd love to have that extra money to give to those people or share or do those experiences with, like, yeah, great. Whatever fuels you. That's what's most important, right? Is the captain's got to be inspired and energized about the goals. Okay? So as I'm sharing this, I wonder if you're thinking about 2022. You think about those achievement goals, you think about those experience goals. What is it that you want? I wonder if things are coming to your mind right now as you're listening. Anything. Maybe you're already aware of it. Maybe you're becoming more aware of it right now. What do you want to do in 2022? If you could wave a realistic magic wand and experience and have and do anything that lights you up, what would it be? If you had 10x, the boldness and confidence to just go after whatever you want, Go after your life, Go after the connections that you want, show up in the ways that you want, be more you, be more real in the way that you want, what would happen? What would that look like? Here's a fun one. What would make 2022 the best year of your life? Where at the end of it, you could look back and say, yeah, that was the best year of my life. And even better, how do you make 2022 the best year of your life, regardless of external circumstances? Ooh, that's a big one, huh? That's an exciting one. Because if you say, okay, 2022 is gonna be the best year of your life. Cause I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna experience this. What if there's forces beyond your control? Which there are, right? So let's just say you're like, I'm gonna double my income in 2022. And then there's something that happens in your industry or your particular job or your prospects or whatever, and that doesn't happen. And I'm not saying that you give up before you start, but let's just say that that doesn't happen. Is now 2022 a sucky year? I didn't have that goal. This is stupid. Well, you can set up the game that way. Here are my goals. I'm going to achieve them. And if I do, it's good. And if I don't, it sucks, and I'm bad and everything's awful and I have to feel bad. That's kind of why most people don't like goals, or the people that don't like goals don't like them. It's not because there's a problem with having a target or having a direction. It's a problem with how you're holding it and are you holding it with a ton of pressure as soon as you set the goal, it's like, I have to achieve this or else I'm not enough, or else I'm not worthy. And I see this, I see this in clients, I see this in myself. And that's a signal that you're getting way too attached. It goes from I want this or I'm called to this, or even a strong, healthy level of committed. Like, I must make this happen. This is important. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. That's committed, that's powerful. Attached is, I need this to happen. I need to know for sure it's gonna happen. I need to know that it's gonna happen fast. I need it now. And if I don't have it now or I don't have total certainty that's gonna happen really soon, then I'm not okay. I feel awful. Life's not okay. I'm not okay. Everything's not okay. That's that tense, stressed, attached place that makes goals miserable. And if you throw your self worth in there too, like, if I don't achieve this at a certain rate and then I'm awful and I'm bad and people are gonna judge me and it's embarrassing. That is a recipe for goals unachieved and a poor experience of life. And so if you're going to do goals that way, then don't. Yeah, pick a different way. Just like see what happens in the moment and take it day by day. And that's also a viable approach to life. But I think there's a way to have the best of both worlds where you are focused on today, because today is it. This is it right now, this day, the day, this moment. Actually, sometimes taking it down to the moment can be a little trippy, right? This eternal moment, what's happening? But how about just today? You have today, right? Do you know about tomorrow? Do you know what's gonna happen tomorrow? Do you know all the events and twists and turns of your life tomorrow, the next day or the next week? Today is what you got. Today is a gift. Today is where you have the choice of how you're going to show up right now, today, how am I going to show up if I got a problem I need to face it. I need to deal with it today. I don't have to know how to deal with that problem nine months from now. I got to focus on today. What do I do today to address this? And if you're really discouraged and pessimistic and negative about the prospects, almost always you are way out in the future. You're imagining a dismal, negative, lacking future. And then you're saying, oh, man, I'm never going to find anyone. Oh, I'm never going to be confident and able to talk to people in the way that I want. And you could spend hours, weeks, years in that illusion and that suffering. Or you can take a full breath in, stand up tall, come right back to today and say, okay, what do I want? Well, I'm steering towards a beautiful relationship or more social confidence or more friendships. Okay, great. What can I do today to take a step towards creating that. Of course doubt's going to kick in and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do. It's not gonna work. You're doomed. You're doomed. And in fact, I'm gonna touch a little bit on doubt today, but I want to actually dedicate a whole episode to doubt, because I think that's gonna be very important for you to have those skills and tools as you enter into 2022 to be able to defeat doubt, because that's essential. In any case, what do you want? Do you have some ideas for 2022 for those questions I was asking you, those prompts? Now let me ask you this. What do you want to experience in 2022? How do you want to feel? What are the top three or five emotional states that you'd like to live in the majority of the time? Gratitude. Excitement. Enthusiasm. Confidence. Love. Fun. A sense of freedom. A sense of strength. Flexibility. Humor. Enjoyment. Joy. Awe. Connection. Communion. Connection to something bigger than you. Feeling guided. Feeling held. Feeling worthy. Feeling special. Delighted. I mean, there's so many. These are things that all I like to experience. Which of those stands out to you? Maybe there's other ones that I didn't list there. I'm just giving some examples. How do you really want to feel? And you might say, well, what's the point of making that list? Like, I don't have control over that. All I have control over is what I do, and if I do the right things and I achieve the right goals, then I'll feel a certain way. No, no, no, no. You actually learn how to cultivate Certain feeling states which allow you to take actions from a better place, which produce faster outcomes than the goals that you want. And the goals are not about, I need to achieve this to feel okay, or else the goals are an expression. The direction of where I want my life to go and who I'm going to become along the way. That's so much more important than the goal. What it brings out of you, what it matures in you, how it strengthens and seasons you and develops you and grows you. And all of that, the growing, the seasoning, the learning, the strengthening, all of that. You want high quality fuel for that. You need high quality fuel for that. And the high quality fuel is these emotional states, these states of consciousness, your perspective, where you're coming from. Maybe you want to feel more optimistic in 2022, right? You have a history of being pessimistic, negative, your critics, running the show. I want to feel more optimistic. Maybe you want to feel more almost on my own side. If you haven't checked out that book, recommend that one for 2022. You can get it on. You can go to omosbook.com omosbook.com being more on your own side, eliminate your inner critic. So whatever emotional states, let's say you picked one or two right now, then the question to ask yourself is, what can I do? Or how can I cultivate this emotional state? How can I cultivate a state of fun or enjoyment or amusement or humor? Let's say that was one of the ones that you picked. What if I want to feel lighter and more playful? Okay, well, how might you do that? If you were to bring your intention to that, your focus to that, to be more playful, how would you do that? And again, not nine months from now, not indefinitely. Today, right now, this day. And if you bring more awareness to these experience goals like this, then you get to start to practice that throughout the day. And that doesn't mean you're playful all day long in every situation. It's just you bring more of that in on purpose. And if you're feeling not playful, if you're feeling anxious and stressed out, you say, okay, that's where I'm at right now. And you name it, you acknowledge it, you accept it, you allow it, you feel it, and you get curious. Huh? Okay, I wonder what I'm doing. How am I doing this? Every single emotional state that you're in, you're creating it. No, I'm not. I'm anxious because something bad happened to me. I'm anxious because this person said that I'm anxious because this person's upset with me. I'm anxious because of this. I'm anxious because of that. And that's what the anxiety will tell you. It's because of all these other things. But have you ever been anxious and then maybe one circumstance got resolved and then your anxiety flipped to something else without missing a beat? Anxiety is not focused on because of out there. Anxiety is a certain state of consciousness. It's an. It's an emotional pattern. It's an emotional state that you are in. And you perceive things and think things from that emotional state. And then you see everything through that filter. Just like if you're pissed off, everything is annoying, and if you're grateful, everything is a gift. Isn't this amazing? Isn't this amazing? I'm looking at this microphone right now. I mean, gratitude can awaken awe and appreciation and a sense of joy and fascination and marveling and humble receiving based upon all that's there. You know how much I have. You just see how much you have. Like right now I'm talking to you, right? You are hearing my voice. We are in. It's like we're. It's like we're, you know, Fireside Chat, right? Like we could be sitting by a fire and I could be talking with you and sharing with you. Only right now, I'm looking at a little black machine. It says Audio Technica on it. And that is recording my voice. It's going through some wires into a computer that's recording it. And that's not the end of the story. Where does this microphone come from? Who created it? There's technology behind that, right? There's inventors of audio recording technology that go back 100 plus years, right? And then there is the development and the enhancement of this microphone. And then there's the actual manufacturing of this particular brand and this particular model. And then there's the mentor and friend of mine, Al, who's taught me how to record and how to set all this stuff up. And anytime I have a question, I'm like, dude, I need new equipment for this recording. And he's like, oh, I got you covered. And he sends me what to buy. Then there's a store, Sweetwater, we get this stuff from that sells this stuff. And they get it. They have a warehouse for it. And boom, you press a button and it's there four days later. And then it goes into this computer. Don't even get started on the computer. The computer's connected to this global hive brain called the Internet, where we can beam out information, non tangible, invisible digital encoding of me through my voice with you that you can then for free, press a button on a whole system, a whole network of podcasts that's been set up and curated for you and press a button on another device that can decode it and send it, beam it to your ears wirelessly. So it can be almost like we're there right next to each other. And you can do this not just with me, but with a million other, you know, anyone, anyone. Like friends, family. You can get access to teachers and brilliant people and experts and mentors, all for free. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible? And depending upon your state of consciousness, you can feel that and say, wow. Or you can say, I don't know, I can't think about all that, I'm anxious, I'm stressing out about this person's upset with me. Ah, what if this thing doesn't work out? So it's all available right now. And you can probably tell from my little passionate accessing of gratitude there, that's been one of the most important states to me. And in fact, this was about, oh, I don't know, four years ago, five years ago in my life is when I really started to set experience goals rather than just achievement goals. Before then it was all about like, well, I'm gonna do and if I do enough, then I'm gonna feel awesome. And then it was about five years ago that I was kinda like, you know what? Yeah, I'm gonna set doing goals, but I'm also gonna say, well, what states do I want to cultivate? And I started to really focus more of my energy and attention on practices and habits and you know, well, if I wanted to feel grateful more of the time, how would I do that? And you really, and you know me, I'm an action oriented guy. So I come up with actions to help with that. It's an intention of to be more gratitude. But then it's also like, well, what can I do to support that? And that's where I have a journal called Wins and Gratitude, where I write out wins and things I'm grateful for from the day, I add to it throughout the day. I'll pause in certain moments throughout the day and say, focus on like, okay, right now, in this moment, if I wanted to access gratitude, it's always there. It's like a channel, it's a frequency, it's like a different channel on your remote control. You can just press it. If I wanted to access channel four, which is Gratitude. How would I do it right now? I'll make a game of it. I don't feel grateful for right now. I feel stressed right now. Okay, I know, I know. Well, you don't have to make the stress go away. You don't have to invalidate anything. Just say, okay, channel two is stress or fear or irritation or blame or whatever. Let's go to channel four for a minute. We can always go back to channel two and you just play with that. So in 2022, what do you want to cultivate? What experiences, what states do you want to live in and what do you want to do? What do you want to create? What do you want to achieve? Let yourself dream. Let yourself imagine. Forget about the how, how Ask Too early is the dream killer. So focus on what it is you want to create. Let it be big, let it be bright. Even if you don't make it and you only make it 70% of the way there, hell, that's way better than 0%. So let it be big, let it be bright, let it be whatever you truly desire, what you're really called for and towards. And then let's Crush it. In 2022, I'm showing up. Come hang out with me. Come to this podcast. Listen to it every week. You want to go further? Go to my website. Make sure you've gotten my mini course, five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. It's videos that teach you the five key steps I teach all my clients to break out into a whole new level of confidence. You can go to draziz.com that'S-R-A Z I Z.com and you can get that for free. And you want to knock it up even further a notch. You know I have coaching programs, a 90 day program, a year long program. I'm going to be doing three events this year, three virtual events where you can spend three days immersed in these teachings. I mean if you want to grow and make this the most powerful, confident, exciting, grateful, alive year of your life, then plug in, access all the resources we have here. Let's do this. So I'm going to keep showing up. Let's show up together. Let's create an extraordinary 2022. And in this coming year we're going to be looking, we're going to be kicking off our next episode about looking at just back to basics. Social Anxiety 101, how to face your fear, how to overcome doubt and really make those goals a reality. 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. Talk to you 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 blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com it.