Jumpstart Your Love Life Now

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to Shrink for the shy guy Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz. Yo. Welcome to today's episode of the show. How are you today? How's your love life? That's what we're here to talk about, right? How to jumpstart your love life now. And as you listen to this episode and reflect on your own love life, probably starting to do that already just by me saying love life. That means dating, relationships, your romantic life. We're gonna reflect on that today together. We're gonna help you see how you can jump start it, how you can get it moving. Now, before you maybe turn this off or pause it because it stirs up something uncomfortable, stick with me. Because staying comfortable in life and seeking comfort and being unwilling to experience any sort of discomfort is actually what gets us into trouble in the first place. It's a huge piece of social anxiety. It's a huge piece of low confidence or low self esteem. And it's the biggest contributing factor to not having the life that we want is being unwilling to experience discomfort. So as you listen to me in this episode, if you feel a little bit uncomfortable and you're like, I don't know if I like that or this is not going the way I want it to in my love life, facing that here with me is going to be the key to helping you get to the other side. So with that little disclaimer, let's dive in. Let me ask you again. How's your love life? Where are you at? Are you satisfied with it? Are you fulfilled with it? Are you struggling with it? Just notice what's the first kind of couple things that just pop into your head as I say that. And then let's look at where you're at. And I think there are only four areas. I was thinking about this before I recorded this. I was like, you know, I think there's really only four areas. In fact, there's only really two categories. So this is going to be simple. We're going to break this down. You know exactly where you're at. You're either single or you're in a relationship. That's really the only two set of options that I see. You're either single or you're in a relationship. Now you might say, but hold on a second. You know, I'm dating someone kinda, but I'm not sure if I'm with them or not. Well, you're in your mind, you know, Right. You either See yourself as like, yeah, I'm single, and we're just dating. And, you know, probably not gonna go very far, but it's fun. So then you're in your mind, you're single. Right. You might not tell them that, but maybe you could get into that later. And then. Or, you know, maybe you're dating multiple people, and you might see yourself as in relationships. Maybe you're into polyamory or something. You're dating a couple of people, and you see those as actual relationships. Now, they might not be permanent, or they might not be someone you're going to spend the rest of your life with. They might not be monogamous, but I see that that could be relationship. You're being in relationship with those people. So you're either single or you're in a relationship. So let's start with that distinction. Where are you? Are you single, or are you in a relationship or relationships? And if your answer is, it's complicated, you're probably in some sort of relationship. Okay, good. So we got that. Or with me so far, single or in a relationship. Okay, good. So the next thing is, there's only two places you can be in each of those categories. See how simple we're making this? So if you're single, there's only two places you can be. You are single and struggling in some way, or you're single and at peace. And in a relationship, there's only two places you can be. You're either in a relationship and in some sort of pain, or you're in a relationship and you're thriving. Those are the really core options that I see it. So where are you? Are you single right now, but feeling at peace about it? That means. So let's break these down. I'm gonna give you a little more description of each of these so you can kind of see where you're at. So let's say you're single right now, but maybe you're at peace with that. You feel good about that. And so what that would look like is you are happy with yourself. You feel good about yourself. You feel like you could be in a relationship if you wanted to be. You value yourself. You value what you bring into relationships. You are interested and engaged in different things in your life. Your life feels full, engaging, dynamic, has purpose, has meaning, has friends, has connections. And maybe you want a relationship. Maybe you're open to a relationship and there's not this, like, desperate, throbbing, aching, I need this right now to feel, okay, I'm incomplete. I suck. Like, you don't have that. You're just like, yeah, no, life is good. And sure, I'll be with someone at some point when I find that person, when I feel ready. And until then, you know, let's keep enjoying this. This is good. I'm at peace. So that's one place. Lord knows, when I was single, I did not spend much time there. I did find my way there at times, but I spent most of my time in the second category of single, just single and struggling. And there's all different ways we could struggle, right? But one of the ones that I was referencing earlier is just, you're not feeling at peace, you're craving, you're longing, you're like, ah, I just don't have anyone. And I miss, I'm lonely, I need someone. And there's a particular flavor of struggling that I had for a long time, which is, if you knew, I was just talking about this with a client the other day, I was like, if you knew that within a year from today you were going to be in an amazing relationship with the love of your life, like, just, you knew it somehow we could have total certainty that that was going to happen, how would you feel about right now and the course of this next year? And he said, well, I'd sure be a lot more relaxed. I actually enjoy myself a lot more right now and enjoy my singleness and my freedom and the ability to do whatever I want and interact with whoever I want in whatever way that I want. Said, interesting. So there's a unique flavor of pain. The reason I asked them that question is because I knew that when I was single and struggling, the biggest form of pain was not that I didn't have someone in my life that was a partner, girlfriend, someone that loved me, that I loved. I mean, that hurts, right? Or that could hurt. But the pain was, I don't have that. And I'm never going to get that. That's where, like, the real pain is. Because if we know, oh, yeah, I'm going to have that in six months, maybe there's a little impatience, right? Like, I want it now, but we're okay, we can wait. But if it's like, I don't have that, I'm not gonna have it in six months. I'm not gonna have it in a year. I'm not gonna have it in six years. And then if you wanna add some fuel onto the fire of struggling and suffering, you say, the reason I'm not gonna have that is because I'm what? And whatever your mind came up with, there Is part of your story. Cause I'm messed up. Cause I'm ugly. Cause I'm fat, Cause I'm broken. Cause I got baggage. Cause blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have all these stories as to why it's not possible for us. And then we can also be single and ashamed about it. That's another form of struggling, right? I know. I had this one too. Like, ugh, if anyone, you know, everyone, it's so shameful that I'm single. And that could be for a variety of reasons. Could be that you're a certain age and you think you should have a partner by now. You should no longer be a virgin by now. I had that one. You and another one is that people that start reading, and this is very cultural dependent. It could be your family, your country, but basically, by a certain age, in a lot of cultures, you should be married. And that could be younger or older. And so once you reach that age, and if you're not married or if you were married but then you got divorced and now you're not, you know, there can be this shame that comes up for us. Like, ah, there's something wrong with me, for I should be there. All my friends are there. My parents think I should be there. Others. And it's not just like, you know, when you're having that conversation with your mom and she's like, when are you gonna give me my grandkids? I don't mean, like in the moment of that. That could be uncomfortable. But I mean, you carry it around with you. No one, no one. Your mom's not there 24 7, saying that in your ear. And no, we're carrying that shame. We have that internal sense of shame. And I remember my aunt, Aunt Teresa, who's awesome, I love you, Aunt Teresa, she would ask me at times, she'd just see me during Thanksgiving or something. She lives down in Southern California. And she'd say, so, hey, how's your. Are you seeing anyone? Are you dating anyone? And I would just feel this wave of shame because the answer was no. The reason I'm not is because I'm messed up and I never will. And other guys are better than me, and so they can do it. And not only am I ugly, but I'm also incapable and not a man. I mean, all that shit was in my head. So she says that, and I'm like, no. So how's the pickle on your sandwich? Change the subject as quick as possible. So where are you at with the single? If you're single, you struggling you feeling at peace somewhere in between? Sometimes one, sometimes the other. And we're going to talk about how to get to more of the peace side, because here is the fascinating breakthrough is that we think that we need to be in this state of, like, total dissatisfaction in order to be motivated to go find a partner or something. But the reality is that when you get more and more at peace and you're thriving in your life, then you become way more attractive and stuff just happens. And you might have had an experience in your life already like that. If you think back to the last time you got in a relationship, if you've been in a relationship, the last time you were in one, maybe you weren't even looking for one. You were just focusing on yourself and your growth and your life and your friends and your career and your passions and your hobbies. And all of a sudden, boom, there was somebody. So. And that's how life works. The more you get to a state of peace around something and surrender like it can happen, it cannot happen. I'm in no rush. It's okay. I know it's inevitable. Then boom shows up. So we're gonna talk about more how to get you there, but we're take a quick break right now, and then we're get into the two sides of the relationship. Two different ways we can be in a relationship which is either in pain or thriving, and this is going to be extremely valuable because one of our biggest obstacles that keeps us stuck single and not finding the love that we want is. Is actually past relationship pain. So that's the hook. Pretty enticing hook, huh? You want to come back and talk about pain? All right, I'll see you in just a minute.

Okay. So you're listening to Dr. Aziz and thinking, hmm, maybe there is something I can do to build my confidence. But the question is what? This podcast is a great start, but if you really want to make some headway, you have to learn two things. First, you have to learn how to transform your self esteem. You have to learn how to like who you are. Without that, true confidence is impossible. Second, you have to master some basic social skills. Eye contact, body language, starting conversations, small talk, meeting women, and all the rest. In order to get the confidence you need, you have to learn these things. And there's no better place to start than with Dr. Aziz's the Confidence Code, a DVD training program that teaches you exactly how to maximize your self esteem and master your social skills. To learn more, check out YourConfidenceCode.com.

Hey, welcome back. So Two areas of single, right? You're either single and struggling in all the ways I talked about just now, or you're single and feeling at peace, or you're in a relationship and you're feeling pain or you're thriving. Now, it might not be 247 that you're feeling pain and no sense of fulfillment or love or connection. That's usually not the case, but you know what I mean, right? It's not great. It's not amazing. It's not like, wow, this is an awesome relationship. I love this. This is a total magnifier of my. Even that even a relationship that is a total magnifier of your life doesn't mean it doesn't have any pain or any challenge. In fact, a relationship does have periods of pain, challenge, conflict that we need to grow through. So I'm not talking about some sort of weird state, blissful state that's devoid of any challenge. I'm just talking about in general, when you're in a relationship that's thriving, man, it's good. And if you're listening to this and you're one of the few that have achieved that and experienced that in your life on a daily basis, congratulations. That does not happen by accident. This is a thing that sometimes I go on a jag about. This is we have this weird entitlement to relationship success that doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, I most not you, because you're listening to this. So you understand that in order to create an extraordinary life, we need to develop ourselves. We need to educate ourselves. We need to keep growing constantly. But most people. And somewhere back in the. In your mind, you might have this too. So that's why I want to call it out. We have this, like, entitlement that's like, I shouldn't need to do anything or grow anyway or learn anything. I should just be able to, like, find the right person. And then with no effort, no discomfort, no growth, everything works out great forever. And it doesn't work that way. I'm sorry. No. If you want to have an extraordinary relationship, you want to thrive in your relationship, you got to be growing. There's so much shit to work through of communication styles that you learned growing up watching your parents that were totally ineffective. You know, maybe your parents avoided conflict and they were just kind of distant, like roommates. Well, if you replicate that, guess what kind of relationship you're gonna have? Distant roommate y kind of relationship. If your dad blew up and yelled a bunch, and that's how he dealt with his feelings because he didn't know how to communicate vulnerability or fear or any other uncomfortable emotions for him. He just yelled at your mom. Then you might have anger that comes up in relationships. You might have a tendency to blow up. You might have a tendency to, you know, maybe you contain it because you're like, I'm not going to be like him. But it comes out like as, you know, sharp remarks, or you just do a more subtle push away of your partner. You know, if you got anxiety, right? And this is one I had to work through a ton. If you have anxiety, fears about they're going to leave you, fears about you not being good enough, fears about being yourself around them, guess what you got to do. You got to grow and work through that stuff or the relationship's not going to grow, it's not going to thrive. You're not going to feel really good in it. You know, Melissa is something that really is unfortunate in our culture is that we have this entitlement that is supposed to go easily and we don't need to grow. And if we do need to grow, that's a sign that we're messed up and people feel ashamed about that. And that's fucking crazy. I cannot tell you how many people, when they realize they need to read a book about relationships and communication or God forbid, go to some sort of counseling sessions or couples counseling or coaching to learn how to communicate. They feel like failures. They're like, oh, my God, there's something so wrong with me. This is depressing that I need to do this. And it's like, dude or do that. What area of life do we not need to learn and grow in in order to do it? Well, I can't think any sport, can you imagine any sport where you're like, I shouldn't need to learn it at all or practice anything. I should just know how to play soccer or football or basketball. Incredibly, I should just know how to sink a three pointer. Practice. Oh, my God, that means I'm a failure, right? Isn't that absurd? What about your work? What about your career? How much time have you spent educating yourself, learning things at school and on your own time, reading and talking to people and figuring out things and solving problems. And we know that in our career, the only way to progress and get more experience is to do it and to figure out, you know, read things, talk to people, solve problems. And it's the same thing in your relationship. So if you really want a relationship that's thriving, that's the biggest commitment that you gotta make. But if you're in a place where your relationship is a lot of pain, then there's probably not growth. Maybe in you there's an unwillingness to learn what you need to learn. And there's a book that I highly recommend to everyone who's in a relationship. It's called after the Honeymoon by Dan Weil. After the Honeymoon. And I remember I was talking with a friend over breakfast, this was a while back, about his relationship. And it was, you know, she says this, and then I say this. And I'm listening to it, I'm like, yikes, that's not optimal communication. No one's being vulnerable. They're just slinging accusations at each other. He's feeling hurt and defensive. She's feeling hurt and defensive. Right? The story of a fight. We all know that one. And as we talked about it, I asked him questions, I shared some ideas. And then at the end of breakfast, we were standing outside the restaurant, and I was like, hey, man, you know, there's a book I'd highly recommend. And if you read it, I think it would profoundly help you in this and really take away a lot of this pain and suffering and help you feel more loving and at peace in your relationship. And he said, oh, yeah? What's it called? And I told him it's after the Honeymoon by Dan Weil. Might want to write that one down. After the Honeymoon by Dan Moyle. And I asked him, I told him about that, and he said, oh, yeah. And just something about his tone. I thought I'd ask this. I said, so, are you going to get it? And he's like, yeah, no, I don't know. I'm pretty busy. First of all, I don't have time is just a total bullshit excuse that we all use. I'm guilty of it, too. But here's the thing. If something is really important to us, we make time for it. And we use I don't have time. Because it's an excuse that usually people back off of. Like, hey, can you do this thing for me? I'd love to. I don't have the time. Everyone's like, okay, that's fine. Sure. No problem. You don't have the time. But it's total bs because if we really have. If we think about this, let's say right now, the person you care about most in the world, really close relationship. And they don't do this very often. This is really rare. You get a message from them, and it's like, look, shit's burning down. Something's going down big. I need you to come help me right now. And it's an emergency, and it's one of your closest relationships, and they're not always having emergencies. This is like a once in a while, you know, lifetime kind of thing. Would you be able to drop everything and go be with them, go help them now? For most of us, the answer is yes. We'd figure it out. It won't be, you know, be uncomfortable. It'd be challenging, but we'd figure it out if there was enough urgency, if there was enough need. And that's because that's important. That relationship is important. How we show up as a human is important with that person. So when something's really important to us, we make time. And so I saw that he wasn't going to do it, so I thought I'd just ask him one more question because it's. I don't know, it's okay with me if he doesn't want to have an extraordinary relationship. And I said, well, let me ask you this. And he ran his own business, really intelligent guy, worked in real estate, property management. I love talking to him about that stuff because he knows so much about it. And I said to him, so how many books have you read on business? Business growth, business development, finance, economics, real estate, property management? You know, kind of your whole. Your whole bag? And he said, maybe 200. I don't know. It's just a guess. I said, yeah, yeah. How many books have you read on how to enhance your communication in a romantic relationship? He said, well, paused. I think I flipped through one at a bookstore, right. And I didn't say anything else. I just laughed. He laughed. And that was the end of the conversation because it became so obvious at that point, right? So if you want a relationship where you're thriving, that's going to be key. And if you're in a place where there's pain, I mean, there could be so many different kinds of relationship pain, right? Like if you're just doing more dating, you're not in a monogamous, committed relationship. There can be pain of, you know, fear of being expressive, fear of being ourselves. I don't want to say this because that'll hurt someone's feelings. Fear of being honest, fear of being direct. Any sort of fear creates pain. Or you could be in a relationship, but there's pain there, right? That you don't feel fulfilled, you don't feel satisfied, you don't. Maybe you don't feel loved, maybe you don't feel cared about. So you want to see where are you at? Where is your center of gravity? If you're in a relationship, are you thriving most of the time? Are you in pain most of the time? And we want to be honest with ourselves here. And pain doesn't have to be like, you know, electricity getting zapped or something through your body. I just mean mild pain, dissatisfaction, heartache. Could be any of those. Loneliness. Even if you're in a relationship. So find where you are. You're either single and at peace about it. Single and struggling in some way in a relationship and thriving. Or in a relationship in some sort of pain. Kind of figure out where you are. We're gonna take a quick break and we're talking about how to jumpstart that shit. Now, are you sure about this, J dawg? This line to get in is so long. I know, man, I already told you we don't need to get in. All the ladies we could ever want are here outside of the club. Check it. Hey ladies, what's up? Ew, don't talk to us. See what I'm talking about, man? They're everywhere and looking to hook up. Look over there. You see that girl standing all by herself? Go talk to her, man. Oh, come on, Wizzy, you got this. Alright. Hey, what's up? Uh, hey there. You want to come back into the corner and hang out with me and my friend? No. I mean, no thanks. I'm waiting for a friend. I have to go stand somewhere else now. What happened, man? She didn't want to hang out? Forget about it, man. We got all night. Tired of struggling to meet women and go on dates? Are you ready to get this part of your life really handled? If you go to 30days to datingmastery.com you can get a free ebook I've written called 7 Ways to Start Conversations with Women Anywhere, Anytime. It'll give you guidance on how to build your confidence, how to connect with women in a variety of settings, and to do that all by being yourself without weird pickup lines or game tactics. So go to 30daystodatingmastery.com now to get your ebook and find out how to transform this area of your life. Hey, welcome back. So now you've identified where you are. Probably got some insight, maybe even as you're already listening to this and you've identified where you are and we described where you could be. So let's say you're single and you're struggling. Maybe you could be single and at peace. You could be there right now. You don't have to Be in a relationship to be at peace. And maybe you're in a relationship and you're feeling some pain all of a sudden. We were talking about my friend not reading any books and I mentioned Dan while in after the honeymoon. Maybe you're seeing a pathway. Maybe there's a pathway of learning for you. And in your mind, if it's like, yeah, but I've tried everything. That's another story we tell ourselves. The answer is we have not tried everything. That's not true in any situation because everything is infinite and no human has tried an infinite amount of things. Now, you might feel like you're fed up and you don't want to try anything else and that's okay too. But we just want to be honest about that and say that, yeah, no, I'm out of juice. I don't want to try anymore in this relationship. So let's talk about ways that you can jumpstart and it's going to depend upon where you are. But here is one major direction or action that you can do that's going to, or let's say, let's call it a guiding principle. It's going to help you no matter where you are in any of these categories. And that is to approach rather than avoid, to move towards the things that you tend to avoid in life. What we avoid always gets worse. So important to get that. So in life, whatever you avoid always gets worse. So if you're single and you want to be with someone and you're avoiding talking to people and initiating conversation and approaching people, you're avoiding that fear. It's gonna make your love life worse. If you're in a relationship and you're avoiding having certain conversations with your partner because you don't want to hurt their feelings, because you're scared of how they're going to react. If you're afraid of conflict, if you're afraid of disappointing them, if you're afraid of guilt, if you're afraid of whatever shame that comes up for you when you talk about this. So you don't talk about your sex life, or you don't talk about how you feel about your sex life with them, or you don't talk about finances with them, or you don't talk about anything because you're scared of that topic that's going to make your relationship worse. It's going to limit your relationship. It's going to, over time create more pain. Maybe you'll get some short term relief because you're like, ugh, I don't have to talk about that. Whew. But over time, you're gonna get pain. So the guiding principle here, if you want to jumpstart your love life or any area of your life, is you gotta face. You gotta move towards it. You gotta face that fear. And if you're not sure how to do that, well, I mean, you heard about this earlier in the call. There's that Deity Mastery flash sale that's going to give you a ton of guidance and focus and ability to do that. You can listen to previous episodes of this podcast to go and really get a sense of how to deal with fear. There's tons of episodes in here about fear. You can get one of my books, the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. This whole book is about how to overcome fear. So there's a lot of resources there. It's just a commitment to saying, okay, what am I going to do to really shift that? And it's not a lack of resources that stops us from facing fear. It's unwillingness. So are you willing to move towards what scares you? So what is that thing for you? What is that one step that you could take that would move you more towards what you want, even though it's a little scarier? Think about that. That just might be your action step for today. We'll see. So what other stuff can you do to jumpstart your love life right now? What do you think? As I'm talking, is your mind already turning and your wheels are going, you're getting a sense of what it could be for you because you know your situation better than anyone. Maybe what you need is clarity about what you want. Maybe you need some good models or examples of what a relationship could look like. Maybe you don't have any of those. Maybe all the relationships you see around you suck because that's. I mean, that's a big chunk of the population there. People are either in relationships where they're not feeling satisfied, they're getting divorced, they're not happy, they're breaking up, they got. You know, they complain a ton about the relationship. Yeah, the old ball and chain makes me do blah, blah, blah. Or he never does this and he sucks because of that, and he's so stupid. And that's what they. That's their conversation. And they go home to that person. And that's like the. Supposedly the person that they're in love with in a relationship with. So maybe that's all you see, and you're like, bleh. So maybe you need a better model. Do you have any models in your life? Is There anyone that you know of, Maybe you don't even know them personally. What else can you do to jumpstart your dating life? What do you think I'm going to stir the pot here for you? Yeah. Maybe it's doing some cleaning up or some healing of some past relationship pain, really coming to peace with that. It ended. Finding the gift in the relationship, forgiving the other person, forgiving yourself, letting something go so you can be open to something new. What would it be for you? Maybe it's getting out there and pushing your edge and developing your social confidence so you can meet people and create relationships, finding what it is for you. And that is going to bring us to our action step for today. Time for action. Your action step for today is guess what? Whatever you just came up with the one thing that you can do to jumpstart your love life. Now this is going to be a choose your own adventure because you know your life better than I do at this point, right? You're in there every day. So I threw out a ton of ideas. We've been talking about this for the last half hour. So now what is the one thing that you can do and just make it one thing. Maybe your mind has seven potentials and you're like, I don't know what the right one is. Just pick one and pick one that you can do today and then just get into it, do it faster. The more you sort of premeditate and think about it and is it right or not? Maybe I'll decide in 17 days and then think about maybe possibly doing it after that for the next 10 days. And then in a month I'll decide to probably maybe try taking a little bit of action. No, forget that just now, today, right now, what could you do? And then take that action. Don't think twice about it, just do it. And then the more you can do that and habitually get into action, habitually go towards what might be uncomfortable or scary instead of avoid it. That's how you transform your life. That's what I started doing maybe 15 years ago at this point and it changed everything. And every area of life starts to thrive when you do that. But awesome. Thank you for being with me today. I look forward to hearing about how your love life thrives and grows. 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. 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 blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com.

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