How To Transform Discouraged Into Inspired Instantly

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, 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 how to turn discouragement, maybe even hopelessness, a heavy sense of maybe pessimism. I'm not gonna be able to change this, or this is too hard, and all the anxiety that can come with it, right? Because if you believe the pessimistic, discouraged, or even hopeless stories, that's when things get really dark. You might have a chronic sense of anxiety, right? Something bad's gonna happen to me. Something bad is for sure happening to me. It's just a matter of time. Or you might go to more of a depressed, heavy, morose place, right? Like, what's the point? Nothing's going to get any better. I'm stuck, I'm hopeless. It's helpless. And then you just kind of lose energy. So those feelings, anxiety, depression, the worry, as well as the originating sense of discouragement or hopelessness, can actually be transformed instantly. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. And I'm going to show you in this episode and you can practice it to have it work in your own life. This is just one of the many, many different tools that I have been preparing and using and sharing with people for many years. And by the way, if you're interested in, if you're excited about learning more of these tools and specifically applying this to liberating yourself from discouragement around social anxiety to be a lot more socially confident and free, because that's one of the main, you know, areas that you might feel discouraged in. I'm excited to tell you about something that I got coming up very soon, which is the early bird cart is going to be opening, I think, in a couple of days for my brand new virtual event we've never done before, called End Social Anxiety Now. And you're. I mean, that's what we're diving in for three days on how to end social anxiety. And of course, what to replace it with, right, which is social confidence, the freedom to be you, approach people, share freely, be comfortable in your own skin, all that good stuff. So I'm going to share a couple episodes in the next few weeks about some of the key themes of that event, what we're going to be doing there, some of the best strategies. I'll share some of them ahead of time with you here. And if you've never done a virtual event with me, you got it. You got to come. I mean, so much more happens in there than on the podcast. Podcast is great, but, man, it's not just that I share like the secret goodies there that you never get anywhere in these podcasts. It's. There is some stuff there that we can do that's more interactive and in depth that I can't do on a podcast with you. But also it's the immersion, it's the time, it's the hearing from other people, it's the seeing other people, it's the, oh, I'm not alone, which you can intellectually get right now, but you can feel it on a deeper level. So I'll be sharing more about that in the coming episodes. Just wanted to put that out there so you're aware of it. The event itself is the beginning of November, November 1st through 3rd, and again when the Super Early Bird opens up. It's. It's a great price point. It's 80% off the normal ticket price. So stay tuned for more information about that. You can also go to my website, draze.com,-r-a z I z.com to find out more about that. But one of the big things that would happen at this virtual event that I want to start sharing with you now is this release from the heavy burden of hopelessness or discouragement. That's one of the biggest obstacles to changing this. It's not that you can't, it's the story that you can't. And all of the associated feelings I was just talking about earlier, all the pain that comes from believing that, because not only does that create a dismal future, right? If you can ever change these things, but it also is dismal. It's a dismal perspective of yourself. Right? There's something wrong with me. So now then it creates a level of shame perhaps, too. At least that's what I had when I was in social anxiety is one I can't change this which is discouraging and makes me feel hopeless. And then, well, why can't I? Why do I have this, and why can't I change it? There must be something really wrong with me, which then leads to a lot of shame, which is, you know, bad, bad times. So how do we turn all this around in an instant? Not even possible. Yes, yes. Because here's the reason why that's possible. There are certain things that can't be changed in an instant. If you broke your arm, I wouldn't say, heal your broken arm in an instant. Right. It would be like, heal your broken arm in six to eight weeks in a cast. Yay. And if you wanted to say, aziz, I want to completely become the most confident version of me, I'd say, great. You can make radical progress in three days at a virtual event. And you're going to need to follow up that event with ongoing practice of what you learned there to build new patterns, new habits, new ways of being so that, you know, there's a lot of growth that can happen. And that does take. Take more time. Right. You gotta practice over time. And when it comes to discouragement, though, that can be shifted in an instant because that's not a physical thing, like your arm breaking. That's just a perspective. There is a way that you're looking at your life and a bunch of stuff you're believing that makes you feel really bad. And that perspective can change in a moment, and then all the feelings change too. So the perspective that creates discouragement and hopelessness is one. Well, one. It could be a sense of learned helplessness, like there's nothing I can do. And usually with that, there's a story of the past, of all the things I've tried. I've tried all these things. And look, I get it. That list might look really damn convincing. And then you start stacking in how long it's been happening. Oh, my Gosh, it's been 18 years. It's been 29 years. Been my whole life since I was a baby. When I came out of the womb, I was anxious. It's intergenerational, right? My mom was anxious, my dad was everyone's ank. I got anxious genes. I'm so screwed. And if you watch that storyline, where does it lead you? It's a total dead end, you know? You ever seen that when you're turning on a gravel road or something, it says dead end. Imagine that sign. A yellow. At least in the United States, it's a yellow sign with black text and all caps and says dead end. That way of perceiving is a dead end. And guess what? If you've listened to other episodes of my show. When we get into the underlying purpose of doubt and inner criticism, it is designed to put you into a dead end or a cul de sac where you just stay there forever because it wants you to not fully engage in your life because the truth is it's not hopeless. There are. Every problem has a solution. Every problem has a solution. And specifically social anxiety, low self esteem, low social confidence, lack of assertiveness, people pleasing those a hundred percent have solutions. And when I say every problem is a solution, that's a whole other interesting conversation we could have. And I actually talked about that in the episode last week that I aired when I talked to my friend and colleague Ben Gibson about being doubtless in life, living with, with confidence and faith and, and certain problems. You know, the solution is more complex. The solution might be surrender is a part of it, acceptance is a part of it. Let's say you have a, you know, some sort of, you have a month to live and you've tried all kinds of things and nothing is working and it's, you're dying. Well, part of the solution to that is going to be acceptance, right? How to meet that next moment in your, in your remaining months, month and the moment of death with as much open hearted connection with those that you love and with whatever comes next and with whatever you believe in your spiritual beliefs like how to approach it in the way that you really would want. Right? That's the solution. Now the good news is hopefully you're not dying. And secondly, these problems of social anxiety and stuff have much better solutions. It's not just like you got to accept it, I'm sorry, this is you for the rest of your life. No, you can really shift this. And so that perspective that you can't is coming from learned helplessness which is just a story that you've weaved. And really underneath that is I am a afraid of the discomfort of trying again. I'm afraid of the emotional risk, I'm afraid of disappointment. And really what I'm afraid of is the discomfort of what it's really going to take to make a shift. And what it's really going to take is action and a lot of it and probably more than you've done. And a major shift in how you treat yourself almost is what I call it. Another big theme of this show. A lot of people have done action in the past and didn't get results where we're very toxic in their relationship with himself. And you cannot beat yourself into confidence no matter how much action you Take. So you need action and you need Omos. Now, I know I'm talking fast here. I'm excited and I want to get as much to you as possible in this episode. And again, spend three days with me and we'll go much deeper. But how do we shift that, though? But what I found is regardless of the learned helplessness stories and what they are and how long they've been there and all the evidence you have for them, and it could be, you know, less intense than learned helplessness. It's not like you don't believe you're totally helpless. It's just more that discouraged is kind of like stuff's probably not going to work out and oh my God, it's so hard. And it's, how do I know? And what's the right thing to do? And I don't know. It's also overwhelming. Like, that kind of state is not as bad as hopelessness, but it's still on the same. Still on that end of the spectrum, right? So how do we imagine a spectrum? Right? A spectrum is like a line and, you know, you can imagine like a little dial that goes from the left to the right on this line. And if we go far to the left, it would be hopelessness, just utter hopelessness. Maybe despair and suicidality if it was bad enough, right? And then you go up a little bit and you're in that discouraged place and you go up a little bit and you're kind of neutral. Like, I don't. Maybe things could. Well, maybe I could try. I don't know though. Probably more indecision in this neutral place. A lot of waiting, a lot of holding patterns, right? And it doesn't feel as bad as hopeless, but it's also kind of in the land of wishful thinking. Maybe things are gonna get better on their own. Maybe you try a few things, but there's not much juice behind it. So what we gotta do to get out of that discouraged state and turn around quickly is we gotta get that dial up, up, up into the right side of the spectrum. How do we do that? We have to go on effing offense. You got to go on offense in your life because that is how and so many people are trying to find the motivation first and then take action. And this is ass backwards. It is. Action generates the motivation. Motivation is a byproduct of action, just like confidence is a byproduct of action. And this is very counterintuitive because you don't feel like taking the action when you're in a Hopeless state. In fact, the deeper you are on that left side of the spectrum, the more the action feels pointless, stupid, unfair. I shouldn't have to. Self pity stories, angry at life stories, unfairness stories, hopeless stories. Like why take the action? It's not going to work anyway. And again, that's not truth. If there's one thing I could get to you, not just in this episode, but it's like one of the key teachings of my life that I want to transmit to people while I'm here, is that story in your head about what's impossible is not true. And this isn't some like you could be the president of the United States and slam dunk in the NBA. Whatever you want to be, kiddo. Look, you're probably not going to be the president. You're probably not going to slam dunk in the NBA. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe it's one of your dreams and you're going to do it. Good for you. But most of us are not going to do any of that crazy stuff. But these impossible stories aren't so dramatic for most of us. They're just like for me, I'm never gonna have a girlfriend. That was a story when I was younger. That's impossible to me. I'm never gonna be able to walk up to a group of people I don't know and start a conversation with them. Impossible for me back when I had a lot of chronic pain. I'm never gonna run again in my life. Impossible for me. Right? And all of those things were just total bs. Those are the kind of stories I'm talking about. And you have hundreds of them just like I did. And I still sure, I got a handful myself. Now even the stories of the impossible. There's a great book by an awesome author named Art Berg, which he says, the impossible just takes a little longer. Inspiring dude. By the way, you can check out his book if you want. I'm actually reading it right now. Maybe I'll record something about it in an upcoming podcast. But you know, he's a, you know, flew out of a car window at age 19 in a car accident and got paralyzed from the waist down and went on to just do extraordinary things in his life and didn't let that stop him. Right? So if he can do it. Sean Stevenson, who I've interviewed, I don't know if I was on this podcast, you could look him up. He's an amazing man. He's dead now, but he was a psychologist who had a brittle bone disorder. And was he Never grew more than like 3ft tall, was in a wheelchair his whole life. Ended up dying because his bones were so fragile. He fell just once and hit his head and it cracked his skull. Internal bleeding. An amazing human. I loved him and what he taught me and what I learned from him. And, you know, if these people can do these things, we can do something that's a lot more. Talking to people, getting into a relationship, having that relationship be amazing and extraordinary. I know that one in this day and age can seem a little rare. Just gotta look around and find some models and mentors for that. But these things are absolutely possible. So it's just a perspective. So the way that we shift that, though, is not trying to pump yourself up by saying, and yes, it's possible. It's taken some freaking action. So when you're in that discouraged state, here's what I encourage you to do. Don't just kind of stay in that same perspective. Do a kind of objective analysis. If you want, like, take a step back. I like to do it on a. On a document. File a fresh document on your phone or at your computer and just say, okay, let's think about this a little bit more rationally and reasonably here. Call in a different part of you. Imagine you're doing an audit from an outside company of your life and saying, okay, what's going on? What are the areas that are going well? What's this social area that you haven't, you know, talk about yourself in the third person? You know, I'll do it. I won't do it in the third person, but I'll do it as an internal committee meeting where we talk about, we. What are we gonna do? Right? It might sound crazy, but this. What it does is it separates you from the fixed perspectives that you might be stuck in, where every time you think about it, it looks the same. It's awful, it's discouraging, it's impossible. Bleh. And it's really hard to see differently in that. In that pattern. Right? So instead, get this outside perspective. Okay, what are we gonna do? Let's look at the numbers. Let's look at the prospects. How are we doing here? And see it as it is. Notice if there's just dramatic language and then call that out. Okay, we got a person in the committee here. I call that person and me Chicken Little. And he's very dramatic. You want to know what Chicken Little's gonna tell you? That's right. Doom. Doom. Downfall. Ruin. Loss. It's all over. It's all going down. Thanks for the input. Chicken Little, you know, he serves a purpose. He serves a purpose in that he keeps me aware. Maybe, you know, you want to be aware of potential problems in life so you can address them sooner rather than later, whether it's brushing your teeth each night or handling a problem with your house before it gets worse and there's leaks or, you know, something with your health. Right. So a little of Chicken Little anxiety about, hey, I'm not taking care of my health. I'm not eating very good right now. That might, you know, kick you into gear. So you want a little bit of Chicken Little. But Chicken Little telling you everything's going to fail all the time is paralyzing. So we can call out the dramatic parts and then just see it as it is. I don't have any friends right now. Okay, well, what do we want? What do we want? Let's make it the comedian side. Well, do we want friends? I don't like two friends or three friends. Of course, Chicken Little. You can't have any. It's never going to have any. Okay, all right. And just go through the process, though. Put. Keep putting that part, you know, acknowledging it and setting it aside and say thank you for the input. We're going to hear from other parts now. And then. And then. And you might want to occasionally stand up as you're doing this and move your body, shake your body out, take some deep breaths, sit tall. Right. The physiology impacts your mind and your perspectives. And then, right, brainstorm. Say, okay, what is one of the goals? What do I want? I know it's hopeless, but what do I really want? And set a goal. Maybe pick something that seems reasonable to you. Like, if you think I want to be totally free and confident around anyone, approach everybody, which I think are great goals. And a lot of people in my Mastermind program have those goals and they achieve those goals. But if that feels over the top for you, then maybe you set a goal of, I want to be able to walk up and, you know, I want to be able to have some conversations with people at work or strangers. And maybe you don't do that at all right now. Maybe it's another social confidence goal. Maybe it's a goal in your business, your career, your health, relationships, dating, it doesn't matter. What do I want? What's a goal? Okay. And set it as reasonable if you want it first to make it seem a little more accessible. And then, of course, hopelessness and despair might say, that's not possible. And look at all we tried, blah, blah, Blah. Okay. And then after you set the goal, tune into why it's important to you. Why do I want this? What is it gonna bring me? And this isn't the time to look impressive or say the right thing. I want this because, you know, I'm a good person and I, and I'm just so selfless and I just care about everybody but myself. And I only want the best for my family. And yet maybe, maybe you want those things, that's great. But maybe it's like, I want this so I feel better, so I feel more powerful. I want, I want a girlfriend so I'm. I have connection so I can have a sexual experience that feels energized. I want more sex, right? Like just name what is so. Because what we want to tap into is an emotional juice, not saying something for somebody else. This is a totally private document you're creating. And then, then here's the, here's the magic part. You're going to brainstorm. You're going to force yourself to come up with 10 things that you could do to achieve this goal. Frame it as a question. How can I get into a relationship? You know, find someone, date. How can I start dating more? How can I create three friendships? How can I make a change in my business or my career or my. How can I, how can I get a new job or whatever it is you want to do, Right? Then you force yourself to write ten things down and just go write them fast. Maybe we get to 12, maybe it's a 15. I was just doing this recently and I ended up doing two of the things on that 10 list right away. Some of them were like, okay, that's a bigger project. I can assess if I actually want to do that or not. And some of them I will do, but you know, you need to set up some time and plan it out. But two of them were really low hanging fruit and I just took care of each one, probably about five, 10 minutes. And if you can do that, that's the magic key. Can you do one of the things on the list? Right? And then just making the list, maybe doing one of the things, or even scheduling one of the other things that's bigger. Notice how you feel. I'm gonna bet you that if you really do this, you're going to feel you're gonna sit taller naturally. You're not gonna force yourself to. You're just gonna naturally sit taller, you're gonna breathe deeper, you're gonna feel more empowered. And this is activating offense. This is what offense feels like in your life. And what do we do? We follow this up with taking one of the actions and who knows, brainstorming the list of 10. You might start coming up with other ideas later that day, and you might start spontaneously doing them. What it does is it gets you into offense. And when you're in offense, you start looking for opportunities. You start seeking out what you can do, rather than looking for all the reasons why nothing's going to work anyway. So why. Which keeps you stuck in stasis and fear. And the fear gets worse and the depressed feeling gets worse, and it's awful. And you can shift this. The key is to follow this process that I laid out because you want to have the time to do the little committee meeting. If you go straight to, like, what are 10 things I could do? First of all, do you even know what you want, right? Is it really a clear goal? Does it inspire you? Does it energize you? Are you connected to why you want it? So there's emotional juice to it? Or is it. I'm supposed to. Because if you try to brainstorm the actions without having those other things first, then you won't even be able to come up with them. Your mind's gonna say, I don't know. And if you leapfrog that stuff, then if you're in a discouraged state and you say, how can I? Or what. What are 10 things I could do? Your mind's like, f you nothing. Why? It's not gonna work out anyway. So we need to shift that. And the starting shift is just to get a lay of the land. So the first step isn't to try to get all pumped up and inspired. It's just to say, okay, what is. So what's happening? What is wrong? What are the concerns? And you want to write them out. Because when you do this written down, you can do it on physical paper, too, with a pen. But I like to type because I can do that faster then. And some people will even record this kind of stuff in audio. You can do that too. It's about getting out of a normal. Just in your head thought patterns, because those tend to be not as focused. We don't typically follow a thought stream. We're very all over the place in our heads, even if we're trying to be focused. So by writing it down or recording it or typing it, then what you do is you want to see it as it really is. Notice the. If there's just start typing. You're like, wow, that sounds so dramatic. I'm never I'm going to be alone forever. Just still type it out. And then I'll even say that sometimes when I'm doing this stuff, this is like a form of journaling, right? All the next sentence will say, wow, that was really dramatic. I wonder what part of me that is. Let's. What. What is really. So here. Am I really never going to ever be alone? I know it feels that way right now. And, and, and if you want to, you know, add even more juice to this, then write right, as if you were talking to a friend or somebody else. Right. Because that also helps us have access to a more balanced, reasonable, mature perspective. Probably more on your own side, too, because, you know, usually when a friend's like, oh, I'm never gonna meet somebody, you don't pull the line from dumb and dumber, which is, you are one pathetic loser man. Right? No, you probably do something better than that with your friend. Although to yourself, you might, you might call yourself a pathetic loser. So usually we end these episodes with an action step. This whole episode has been an action step. So let's get to your action step. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step for today's episode is to do everything we just talked about. Just really, just do it. Set. Set aside 15 minutes to do this now. Maybe you're driving or at the gym as you're listening to this or something. That's okay. That's cool. That's cool. Do it. Can you do it? When? Can you do it later today, tonight? And look like everything in this show, if you listen to it, maybe you're feeling a little more inspired right now, which is great, but I don't think it's going to have the staying power than if you actually do this action step. So I hope this serves you. You need more access to inspiration, hope, motivation, and powerful action to set you on a course to radically changing your life. It's 100% possible, my friend. I know this with beyond a shadow of a doubt at this point in my life. Not just from my own experience, but it's been replicated. It's been replicated in literally thousands of people that I've heard from, who've read my books, people I've worked with face to face in my Mastermind programs over the years, people at virtual live events that I've worked with and heard their reports and their testimonials. And it's not like, oh, this is some super exclusive option that's only available to those who are worthy. Now this is for everyone, man. This works for you some of these principles, they're not like mine. I didn't create all this stuff, I just accumulated it and been obsessed with it and studying it and trying to distill it and share it in a way that's accessible and hopefully inspires you to do it. But these ideas, these principles, have been around for centuries and then have been tested and proven in more modern, empirically based, supported treatments in the last 20, 30 years, 40 years. So this stuff works. Social anxiety, assertiveness, social confidence, being more on your own side. These are all learnable skills and it's a matter of doing what takes to shift it. So I hope this inspires you to do that. Follow through with the action on this episode and look forward to seeing you in our show next week. Until we speak again, we have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. 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.