How To Overcome Your Anxiety Of Approaching People

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 Shrink for the Shy Guy. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. And today we're going to be talking about how you can overcome your anxiety about approaching people. And, you know, most of the time people ask this question. This actually just recently came up in my mastermind, someone's asking about it. Usually you're meaning socially, how do I approach someone in a conversation? How do I approach someone that I'm interested in romantically, or I want to connect and make friends, or even just in a networking or work context, how do I approach people, you know, to start to build a connection or a relationship? So that's what we're talking about in today's episode. And super important skill, because your ability to approach people opens all kinds of doors. And now in this age that we live in, which is so online, and I can text people, I can message people, I can flick a mouse and do something somewhere, it doesn't remove the effectiveness and the power of being able to approach people in real life in person. And if you say, ah, I don't need to do that anymore, I can just rely on online, you, you might. And I'm not saying that that's bad or something, it's just you might severely be limiting your options. And you also might be avoiding something out of fear when. Which can have an effect on all other areas of your life, not just your opportunities. So if you really want to increase your opportunities, increase your sense of confidence, I'd say it's worth being able to approach people in the real world. Now, even if you meet someone online or connect with someone online, unless your relationship is entirely online at some point, you're going to meet them in person. Right? And so a lot of these skills are going to translate not just to the first meeting, but to connecting with people in general. Now, there are two things that create this anxiety, this approach anxiety. I'm going to explain what I'm going to get into in this episode and what I'm not going to get into in this episode. So the approach anxiety can come from how you see yourself, beliefs about yourself, your attachment, your fears, your stories. And it can also come from a lack of skill. And we'll touch on the second one a little bit, the lack of skill, but that's its own set of podcasts that I've done. Also, you can check out my social mastery course as part of Confidence University. You can also come to Supremely Confident Conversation Master, which is going to be happening in November of this year, 2023, in person, so we can practice this stuff and get the muscles of conversation mastery booted up fast, fast. So I'm not going to go super deep dive into the skill of conversation, but just know that competence breeds confidence. So if you build your skills of conversations, you're going to also feel more confident. But when people talk about their fear of approaching, that's usually not the first thing. It's like, I need more skills and you could benefit from them. But often our fear can prevent us from even practicing and getting the skills. So let's unravel some of what's under the hood here that gets in the way of you approaching people. Now, often when I ask people, you know, what are you afraid of? They're afraid of an awkward interaction. I'm afraid I'm going to go start the conversation and then I'm not going to know what to say and then I'm just going to stare at them awkwardly or I'm going to hand the conversation over to them and I'm not going to know how to drive it, or I'll start the conversation and then it's going to feel awkward and I'll just eject early. These are all things that I hear and trust me, they're all things that I've done a lot of times, and that's okay. The first thing we need to do is to remove the pressure. So there's a way that I can see people approaching this that creates so much anxiety in and of itself because it's so high stakes. Perceive it as high stakes. If I have an awkward interaction, that's terrible. If I don't know what to say, that's awful. And look, I'm not saying it's comfortable and it's great and it's what you'd prefer, but it's also no big deal. And you want to start reminding yourself of that. You want to start soothing and calming your nervous system, which you can jack up and freak out by saying, oh, this better not happen. And instead, when you notice that happening, catch yourself and consciously take a deep breath and remind yourself that it's no big deal. It really is. It's no big deal if someone doesn't like something that you said. It's no big deal if you have an awkward moment. It's no big deal if someone doesn't get the joke that you made, even though I'm sure it was hilarious. It's no big deal that you tried to start a conversation with someone and you ran out of things to say. It's no big deal. And really reminding yourself of that. And if you hear that and you're like, no, Aziz, it is a big deal. Why? Why? There's this kind of unquestioned, almost egomania, like, oh, my God, everyone's looking at me, and it matters so much to me. And me. And me. And it's the self absorption that comes when we're afraid and when we're in survival mode. And the truth is, it's not that big of a deal. It doesn't really matter that much. No one really cares that much except for you. And it's not even that threatening. It's your. It's your ego getting bruised. That's all it is. And so you can hype it up and make it so big and make it so terrible and make it so tragic, or you cannot. That's really a choice. You can just start saying, eff it. Who cares? And one example that I've shared, I learned from one of my teachers, which I really like, is to imagine a box of tissues. Perhaps you have a box of tissues in the room that you're in right now, and you can actually go look at it. But if you have a box of tissues, when you pull off the top tissue, what's there? Another tissue. And you pull off that tissue, what's there? Another tissue. Yes. The technology of the tissue box is amazing, isn't it? But it's. That's how conversations are. You know, you have an awkward one, there's another one right there. You have an awkward one, there's another one right there. And the problem is not the awkward conversation. The problem is all the drama around it and the drama of why it's so tragic. It comes from two things. One, you are intolerant of uncomfortable experiences and emotions. So if you have an uncomfortable experience, an awkward moment, an uncomfortable emotion, you freak out in response to it as if it shouldn't be happening. It's totally unacceptable. It's Totally impossible. Right? And that is a very tragic and painful way to go through life. And what if uncomfortable feelings are okay? This is a big part of what I do when I'm coaching with people, is helping people get more okay with being uncomfortable. Someone doesn't like me. Okay, let's practice calming ourselves. And it's okay. I'm not saying you love it, but it's okay. It's okay. Like stopping the freak out alarm mode at any uncomfortable feeling we might experience. So that's part of it. And the other part of it is perhaps an old story for see if this checks out for you. Many of my clients, they have an old story that's like, oh my God, I'm such an awkward loser, or I'm undesirable, or I'm less than, or I'm not worthy, I'm not as special or significant or desirable or popular. Something probably from like teenage year development that got locked into place and you're still carrying that thing around five years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, 45 years later. And it makes you think that people might not want to be your friend, that you're not that interesting to talk to, that you're kind of the, you know, the second, third, fourth, fifth pick, as it were, whether it's for friendship or love or anything. And you're slugging that old identity around behind you like a 70 pound rock. You're dragging it around. And so when there's an awkward moment or a conversation that doesn't go great, you not only freak out because it's uncomfortable, but it's especially uncomfortable because it brings this heaviness of this story of like, I am bad and unlovable and unworthy and I always have been and I always will be. Heavy, isn't it? No wonder you don't want to go talk to that person. And you got to investigate here. You know what, what are some of the stories that you might tell yourself? Right. I'm sharing some of the big ones. But if you imagine going over and talking to someone and the conversation not going the way that you want, what's so bad about that? That will show you where your anxiety is coming from. There's something about it that's unacceptable or you're bad or it means something about your future. It means I'm never going to have friends, I'm never gonna have a date, I'm never gonna have the life. There are connections that I want. So what are you imbuing this situation with? What story are you telling yourself? What old identity are you dredging up and carrying with you? And what if you didn't do that? What if you chose to view it simply as learning any other skill? I don't care if it's a golf swing or programming on your computer or anything. When you pick up that golf club, you're not going to nail it 300 yards down the fairway. You're going to miss the ball. You're going to flub it, you're going to hit the top of it, you're going to hit the dirt, you're going to miss entirely. You're going to slice it to the right, you're going to dribble it along the ground. It's going to roll like 10ft. You do all those things, not just once, but a lot. Isn't that true? If you've never played that much golf, isn't that exactly what's going to happen? And I could say the same thing for programming. I could say the same thing for playing an instrument. I could say the same thing for learning another language. You're going to fumble, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to be uncomfortable. And what I see is that people have this unwillingness to be in that messy beginner stage, or just maybe the messiness that is inherent, especially in something like conversations where you can get good at them. But you never have total control, and you don't know if the other person's open to talking with you. And, you know, there's no way you're going to be completely avoiding uncomfortable or awkward interactions. So are you expecting or demanding that you don't have to be in the learning stages? And even if you have some practice and you just want to get better, you're going to need to learn, you're going to need to practice. So what if you approached it like any other skill and said, yeah, I'm going to miss some balls. I'm going to, you know, slice it. I'm going to make some. You know, if you're taking a guitar analogy, I'm going to make some bad sounds and some buzzy chords, but I'm gonna keep going. And every single time, I mean, every single time that I've seen a client do this, they've made rapid progress. When they got out of their own way, when they stopped making it so dramatic, when they stopped making it mean these terrible things about themselves, and they said, you know, I'm really gonna learn this. And usually it's combined with a period of concerted effort, like a month or three months. And then they're going through my social mastery course, for example, or they go to the conversation master event that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, right? They're like, I'm gonna really study this. I'm gonna practice this for a period of time, right? Cause you say, I'm gonna pick up the guitar, I'm gonna nail it on my first try. You know, look out, here I come. You're setting yourself up, right? So give yourself a realistic time frame to be practicing this stuff, and then go practice it. I say, yeah, but I'm scared. Okay, all right. Well, build up to it. You know, the best place to start conversations is with a hello. So do some friendly greetings. Friendly greetings. As you probably heard me talk about this a billion times, if you listen to the other episodes on this show, you walk down a street and you say hi to people I know, revolutionary in this. In this day and age, you're leaving the screen and you're gonna go look at other humans in their faces and say hello at them, upon them. And it could be really surprisingly uncomfortable at first, but also pretty darn doable almost for anybody, and go out and test it out. Maybe you're nervous. Maybe you only say hi to a few people because you overthink it, but just get out there and do it again the next day and do it again the next day and do it again the next day. And all of a sudden, within a relatively short period of time, you'll be saying hi to people. And that might now sound like eye rolly. Who cares? As he's no big deal. But trust me, this is the first step. That's like someone saying, here, here's how to hold the golf club. And you're like, I don't need that, man. Show me how to hit it. Like Tiger woods or who, I don't know, is he still the greatest golfer in the world? Whoever the greatest golfer is right now, yeah. What are you doing, man? First of all, why do you got to be like Tiger? Why do you do the best in the world? Just be good enough and just good enough to get some friends and some dates and some. Whatever connection that you want. And then when you're. When you're skipping over the how to hold the club because you want to get to stage 70, do stage one, right? Do the fundamentals, and anything else is just. I mean, you can try to play it that way, but you're not going to get any better, and you're just going to keep yourself stuck. So instead, choose, decide to learn the basics and to practice them. And again, I see this all the time with people. They'll go do a friendly greeting session once, sorta, and then be like, that's over, I did it. Now what's the next thing? The next thing is to do that again. The next thing is to do it a lot until you're relatively smooth and comfortable with it. It doesn't stir up a lot of fear in you, or that when someone doesn't smile and nod at you, you don't implode inside or feel horrible inside, or hate them inside. You're just less reactive to it all. Then what can you do? Then you can practice maybe a brief conversation with someone. You know, see someone standing there saying, hey, how's it going? Oh, my God, I can't just start a conversation with a stranger. You kidding me? Well, you can ask them a basic question. And if you want stock questions, ask them like, hey, do you rec. You recommend a restaurant around here? And if you want to get a little more next level creative, it would be to comment on the environment and ask him a question. Like, you know, let's say you're out and about in some, I don't know, busy city area or a town center or a mall or something, and you say, hey, how's it going? Can I ask you a question? Like what? Say, hey, I'm looking for whatever. Is there an art supply store around here? Do you know, you might say, why would I ask someone like that? Why don't I just go to the kiosk or look at my phone or whatever? You know, people are so afraid of someone being like, why don't you just look at your phone, you jerk off, and it's like, what? Why are you expecting the world to be so hostile? Like, what if people are going to be generally friendly, especially if you approach them in a warm way? So just don't test that out. Ask some basic questions. You start to build up now you got some baseline confidence and you can start diving into conversations, and the key is just to jump into them. Now there's a lot of basic skills that can give you some training wheels, some framework to go with. I have other episodes all about that, and I don't. I'm not. That's. This episode is really about addressing the fear. But just know that some competence will give you the confidence that you seek. And that's like being able to comment on the environment, knowing that everything that comes out of your mouth is either a statement or a question. Being able to listen to what they're saying and based on what they say, coming up with something to say next that furthers the conversation. These are all specific skills that you can learn. I teach them in Social Mastery. I also teach them at my Conversation Master event. There's also other podcast episodes that cover that. Just go to the search bar at Shrink for the shy guy and type in conversations or conversation, and you'll find other episodes that go more in depth into the skill of it. At the end of the day, though, you want to overcome your anxiety of approaching people. Let's change the word anxiety to fear. You want to overcome your fear of approaching people. How do you overcome that fear? You approach people how many times until the fear has no power to stop you? That's the short answer. So the question is, are you going to start doing that later tomorrow, next week, next month, next year? And what rate are you going to do it at? Once in a while, when I feel like it, which is not very often because of all the stories I tell myself tonight, and then. And then when, the next day, the day after that, a week. And you don't have to have some regimented calendar where you're going to do X amount, but you could, if that gamifies it for you. And it's fun. But you do need to have a level of willingness to go into this again and again. Think of it like reps. Think of it like a muscle. Think of it like building a skill. These are the metaphors I've been using in this episode. And if you want to get stronger and you're not going to the gym or doing whatever you do to get stronger, you know, three times a week, four times a week, five times a week, maybe minimum two to three times a week, right? That's pretty regular over months. That's how you get stronger. That's how you get better at conversations. And then when you learn the skills from either the other resources I was telling you about, you can actually apply them. Because if you learn a thousand skills but you don't actually do anything, you're not willing to be uncomfortable, you're not willing to face the fear, then it's all theoretical, right? So the best way to overcome the fear is to get in there and start doing it. I gave you some stair step or gradual exposure ideas. I helped you unlock some of the stories you're telling yourself, some of the things that make it so scary. And now it's time for me to ask you with your action stem. Time for action, action, action. Your action step is going to be. To get curious yourself. Why am I making. What's so scary about this? Let's really face this because we have an idea if we leave it unexamined, that fear equals danger, right? We feel fear and so we assume something is dangerous. And so one of the ways that we dispel that is we learn to separate fear from danger. Some things that we're afraid of are dangerous, some things are not. Right? I'm afraid of, I don't know. There's a dude with a knife on the street, you know, yelling crazy stuff. Probably a good time to be afraid and get away. There's a granny walking down the road. I don't want to say hi to her because she's going to judge me. Probably not too scary, right? And I'm not saying she's going to welcome you with open arms, she might give you the stink eye, but that it's uncomfortable, it's not dangerous. And so imagine for a moment, what are you really afraid of? If you were to go approach somebody, what are you really afraid? They're gonna ignore me, it's gonna be awkward, I'm not gonna know what to say next, and they're gonna judge me and then they're gonna laugh at me. Okay, so pick the things you're scared of and then really tune into them and say, okay, is this really dangerous? Can this really harm me? Or is it just an ego bruise? And is it that that really harms you? Or is it all the self attack and the stories you tell yourself afterwards? So these are great questions to ask yourself. They'll help dispel some of the fear. And then obviously the key theme from this episode is you do some of this inner game to dispel the fear and then get out there and do it. So hope this serves you and inspires you to get out there and start building those skills again. Consider coming to Conversation Master in November. We'll be having early bird tickets for that as well. And as it gets a bit closer to the event and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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 vlogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.