How To Defeat Doubt

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 everyone's favorite topic. Doubt. Whee. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt. Doubt is the biggest companion that you might have in your life, whether you're aware of it or not. It's kind of invisible and fades to the background, but you'll discover in this episode how to identify if doubt, not if doubt is there. But how big of a part doubt has played in your life is playing in your life right now. How much it's impacting you, what it might be preventing you from experiencing your life, ways that might be limiting your opportunity, destroying your future, and what to do about it because it is so insidious. It's like the enemy within. And then it stops. It stops everything. It stops you from taking action, it stops you from creating something new, it stops you from enjoying your life and it stops you from creating better relationships. Doubt is truly the enemy and it is the enemy within. And it can unlike an enemy from without that you can see and you can sort of become in opposition to and overcome or defeat or escape from or whatever you need to do. Doubt is inside and it's almost like it takes control of the. If you think of yourself almost as like a government, you know, it's like there's something leading inside of you. The doubt can almost like co opt the government. It's like a coup, you know, a military coup. And then the doubt takes over. And now you are making choices and steering your life in ways that might be polar opposite to what you really want and your values and what you're really here to do and who you're here to be. So doubt is no joke. Doubt is something that you must learn to identify, to challenge, to defy, and to defeat. And if you don't, then doubt will destroy you. And it might, you know, not be like drive you off a cliff kind of destruction, but it might be a slow Subtle self sabotage, stripping away of what brings you joy, settling into a very limited negative identity of yourself, who then is not able to create very much in your life. So it is truly something that you must look at and start to separate yourself from. So let's do some basic overview here. You know, what is doubt? Because people might think, well, isn't doubt natural to doubt? Doubt might be defined as a sense of uncertainty. I don't know, is it going to go well or not? I doubt, I don't know, I doubt that it's going to work. I doubt it. And there might be times where this is flipped, but I'd say pay attention to how people use that word, the actual word of doubt. Nine times out of ten, in my observation, they're saying it to doubt a desired or positive outcome. Right? Like, are we gonna make it there on time? I doubt it. Right. Is that person gonna call me back? Oh, I doubt that. Right. So you notice how it's usually the negative of what we might hope for or want. It could be flipped. Someone's like, you know, are we gonna be late? I doubt it. But usually that's not how people use the word. They don't say, I doubt that we'll be late. They say, no, we'll be on time. They affirm the positive. So doubt, that's just interesting to notice. Doubt is usually imagining. The uncertainty is imagining that we're not going to make it or that it's not going to work out. Pay attention in your own use of language and other uses of language. Pay attention in your own mind what doubt is doing. This truly is a self liberation process. No one can liberate you from doubt but you, you can get inspired by somebody, you can feel fired up by somebody, and that's gonna last a short period of time. And then what happens? Well, if you don't have the tools, if you haven't learned how to defeat doubt yourself, then it will just resume its power. It's some point might go on a temporary holiday because you got all hopped up at a Tony Robbins seminar. And that man is a master of projecting extreme certainty. And then what happens is people are in that environment and they're like, yeah, I feel it. But if you don't practice what you learn at those seminars and actually make it a consistent part of your life and start to change how you show up and how you think and how you practice, whatever's done in an immersion doesn't automatically transfer or last. What happens is there's a transfer of that energy from that Environment, particularly Tony, that's saying like, hey, you can believe in yourself. Yes. And then you're like, yes, okay. And then it lasts a certain period of time, and then it fades because the old system kind of regains power. So you can learn from others, you can get inspired by others, but you must do the work. Do you agree with. So if you're waiting, you're listening to this episode, it's like, okay, by the end of this episode, I'm going to be free of doubt without having done anything. That's unlikely. More likely is you're going to need to learn something in this episode and apply it consistently over time. And that is how you liberate yourself. So that I'm highlighting, there is total ownership, being the captain of your ship, taking complete responsibility not just for what happens out there in your life, but also how you respond to what happens out there. And most importantly, how you work with the voices inside of you, particularly the voice of doubt. Do you let it control you or do you challenge it? Do you defy it? Or do you let it steer? It's a very important question. And you might be noticing in your life where you've been letting doubt steer more. So here's what happens. If you've been letting doubt steer more, if you've been letting doubt steer for a long time in a particular area of your life, that area of your life sucks, period. So if doubt has been running the show in your relationships, then your relationships aren't very good. Or you don't have any relationships, whether it's friendships or romantic relationships. And so you feel more single. You know, maybe you are single, but you feel more alone. You feel more isolated. You don't spend much time with friends or the friendships aren't that close. And how does doubt show up in that area of life? Well, doubt says, I don't know if you can make friends or I don't know if you can have the friends that you really want, or I don't know if people want to spend time with you. I don't know if you're that good to spend time with anyway. Why would someone want to date you anyway? What do you got to offer? Look at that person. They're better than you are. You're probably going to be single for a long time. In fact, you're probably never going to find a real relationship that's going to last. No one's going to want to stay with you for the long term. Besides, you're. You know what? No one's going to really want to be your friend, isn't it? So isn't that what the voice of Doubt says? Now you can see if that's the voice you've been listening to and letting steer your life. How does that area of your life go? That's right, it sucks. You wanna look at your work and your career, it's the same thing. Your finances, it's the same thing. It's your health. I don't think I could ever really change. I don't think I could eat healthier, I don't think I can exercise. I'm prone to be injured all the time. I know that one. Cause I experienced Doubt in the highest levels in that area of my life because of all my health stuff when I was younger. So wherever the area, if Doubt has been running the show for a long time, it sucks. Now there's other areas of your life or some of these areas where maybe doubt's not totally dominating the show, but it's kind of there a lot. And you either you're gonna experience a couple different things, you might succeed in this area to a certain degree, probably not as much as you could if doubt wasn't so present. But you might kind of push through the doubt a lot. But what you're losing then is a lot of enjoyment. So it's a lot more stressful and a lot more emotional roller coaster and discouraging and scary and hard and anxious and depressed and hopeless. And it's like, why? Well, because when the Doubt's running the show, you feel these negative emotions and then maybe you pierce through and feel some victory for a little bit and then the doubt comes back. And this is a common process I see in people that are in my Mastermind program who have been coming from having Doubt run the show a ton in an area and they start to take bold action in the program and then the Doubt starts to lose its power and then they're flip flopping back and forth. It's like, is Doubt in charge or is there a captain in charge? And it. Well, I don't know. What time of day is it? Is it a 3 o' clock on a Thursday? It's doubt. Is it a 4:45 on a Friday? Then they're the captain of their ship and they're kicking butt, right? So it's kind of, it depends. And that's a natural part of the process until eventually you get stabilized at a higher center of gravity where you are the captain most of the time. And doubt comes up here and there. And then when it does come up you know how to deal with it. You know how to cry. You know, stamp it out and keep moving. So when the area of your life is minimal, in doubt, then that area of your life starts to thrive, both emotionally. You feel better, you feel more optimistic, you feel more excited, you feel more confident, and then you actually have better results. I mean, isn't that obvious when we see that? Right? So let me just give you two examples. There's a person who's in dating relationships, and they think, well, who would really want to be with me? And you said, are you going to get into an amazing relationship in the next year? I doubt it. Why? Well, look at me. I mean, would you? Come on? Ugh. I'm an ugly loser. I'm awkward. I don't have enough sexual experience. I'm not smart enough, I'm not funny enough. Besides, I gotta work on these 75 other areas of my life so that I'm good enough. And then someone will want to date me. Okay, take that person. Take another person who looks the same, makes the same amount of money, has the same amount of hair, whatever. All those things that we put all this attention on, and you ask them, hey, you're going to be in a relationship in the next year. And they say, oh, yeah. Oh, man, I'm opening to something extraordinary. I think this is going to be a big year. I'm going to meet someone amazing and I can bring so much love, and I can't wait to share this experience with somebody. That person has confidence, right? The other person has doubt. Which one is more likely to experience an extraordinary relationship that year? And we could do this example with career, success, social confidence, finances, health, everything, right? Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. That was a Henry Ford quote. So your perception determines your reality. And I shorten this, which just says perception equals reality. So you perceive this is how it's going to go, then that's how it's going to go for you. And so you can see that. But does that change what you do? Because if it doesn't change what you do, then it's intellectual knowledge and it's sort of pointless. But if it changes what you do, then all of a sudden you can have a different life. Because when you change the doubt into confidence, you show up differently, you feel differently, you get different results. It creates a positive spiral of like, of course people want to hang out with me. Look, another person wants to hang out with me. I told you. Because people want to hang out with me. Of course that person wants to hang out with me. Oh, look, another person wants to hang out with me of I knew people want to hang out with me. And on and on and on. It's an upward spiral. So a key question you might be wondering right now is, well, how do I get onto that spiral? And this is where it comes back to you liberating yourself, because doubt is right in there with you. Doubt is closer in there. I'm putting in there in quotes, like, is it in your head? Doubt is closer in there with you than I am right now. As you're hearing this audio pipe right directly into your ears, Doubt's even close. Doubt is the closest thing in there. So doubt's got his arm around you, and it's like, hey, buddy. Because doubt doesn't always tell you, like, hey, you're a pathetic loser. It might just say, hey, listen, you know, it's probably not gonna work out there. You know, it's probably gonna be bad, right? So it might just be friendly. It might be freaking you out too. Might be like, it's not gonna work out. We're all gonna die. But whatever it is, it's right there. And so the first thing you need to start to do is to be able to listen to that voice in your head, listen to your thought stream, listen to your thinking, and to start to separate from all those little voices in there. As long as they're fused with you, as long as you think that you are the thought stream, particularly the doubtful thought stream. And that is truth. That is fact. That is an accurate description of reality. That is narrating factually and objectively what's happening, what's going on around you, what you are, what the world around you is. If you think that, which is kind of the default setting for most people. They think their thoughts are real, their thoughts are reality, their thoughts are truth. And people will die to defend their thoughts and their ideas and their beliefs. At the very least, they'll fight with everybody or they'll sever relationships. It's a big deal. This is how it is. This is who I am. Because it gives them a sense of certainty. And so you have this voice in there that is saying things. And as long as you default believe it to be true, there's no hope. There's no way out. It will continue to run the show for the rest of your life. So it starts with you saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think a lot of crazy stuff, a lot of stuff that goes through my mind is complete bs. This is ridiculous. I don't know. Wait, hold on a second. I don't know which thoughts are real and which thoughts are not. It's just a lot of noise. And just try to say that out loud. Right now, my thinking is just a lot of noise. Go ahead and say it if you didn't say it, just trust me on that. I know it's a little weird, but when you say something out loud, it kind of. It distinguishes it as something you're gonna pay attention to more. And it's part of the process of severing from that thought stream. Say it again. My thinking is just a lot of noise. Now if you didn't say that and you're like, I don't know if I like hearing that, that might mean you really identify with all your thinking. And have you ever had a crazy thought, like just a kind of a totally weird random thought? Have you ever had a thought that didn't come true? You were certain it was gonna come true and it didn't come true? I know that person's not gonna be there. I know they're gonna stand me up and then they're there. I know this is why the person's late. Cause they don't respect me. And it turns out they were late because they were taking care of their sick kid. I know this is not gonna happen. I know today's gonna suck. And then you had a fun day. I know it's gonna rain today because of course, that's what Murphy does to me. Murphy's law makes it's gonna rain on my per I party. And then it doesn't rain and it's a nice day. I mean, how many times has your mind said stuff, thought stuff that's not true? Because some of the thoughts you're having are about the future. So instantly they can't be true, right? I mean, they might be. They're predictive. Your mind is trying to make sense of the world around you with a fraction the information. It's a predictive machine. It's an orienting machine, tries to help you orient to life right here, right now, to survive. It can predict things. It does other things too. It's also an incredible conduit for creativity and divine intelligence, all these things. But you might not be using it that way. If Doubt's running the show, you're using this as a survival machine. Predictions, negative. Stay safe. How's it gonna go bad? Stay safe. It's the same thing again and again and again. So you gotta start to question that and you gotta Start to listen to that thought stream. Writing it out can be helpful. What is the garbage that's going through my mind right now? What is this noise saying? When do you write it out? Well, you could write it out when you feel doubtful, when you feel bad about a certain area of your life. So if you're feeling discouraged in relationships, you're feeling discouraged in your social confidence, feeling discouraged to create connections, feeling discouraged to become a more bold person, and at work or anywhere else in your life, write down, what am I thinking right now? What are these stories that are going through my mind? And just catch a couple of the big ones. All it takes is one to really wreck your day. I am destined to be a timid, ignorable, expendable person on all the teams that I work in. You know, I'm a kind of a nobody that doesn't matter, and my opinion doesn't really matter. And I'm always on the sidelines. And the wording doesn't exactly matter. Like, I'm just speaking to something that you. A perception that you might have. That's what this wording, this sentence, these thoughts are reflecting a perception which is bigger than one thought. It's like a whole way of seeing something. So that's just an example. So when you notice that you write it down, you look at it and you say, whoa, that's a doozy. Where's that going to steer me in my life? Somewhere bad or somewhere good? Okay, great. So you're going to start to identify these and find out what are my top five? Because I guarantee you this, you got a top five, maybe even a top ten. Depends on how much doubt you're swimming in these days. Maybe if it's localized to one area in your life, it is that top three, top five. But it's all, you know, every. You feel good, you're feeling fine. All of a sudden you get into that, you know, situation where you have to look at your finances and you're like, right, all falls apart. Or same thing. You know, you're feeling good, you're hanging out with your friends, you're feeling comfortable, confident, you're doing well at work. And all of a sudden, now dating comes up and you're like, oh, God. Well, then it's probably like you got your top five there. Or if you're swimming in doubt all day long, then it's just like the top 10 hits on the radio. They're just playing all day long. But these top five, how many times a day are you saying them to yourself? Every Time you think about that certain area of your life, is it the same garbage that comes up and then you're just like, well, that's what my mind thought, so I guess it's true. Well, no, separate from that. Write it down, look at it, and then start to challenge it. And first, just to start to challenge it on the. You know. Because at first your mind wants to look at is it true or not? And you're not very good at assessing that. I'm not very good at assessing that because you're not objective. You're not. You're too close in. Is my thought true or not? Well, yes, it is true. Why? Well, because I thought it a lot already. Okay, so we're. We're too close in. We don't have perspective. We're biased is maybe another way to say that. So don't look at is it true or not? Look at Is this useful or not? Does this story serve me? Does this thought serve me? Because your thoughts become your reality. Your perception becomes your reality. Your perception is your reality. So is this a useful reality? Is this steering me towards what I want? Is this functional, useful? And then if the answer is no, it's steering me towards pain, towards lack, towards separation, towards death, well, then you might naturally start to say, whoa, okay, I wonder if I could do better. I bet I could do better. And then start to say, well, what is that better? What's the better thing that I could think that I could create, that I could focus on, that I could choose to install? So, for example, if you have the thought regularly, the doubt. I'm not really going to create deep friendships with people that really inspire and energize me. And what people often do is they have the thought and then they feel deflated and they're like, why is that so? And their mind's like, why? I'll tell you why. And it just goes on and on and on and on. So first things first. We want to challenge that I'm never gonna have the friendships I want with people that energize me. Okay, that's one story. Is it functionally useful? Is it steering you towards where you want to go? Okay, not. It's not what. What is potentially something that would be much more useful for me to believe. How about everybody wants to be my friend? Okay, yeah, that's pretty good. How about, there are so many amazing people that I can enjoy friendship with that energize and excite me and delight, and we delight each other. How about I am magnetic to amazing friendships and if you focused on that and you really made that your reality, what result do you think that's going to have? Now people say, whoa, Jesus, it's not that easy. All right? That other story is true. Okay, why. Why are you continuing to hold on to that? Is it for certainty? True based upon what? The past. If you change your perception, will your experience change? If I tell myself I'm boring and I try to tell you a story, what kind of reaction am I going to get from you? Probably one where you're disinterested. If I tell myself people love hearing about my life or my stories are beneficial to other people because they feel and they think and they connect with me as I share them and then I share my story, what do you think the effect's going to be then? And you say, well, I don't know. Maybe they are going to think it's boring. That's you wanting certainty more than it is wanting to live an exciting, confident, beautiful life. And that's really what this does come down to. The biggest block, the biggest reason we stick with that little doubt voice in our head is because we're addicted to the certainty that it gives us. And doubt gives you total certainty, because doubt isn't really about uncertainty. Doubt is actually a certain proclamation of what you don't want to happen happening. It'll say you'll be alone forever, even though it's the last thing you want. Your business is gonna fail even though it's the last thing you want. And it proclaims it with total certainty. And you glom onto that. It's like people that follow a tyrant. The tyrant's terrible to everybody, but he seems powerful and has total certainty. And so everyone's like, okay, go with him because he's strong, even though he's leading us to dark times. That's where doubt is leading you. It's time to change. It's time to challenge. And we're going to talk about the action step here in just a moment. How to challenge that. And if you want to join me for Not Nice Live, it's coming up real soon. Now go to drz.com,-R-A-I z.com and click on the Events tab. But one of the things we're going to be doing at that event is helping you defy doubt in a powerful and profound way, to rip it by the roots out so it doesn't have the power to stop you ever again. And let's talk about action and how to apply this. Time for action. Action. Action. So your action step is going to be to write out some of the garbage thoughts. You know, pick one of them. One of your top five that's really, you know, doing a number on you. Makes you feel scared, anxious, unsettled, unhappy, pessimistic, hopeless, discouraged. Something doubtful, right? Then what is Something that would be more empowering, more useful, more true. What would be the story you would need to have in order to get the goals that you want, to create the life that you want, to have the confidence that you want. And pick just one. We're not gonna work on everything right now. We're gonna pick one, and then I want you to start to say the new one out loud. What if you said it the moment you woke up in the morning? What if you took an ice shower and you said it in the ice shower? What if you noticed that negative story throughout the day and you said, whoa, whoa, whoa. You stood up tall, you breathed in, you opened up your chest, and you said, hold on a second. No, we're not gonna do that anymore. Here's the new one. And it's a conscious reprogramming throughout the day. If you practice this one at a time, bit by bit by bit, you'll notice radical changes in as short as two to three weeks. It's incredible. Maybe even in the first day or two, you might feel much more energized. And then things changing around you rapidly in your life. Fantastic. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com.