How To Stop Fearing Rejection And Failure

Do you have a hard time with getting rejected or failing or having someone not like you or having something not go the way that you wanted it to? If so, you're probably a human with a heart. And in today's episode, we're going to help you learn how to deal with that. I'm going to teach you a really powerful strategy that's going to help you deal with those inevitable setbacks, failures, challenges, rejections that are going to happen on your path to greater confidence. There's no way to get that confidence without facing those things, and I'm sure you know that by now. But the key is, how do we handle it better? How do we love ourselves in spite of falling short? And how do we have the courage and the tenacity to get back up and keep going even though we're scared, even though it hurts? You're going to learn that in today's episode and I'm super excited to share this with you. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your Host, bestselling author, Dr. Aziz, and the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And this show is for you. If you want to 10x your confidence. We're not talking a slight increase. We're talking about life changing, transformational confidence boost that lasts forever and continues to increase in all the areas that matter to you. Your dating life, your business life, your professional life, your income, your finances, your social life, your own self esteem, all of that stuff we cover in this show. So you're in the right place if you want to boost that to the next level. And today we're going to be looking at the biggest thing that stops people from building their confidence. Because if you watched last week's episode, you'll know that we have to take risks to increase our confidence. And that might not be new to you. You might know that you might be like, I just got to go for it, I know it. But we don't. And here's why. Because the, because we. Ostensibly, it's because we don't want to get rejected. We don't want to fail. But here's the truth of it. We don't want to feel whatever it is that we're going to feel after we get rejected or after we fail after it doesn't work out. It's not the actual failure, it's how we're going to feel. So whatever that thing is, you don't want to make those sales calls, you don't want to talk to those women, you don't want to spend Speak up. You don't want to take on that project. You don't want to start your own business. You don't want to grow your own business. Whatever it is, the stuff that you're not doing because there's a fear of it's going to not go well. No one's going to show up. They're going to say, no, I'm going to make a fool of myself. They're going to see I don't know what I'm doing. Right. This is the tip of the iceberg. And all of that comes back to, well, if I'm going to get rejected or I'm going to fail. But then what happens right after we get rejected or we fail? This is what I like to call the post rejection, post failure shame spiral. And so, you know, you give this presentation, you put a lot of time into it, and it just doesn't quite go well. You kind of lose people, they have a lot of questions, they didn't quite get it, and they certainly didn't want to hire you, buy from you, fundraise, you know, devote money to your cause, whatever it is, you failed. You didn't get what you wanted. They didn't want to buy from you. And when you leave that meeting, what happens? Are you like, that was a doozy. Well, I'm gonna get some food, call the wife, watch a movie, have a great evening, right? Maybe. Maybe you're, like, supremely confident and there's, like, no issues. You work through everything. But most of us, almost every single person that I've met, even if they try to act that way inside, is having the shame spiral, which is. Oh, man. Oh, God, that was terrible. It was so embarrassing. And you replay the moments where the person was like, what exactly does your product do and why do we need it? Right. You know that moment where they're, like, looking at you and you just replay that sound again? What? Exactly. And then you're like, what did I say in response? Oh, my God, I just started talking. I don't even know what I was saying. And I said, it serves everything your company could need. What the hell was that? Oh, my God. Right? So you start picking at the little things, and then it always goes into two major areas, and this does not. I've seen this probably thousands of times with people and in myself. It always goes to the two same places, no matter if it was in your sales conversation. In dating relationships, we think they're all very different. We think we're all so different. But these patterns are, like, well worn Grooves that we all go down. And the truth of this will become clear as soon as I explain them. You're going to be like, yep, yeah, I do that one too. Right? And no matter who you are, no matter what you're struggling with, no matter what area, and here's what they are. One is, I'm not enough in some way, on some level, I'm not enough. I failed. I am not smart enough. I'm not skilled enough. I am just not good enough. Now, it might be specific, like, I don't know, I'm not good enough sales or I'm not attractive enough. But it's, it's usually like I'm just not good enough in some way. And maybe it focuses on a specific thing like my looks or whatever, but just general sense of I'm not good enough. That's one area that we fall into. No matter what the other area in the shame spiral is. And this is the real kicker, someone else could do it better. That one's the real gut punch, right? Some other guy could have just won her over with his charm and, and his good smooth conversation skills and looks and height and money and betterness, right? Or some other person could have just nailed that sales conversation. They would have known what to say. They would have kept their cool. Maybe you have someone specific or it's a vague for me. Often I notice with this thing, it's just a vague. They. It's just sort of someone else. And that one might not be as clear. You might not even consciously notice that one. You might just have to look at some of the self talk and self criticism, which is like, oh, you're not good enough. You're never going to get this, you know, and somewhere in there is other people are better at this. Those two, they'll just knock the wind out of your sails. That is the post rejection shame spiral. Try to say that five times fast. That is what we're scared of. That's why we don't take risks. That why we're, that's why we're terrified of rejection and, and failure and all that other stuff. That's why. Because the rejection of the failure is not that intense. Oh, they don't want to buy from me. All right, well, how many more presentations can I set up this week? How many more women can I approach today or this weekend? Right? So it's not that we're not living in that much scarcity where there's literally only one potential customer or one potential person to date, but. So that's not the End of it. But the real pain is this shame spiral. So we gotta get in there and we gotta help you break through that. And I'm gonna teach you one thing right now that's gonna help you do this. If you want to, I mean, really handle this. Cause I can only teach so much in these episodes, really handle this. You gotta get my program the confidence code. Cause that goes super deep into transforming the way you talk to yourself. And optimal self coaching is what I call it, where you no longer go, you no longer attack yourself in that way. You. And there's dozens of strategies, real life applied stuff that we do together in the video training. It's not some abstract, you know, me writing on a whiteboard. Here's some stuff. It's like, let's do this right now. Here's the technique. Let's do it. How did that work for you? How can we make it better? Try this, let's try that. And you'll feel the difference. And then the whole second half of the program is how to take that into your social life, your dating life, your networking life, and just be extremely skilled at starting conversations, holding those conversations with people, asking for what you want, you know, and just really being engaging with people. And that comes from that, you know, losing that fear of rejection which comes from healing that shame spiral. So that program will help you do that. But here's a simple technique that's actually from that program, which I just did with a client the other day, that really helped to make a shift. And here's what it is. I'm doing a short version of this because I don't want this episode to be like five hours. Here's. Here's what it is. Most of the time when people. First of all, you gotta stop the madness. Notice when you're in that thing and give it. That's why I give it a silly name. Post rejection shame spiral. Cause you can say that you can be like, whoa, okay, Whew. I'm in the post rejection shame spiral, or call it whatever you want, but you wanna actually have that reaction like, whoa, whoa, right? As if someone really intense that you work with was coming at you like arms a blazing. Or your girlfriend was coming at you, like real pissed off and you didn't even know why yet. Now you might just flare back up, be like, you're pissed off. Well, I'm gonna get more pissed off. Motherfucker, would you want to go? Right? But that's not gonna be very effective. What's gonna be more effective is if you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's. Okay, hold on a second. What's going on here? Tell me. Your energy is high because you're matching their energy. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? Tell them what's going on. But you get really curious. That's how you want to react to that brutal onslaught inside your head. Whoa, what's going on here? So you interrupt that pattern of self attack. Then you want to start inserting some self compassion. Now this is a, that's why I have the whole program on it. Because this is like a. This is an art. This is a skill and a science and an art. And you can get better and better at it. And the better you get, the better you feel, the better your life gets. But here's one simple thing is start to give yourself empathy instead of criticism. Now, empathy is just acknowledging the pain and the experience of someone else. Most people are pretty. Their empathy muscle is weak. Just say that. So what happens is a friend comes to them and they're struggling with something. And you know, usually you don't brutally criticize your friends like you do yourself. If you did, you probably wouldn't have any friends. And if you don't have any friends, you might want to look at that. You know, probably not doing that. But here's what most people do. They give like the two second pep talk. Oh, I had this terrible sales presentation and it was so awkward and I didn't know what to say. And you say, ah, well, you know, get out there and do it again, man. You can just keep on going. You got it right? And we give ourselves that pep talk. We give people that pep talk. And that pep talk fucking sucks. Stop it. You know, first we got to give people some acknowledgement. That's what people need and want when they're hurting, is acknowledgement. And it's simple like, oh man, those are the worst. Oh God, so awkward. I know. It's so painful to be in that. I've been there. That's it. That's what we want. And the words don't matter as much as the energy of it. We are hardwired to need this. The reason I know this is in my own experience. I have a son who's. What is he, like 19 months now? And he will hurt himself. Like just the other day I was making a smoothie and he has this little thing, he can climb up to get to the counter and like, help me. And by help me I mean like throw stuff in the sink that I'm trying to Put in a blender and then take soapy water from the sink and try to put it in the blender. I'm like, what are you doing? And so he's climbing down off the step, I'm doing something on the other counter and he hits his shin on the step. And then he's like, he does the cymbal, which is ow. And he's like, ow, ow, ow. And I'm like doing something to the thing. And I'm like, oh, did you hurt yourself? Some half assed empathy there. And he's like, because I'm like, I'm gonna make the smoothie. I'm focused on that. And he's like, ow, ow. He just keeps going. So I'm like, all right, something more is needed here. So I stop what I'm doing and I get down on the ground, I crouch down to his level and I'm like, oh, did you hurt yourself? Did you? Were you climbing down off the step and you hit your shin and then it hurts? And he's like, yeah. And then he gets up and he starts helping me with the smoothie and he's done. And that's a powerful reminder to me is that's what we all want. I mean, he's born wanting that. He doesn't want the pep talk. Well, son, get up. Haha. Make you stronger. He doesn't need that. He doesn't want that. He needs the acknowledgement and so do the people in your life and so do you. Bring this back to you. You need that. So you get out of that sales meeting and use your own name when you do this. There's some interesting research about how that changes our, our whole mindset and self concept and brain actually. It's fascinating. But use your own name. So you know, you get out and you're like, oof. Aziz, that was tough, man. Oof. That was awkward. I know, I'm sorry, man. Those tough presentations are the worst. People that are really kind of, you know, they weren't that they were really giving you the third degree there. I mean, that's painful. That's awkward. I'm sorry you had to go through that. That's tough for anyone like that or, you know, dating example. Oh man, dude, you know, she didn't want to talk to you. That's tough. You put yourself out there, you went up to talk to her and she just kind of pretty, pretty dismissively brushed you off. I'm sorry. That's hard. That hurts. That would hurt anyone who puts themself out there. Notice how I'm not going like, oh, that's hard, but get back out there and do it better next time, right? Just hold off, hold off. There's a way you can do, you can give yourself a pep talk, but there's a much better way to do. I teach that in the confidence code too. But you see, do you see the difference? Apply this in your life and you will start to heal those post rejection shame spirals. To really think about that phrase before I say it, otherwise it's going to come out post jump, going to start healing those and then you're going to start fearing rejection less and then you're going to really start taking more risks. And then check out my other episode about risks and the path to ever increasing confidence and other episodes of this show and leave your comment below. Share what your experience is. What are the specifics? Do you relate to this post rejection shame spiral? What's that experience like for you? Side benefit research shows that just talking about it can actually heal it and help you become more free of it. So sharing below, especially in an anonymous forum like YouTube, is pretty awesome. And what an incredible opportunity so just to be able to share. And the more we do that, the more powerful we're going to be. Reading other people's stuff can help heal you too. So let's all heal each other. Let's all break free of this and so we can have more confidence in ourselves. And if you really want to break free and really want to get that confidence, check out the confidence code. You can go to your confidence code.com to get started today with that program. So I would love to see you inside of that and in future episodes and until we speak again, may you 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.