Motivation Secrets: How To Do What It Really Takes

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 second, 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. Yo, welcome. Today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be answering a question about motivation and how to access the high level of motivation for you to go out there and create the life that you want, to make the changes that you want. The reason you're listening to this podcast is because you probably want more out of life. You're feeling limited or stuck, held back in some way by fear, doubt, shyness, social anxiety, discomfort in yourself not being who you fully are in at least one key area of life, but maybe multiple areas of life, whether it's your social life, your dating life, relationships, career, just being comfortable in your own skin, around strangers, public speaking, whatever it might be, wherever the confidence is impacting you. You're here because you want to grow and you want to learn. And you realize from this show and from everything else that I teach that listening is only part of the puzzle. Getting insight into yourself is only a piece of the shift and the breakthrough. And the biggest thing that's actually going to make change in your life is action, is effort, is doing something in between these podcasts, in between the pages you read in one of my books or watching my videos and actually doing it. Which is why in my program, Confidence University, which if you don't know about by now, hopefully you do. It's TheConfidenceUniversity.com, biggest, greatest thing I've ever created. Took me almost two years and extremely in depth video program. And when I created it, I wanted to say what's going to help people get the result of coaching with me by but without me there. So how do I bring this to as many people as I can? And I realized very early on that we need to have training videos and activities and exercises. They do and then they need to go do it. Because when people are with me at a live event or at a Mastermind retreat, we're going and we're doing stuff Because I realize that's what's going to produce the big shift. So in between all of the lessons in Confidence University, there's an action step and people go do the thing and report on it. And sometimes the action steps are in their journal and sometimes they're actually things to do out in the real world. You got to do this stuff. And I think, you know, this. And this actually led me to want to record this episode because I got a question from a listener named Max. What up, Max? And he said, I really like your podcast and all the stuff you're doing to help people like me increase their confidence. So thank you for that. You're welcome, Max. I have one question. I think I really got a lot from your podcast and program so far. But I have the problem that I never really follow through. Usually I decide to change things in my life, but then after a couple of days, my motivation and commitment just seem to fade away. Do you have any advice on how to be more committed and actually really do what it takes? It's a great question. I've heard this one a lot. In fact, just recently, someone in the Mastermind program that I run was talking about how they get motivated and they're like, I'm going to do this. Ah, I'll just get high and play video games instead. And I laughed when he said that. I know that feeling, right? It's like there's this inner fire, this inner drive, and then something else kicks in. And unfortunately we can stay in that holding pattern for years, some people even decades, and it ultimately doesn't serve you in your life and ultimately you're gonna regret it. But man, in the moment it's easier, isn't it? We've all been there. In fact, I laugh at the get high and play video games one because that was my go to strategy. That was my M.O. for, I don't know, years, man, at least seven years. And before then I played a lot of video games. Wasn't getting high. But then I started getting high on playing video games. Although sometimes I wouldn't because my, you know, especially if I was playing competitive games like Warcraft 3 battle mode, paired up with someone, you have like a 18 to 20 minute game, man, you gotta be on, you gotta click fast, you gotta think fast. And the pot would slow me down. But then I played Defense of the Ancients, which is like a precursor to League of Legends. And yeah, could be high as shit for that. I don't think I played that well, but it was. The colors were pretty in any Case. It's sweet, it's funny, it's comforting, but where are you at the end of it? So, Max, I'm going to address this to you, but everyone listening, you know, whatever your go to escape strategy is, your avoidance strategy, whatever you do instead of doing the thing that you really want, where does it get you at the end of it? And so let's take a. I'm sure you know, but let's take a moment to actually think about that. How do you feel when you're done? Do you feel fulfilled, rich inside, nourished, happy, satisfied? Or do you feel irritated, jittery, uncomfortable, down, ultimately frustrated with yourself because you're not creating the life that you want. And for me, it reached a point where the frustration started to get bigger and bigger. And the fact that you're listening to this podcast, Max, makes me think that it might be growing for you as well. And so the question I have for you is, what do you really want for your life? And I'm only asking Max, by the way, so if you're listening and you're not, Max, then don't answer that question. What do you really want for your life? I know it's a big one. I know you might be listening to this at like 7:30am on the way to work. You're just like, I don't know, man, just shit. But it's worth asking, isn't it? What do you want for your life? What do you really want to experience? Are you really gonna get there? And here's the thing about what motivates humans, and it's what motivated me. And so it motivates pretty much everyone who comes into my world. It's pain. Pain. That's it. The pain has to reach a certain critical threshold where it kicks our ass into gear. And then the pain of staying where you are just completely overshadows the pain of change. That's important. So I'm going to say it again. When the pain of staying where you are in life is bigger, significantly bigger than the pain of change, then you will change. You will leap, or you'll just implode and die a miserable death either way. But you got to do something. And so when that pain reaches a threshold, and here's the thing, we deal with the pain by trying to numb it out, by getting high and play video games, by getting drunk, by watching tons of tv. So what are you doing that's trying to numb the pain? And you might think that you're taking care of yourself when you do that. You're just relaxing or whatever, but you're not really. You are probably trying to numb the pain. So let yourself feel the pain, let yourself feel the frustration. Because that was a tipping point for me was this peak moment of just utter frustration, utter helplessness. And for me, it was my love life. I mean, I lacked confidence in a ton of different areas. I didn't like my appearance, I didn't like my body image. I didn't think I was socially uncomfortable. Couldn't meet new people that well. I couldn't speak up in groups, never would raise my hand in an academic setting or a group setting. Didn't really have big dreams for my career. It's kind of like what sort of a job I should get. I don't know. And then relationships. Relationships was a tipping point. There was just pain after pain after pain after pain. Stacking things that are just suck. So going from middle school to high school, high school to college, college, just seeing people around me somehow again being able to connect and have relationships and me having this sort of. It had this mysterious quality like how did they do it? How was he with her? How did it work? It doesn't seem to work for me. You know why it didn't work for me? Because I wasn't approaching anyone. I mean, really, really rarely the universe would have to smash us together. I was living extremely passively and I got to a point where I was like, man, I want to do something about it. And so I put some effort in, but it was kind of like half assed random effort. If there was a girl in my class that I could approach, I would do it. And I did that here and there. Took a lot of time to build up the courage to do it. There was a woman that I started working with, so I asked her out. It's like low hanging fruit who's around me. And it reached a critical point though, when these women that I asked out, some of them would say yes and then they wouldn't want after they do one date with me and then would not want to go on another date with me. And it happened multiple times, probably happened two or three times with women that I thought were interesting, amazing, beautiful, funny, smart. I'm like, what is going on? I got so enraged, so frustrated. So my question for you, listening, whoever you are, wherever you are, can you feel that frustration? Don't shy away from it, don't run away from it and don't go into hopelessness and helplessness either. Like, well, oh my God, yeah, it does suck and I suck and it Sucks because I suck and I'm never going to get there. Because you don't want that. You want the frustration to be immobilizing energy. So instead of collapsing you and imploding you like, ah, I guess I'm never gonna have what I want. My life is shit. Get angry, get a little pissed and say, you know what? I'm not gonna deal, I cannot do this anymore. So when you focus on the area that's frustrating, the question I have for you is, is this the life that you want for yourself? Yes or no? And say it out loud, Is this the life that you want for yourself? Yes or no? Are you gonna settle for living like this for the rest of your life? Yes or no? And if you're shaking your head from side to side, use your voice too. Say no. Activate that power, Activate that frustration. Because it's only from deep enough pain that we fucking do something. Otherwise. Nah, I want it. Oh yeah, maybe, eh, I'll get around to it. Because comfort takes over our addiction to comfort takes over our inability or our lack of discomfort tolerance, muscle kicks in. We have a weak muscle when it comes to tolerating discomfort. And the only way we build that is by facing discomfort. And the only thing that makes us crazy enough to want to face discomfort is when we know that it's going to get us what we want. We know that it's going to make us grow. And so we have to have a big enough motivator. And that motivator is you can get out of all the pain you're in and get something amazing. And so for me, the idea of not just, oh, I could get a girlfriend, I mean, I wanted, I wanted a relationship, I wanted to date, I wanted to have those experiences. But even more, I wanted to get out of the pain of feeling like a fucking loser and feeling low about myself and comparing myself to other people and thinking everywhere I go, I'm not as good as these people. And every time I saw them, man with a woman, well, he's better than me because he can get a girlfriend or a wife or a partner or I saw a man who seemed confident or a man who looked confident or a man who I thought was better looking than me. And so every day, everywhere I was going, I was feeling inferior. Except for when I played Warcraft 3 and one showed that, son of a bitch, I'm better than him. Superior here. But other than that, I felt inferior all day long. And so for me, the idea of like, I could get out of that and feel good about Myself and have a girlfriend. Holy shit. I want this. I want this bad. So what? Imagine you can get out of pain, and you can get out of pain into something so much better. And you want to have that so much better in your mind as well. Because otherwise, what most people do is they do just enough effort to get out of the most intense pain, and then they stop. You see this all the time. You know, someone, their job just kind of sucks. And then there's a period where it gets way worse. And then they're like, that's it. I'm gonna do something about it. And they change. They change their habits, they change their work habits, they have some conversations, they do whatever they need to do, and they get it back to just general sucking. Same thing with weight. People, you know, are 20 pounds overweight. And then something goes real south. And then they're 50 pounds overweight, and they're like, that's it. Fixing this. And then they lose the 30 pounds. But instead of going until, like, they're, you know, fully healthy and feel great in their body, they're kind of like, oh, yeah, this is good enough, but don't stop. Focus on what you really want. So, Max, the question I have for you. And of course, anyone other than Max listening, maybe only maybe just Max. There's just one person that listens to this show. It's just me and Max, Me and Max hanging out. And the rest of you just listen in anyway. So what is it that you really want, Max? What do you really want? So get out of the pain and focus on the pleasure. Those are the two things that are gonna drive you the most. And then you need to get energized and you need to go start doing shit. Because my guess is your motivation fades away. You said, I decide to change things in my life, but then after a couple days, my motivation and commitment just seem to fade away. So what's happening is you're not feeding that. That decision is temporary. Any decision we make, no matter how much emotion we have in it, it's temporary because we can decide something else the next day. We gotta turn that decision into commitment. And commitment isn't just a stronger form of decision where you furrow your brow and say it more forcefully. Commitment is action. Commitment is action over time. Commitment is doing shit that's uncomfortable and doing so consistently. So when you. In that moment of decision, you have to take massive action, repetitive action, consistent action, repeated action, bold fucking action, and do it again and again and again and again and again. So, I mean, this applies to everything. So I learned that when it came to dating. So I got so frustrated, so helpless, so hopeless. And then something snapped and I was like, no, I gotta do something. Because I realized that, wait, I'm almost gonna graduate college here. And I've never really had a girlfriend of my choosing. I had several women over the course of my probably 21 years at that point in my life who would want to date me. But I just, I wasn't that into them. There was one woman that I was, but I like freaked out and got all anxious because I couldn't like reveal anything about myself to her. But other than that, there's a couple opportunities where I wasn't that interested. And I never really pursued a woman. I'd never really fallen in love. I never had a girlfriend that I really felt excited about. And I was like, wait a minute, this fantasy that I'm going to somehow get to some new environment is just going to happen. It's total bs. I got to do something about this. And then I started to look for solutions and look for help, like you're doing listening to this podcast and other things. That's great. But I didn't just listen to. In fact, I got a David Diangelo program called Double youe Dating. And in it he says, you know, there's a lot of men who will study this stuff as like a form of. They just want to accumulate a lot of knowledge and they get really smart about this and they can talk in circles around you about it and say all the right things, but then they won't actually go do it. So you need to go do this stuff. That's what he was very clear on. And I was like, okay, I'm a good student. I'm ready, let's fucking do this. So I'm listening to his talks and it was the first time in my life where I was like, oh my God, this is like education. This is education on something that I just had no idea about. And I look around and that's. Remember I was saying earlier in the show, I'd look at someone with a girlfriend or a partner and I'd say, how did he get there? Like, how did that happen? And that mysterious black box, that's just a lack of education. I just didn't know. And so I started to learn. And David d' Angelo is one of my first teachers. And it went way beyond dating. It was a lot of like self esteem stuff. And how do you see yourself? And do you see yourself as valuable? Really good stuff. And so in it though, it was like, okay, here's how to improve your self esteem and your self image. Here's how to challenge your limiting beliefs about approaching women and your fears. Here's some strategies on how to start conversations and strategies on ask them for dates and strategies on, you know, how to just be more confident in that whole process and go do it. And so I'm learning the stuff, learning the stuff. And then it's like, all right, it's freaking go time, let's go do this. And then I would go do it. So massive action is like, you gotta take in the information, but you got to act on that information. So in these podcasts, are you doing the action steps? If you're not doing the action steps, you're not going to get significant results. And that's why I created Confidence University. And Max, if you don't have that, I suggest you get that we made it very affordable, very accessible to anyone. You can go to TheConfidenceUniversity.com to figure it out, TheConfidenceUniversity.com to learn more. But in it, there's action steps. In fact, I was such a stickler about this that I didn't build this whole program. It's like an online platform. We partnered with this education company that builds these kind of interactive, gamified learning platforms. And so we're deciding all, you know, the whole thing. I have to make all the decisions about how the course is going to run. And so I tell them about my vision for the action steps. And they're like, oh, that's great, that's a good idea. I'm like, yeah, I know, that's right. But then they said, okay, how do you want it to go? You know, because we can't, you know, we don't have like a freaking house arrest bracelet on you. We don't know where you go. So how do you want them to report? And I was like, well, just let's have an action report. So the action step is go out and do blank. And then, you know, just like, there's action steps in this podcast. Go do the action. And then when you come back to watch the next lesson, you have to go to the action report and say, well, did you do it? And if you did it, you get points because. Points, man. There's people in the program that are doing all kinds of shit because they want to get on the leaderboard, but it gets, you know, did you do the action? And then maybe a little write up. Well, how did it go? So they asked Me like, well, do you want them to have to complete the action? Like they have to complete the action report before they go to the next lesson. I said, yes, I do. So technically, you could go to the action report and say, no, I didn't do it. No, I didn't do it. No, I didn't do it. But then you're seeing as you're going through the program like, whoa, I'm really not doing any of this stuff. So the goal is to help you see, like, you must do these actions. I really wanted to make that clear. Like, you must do these things and you must do them repeatedly. And this isn't just a one time thing. This is like a mini time thing. So massive action. You gotta want it, you gotta get hungry, you gotta feel that fire and that frustration and that will move you. And then when you start taking those actions, you're gonna get reinforced. You're gonna get some, some juice out of that. Like, whoa. Even if the results aren't what you want, even if you're stuck, even if you don't quite know how to make it all work yet, the action and the fact that you did it is like, yeah, at least I'm doing something. And that feels good. That gets you some reinforcement to begin with. And then of course, as time goes on, you're learning, you start getting more positive responses or better results and that fuels you. And then here's the biggest shift, Max. And for anyone listening and when I made this shift, it made all the difference in the quality of my life because I took what I learned from David Angela and the dating situation and said, wait a minute, this doesn't just apply to dating. This is my whole life. This is all about confidence. And in every area of my life where I lack confidence, where I'm afraid, where I feel inferior, the thing to do is get education, learn how to do it, and then go fucking do it a lot. And that's how I've approached everything in my life. So right in the coattails of the dating. And even while I was still building my skills in that area, I started working on public speaking. I was like, well, why not? It's the same thing. I'm terrified of this. I had a panic attack the first time I get a presentation in college. So I'm like, I want to fix that. And I was like, wait a minute. The same thing applies to speaking up in groups. Wait a minute. The same thing applies to chatting with other guys that I think are confident and better than me or too good to be my Friend. The same thing applies in every area. So I started to apply it, and then later on in my life, I started to apply to business. And I had a number of situations where I would get into these mastermind groups where I was a member of them, and I'd get in there and there'd be people from all different stages of their business or whatever. And I'd be like a dynamo. I'd be like, what do we need to do? Okay, I'm gonna go do it. What do we need to do? Okay, I'm gonna go do it. And I look around, I see some people in the program who are like, yeah, I'm here. I'm here to get some information, but they're not gonna go hustle and go do it. But I realized early on that's how you make changes. That's how you make them fast. That's how you create the life that you want. And here's one other thing I'm gonna say. What if the challenge that you've been stuck on for like 10 years, what if you could solve that way more rapidly than you think and then go on to another challenge so you're not stuck at level one or level two anymore. Go on to get stuck at level three or level four, and then maybe you won't stay there stuck that long because as long as you're doing what I'm describing, you don't stay stuck. I don't feel stuck in any area of my life. There are areas that are challenges or problems or frustration. Right now I'm learning how to grow a team and a business. I've never done that. I'm learning how to work with different people and be in a leaders manager role, while at the same time still delivering all the content I create and coaching and then figuring out live events which have been growing recently. So figuring all that stuff out and how to hand that off and not do it all myself. And there's definitely challenges or times where I'm overwhelmed or don't know how to do things, but I'm going to find solutions to all of them. I'm going to solve all of these problems and then there'll be new higher level problems. And that's actually exciting because then you're not stagnant, you're not stuck in life. Beautiful. So with all that talk about action, let's talk about your action step for today. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to experiment with massive action. So if you don't have, you know, focus on the frustration hopefully you're just doing that during the episode. Focus on what you want, brainstorm some ideas for massive action, and then go do them. Because I don't want to turn this into another, like, think about what you want, envisioning or even getting motivated, even making another decision. We want to turn that decision into a commitment and then take action on it. And here's the thing, if you really, really want to get the next level of this stuff, turn your massive action into rituals or habits. So instead of like, okay, I'm going to go out and go talk to five people to overcome my social fears, or I'm going to go out and say hi to 10 people, overcome my shyness. What if you said hi to 10 people every day for the next 10 days? See, when you start to think of it that way and create a habit or a ritual out of it, that's when you make the big changes. That's when you don't just start and stop, start and stop. That's when you transform and truly transform your identity. Because your identity is a reflection of your behavior over time. So when you behave differently over time, you start to see yourself differently. Oh yeah, I'm the kind of person, like, for example, I'm the kind of person who can speak up in a group because I repeatedly, endlessly have spoken up in groups for years. But there was a time in my life where I was not that person. So your identity transforms as your behavior does. So turn into habits, turn into rituals, turn that massive action into something that you do regularly and get out there and crush it. Awesome. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I 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 socialconfidencecenter.com it.