No Regrets

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're to be talking about regret. Oh, yes, everyone's favorite topic, right? Regret. But it's actually really important because there is a direct correlation between social anxiety, shyness, inhibition, how much that is ruling your life, how much that is controlling you, and the level of regret that you're going to feel. And we're going to explain why in just a little bit. But that's important to know because we don't want to live with regret. We don't want to look back and have tons of regrets. We don't want to get to the end of our life and not feel ready because we didn't fully live. And so, you know, this episode, we're gonna. We are gonna zoom out that much, but we're also gonna look at your day to day and how to live your life more fully, how to feel like you're fully alive, you're not on the sidelines, life's not passing you by, but you're fully engaged, fully involved in your life. So we're gonna dive in and go deep on that and help you really get to a place where you feel. I feel like I'm living fully. I'm living without regrets now. Let's just check to see where you're at right now. Is that true? Maybe you're already there or do you feel like you regret a lot of things? Little things. I regret not saying that. I regret saying that. I regret not doing that. I should. So sometimes we don't actually say to ourselves, I regret. It's a should, right? I should have said that. I should have done this, I should have, blah, blah, blah. But anytime it's I should have, that is some sort of resistance, tightening, contraction in you about some choice you made in the past, something you did or didn't do in the past. And I would call that regret. So if that is a common occurrence for you, Then you definitely want to pay attention during this episode to see how to let that go. And for some people, I know for me, that was such a common way of life. Regret. You know, sometimes people hear regrets and they think about like, oh, you know, I shouldn't have had a feud with my brother for 15 years. All those years that we missed out on. And you know, maybe there's like those big capital R regrets that this, that we're gonna, you know, you're gonna reflect on and release and grow through as you listen to this episode. But I'm also really looking at the, the small R regrets, the day to day regrets, the daily regrets that come from not living fully. So how much is that part of your experience? I'm going to be honest with yourself here because look, this is not a, you're not doomed. This isn't a death sentence. This is completely changeable. But we want to see where we're at and change it. Now let's look at why you might be feeling regret. Lots of little regrets and that might accumulate into big regrets. So regret that should have, should have. I wish I could have, I want to is a signal of not. It's usually a signal of an unwillingness to take risks. Now sometimes we can regret taking a risk and we'll get into that in a second. But I'd say a lot of the regrets that we have are because we did not do something, we did not take the action. You know, there's that person you wanted to strike up a conversation with. They're very compelling. You know, she was absolutely beautiful or something about her. It was really, wow, who is this person or that guy over there? That was just exactly your type. No. And talk yourself out of it. Fear interferes and then we feel a sense of regret. Do you know what I'm talking about? Right. I'm sure what person has not experienced that? And that could be the regret. And usually it's the regret of not stepping up, the regret of not taking a risk, the regret of not being bold. That's really what we want to shift, in fact. So my life was pretty full of those small regrets for many, many years. And I didn't even know that it was telling me something, that this was just like, this is how life is. It's small and constricted and you feel bad about yourself a lot of the time. But there was a radical reduction in the regret that I felt almost to zero. And that was when I decided to take life on and be bold to do what scared me. Not just Once, not just enough to get by, but as a way of life, as a path, as a path of courage. I'm going to face my fear, I'm going to do what scares me again and again and again and again and again. And in that process, I will become liberated. And when I took that attitude on, took that approach on to life, the amount of regret I felt went down radically. So are you doing that? Maybe this is your first episode, but probably not, right? You've been listening to this podcast for a little while. Maybe you've read one of my books, maybe you watch my YouTube videos. Maybe you study other people who are teaching about confidence or how to overcome fear, self doubt, social anxiety. So the real question though is are you doing it and are you doing it a little or are you doing it big? Big. Right? Because if we're doing it big and we're doing it consistently, then that regret goes way down. And here's the thing, regret is this like cozy, comfortable holding pattern that we can stay in too. I remember I was working with a client. This is way back when I was still in my training in clinical psychology. I was doing a full time internship at Portland State University in their college counseling center. And there was a young man that I was working with, I don't remember his name. It started with an R and I would change it anyway, so I'm just gonna make up an R name. I think let's just call him Rudy. Rudy. Anyway, Rudy was a young guy. He was probably, I don't know, 19, sophomore in college, red hair, freckles, medium sized guy, a little soft, not that athletic, just kind of an average guy, very heartfelt, sensitive in a lot of ways. And I say that in a good way, like perceptive, connected, all that stuff. Just really so much, a lot going for him. Like the kind of guy that if he were to hang out with some people, they would just generally like him, gravitate towards him. So what he came to me with though, which was surprising, no friends. No friends. I thought, wow, this is interesting because he's not doing anything really off putting. And he doesn't even strike me as like extremely socially anxious either. So what's going on here? Anyway, we start to talk and Rudy lives in regret. And what he regrets is choices he made four years ago in high school. I should have done this differently in high school. I should have done that differently in high school. And a lot of it centered around like he changed friend groups when he was in high school and, and then he became less connected to those Friends. And somehow, if he'd stayed more connected to certain people in high school, then he would have had a better life from that point on. Have you ever done that kind of thing? It's like, you imagine this fork in the road in the past. It's like, oh, if only. If only I had gone down that other fork. Oh, there's probably movies that's been made about this. I'm sure Mr. Destiny being one of them. What if that dude had just hit that baseball and in his, whatever, college game? Then he'd be king of the world by now. Who knows, right? So our mind creates these. And it's all fantasy. It's all conjecture. We have no freaking idea. And the path that you're on right now is ultimately the path that you should be on, because whether you know it or not, life is unfolding exactly as it should. Why? Because that's what is right. That's the inevitable progression of the universe. But we can fight it. And Rudy was fighting it. And as I heard listen more and more, I was like, wow, this guy spends a lot of time in regret, like, every day. And he's also smoking a lot of pot and playing a lot of video games and not doing the kind of stuff to build a friend group. Like, he's not putting himself out there much, so he wants friends. He's feeling lonely. He's feeling regret. I'm like, well, let's help this guy get some friends, right? And so we start looking at that, and I notice that there's this strong pull in him to keep going back to the past and look at those. Oh, I should have done that. I should have done that. And I asked him one time, I said, rudy, if you'd done X or done Y or stayed with that friend group or whatever the specifics were in that session, what would your life be like now? I'd be like, well, I'd. I'd feel really good about myself. I'd be more athletic. I would have more friends. I was like, okay, feel good about my. And I was writing this down. Feel good about myself. More athletic. Want more friends. I was like, so how do we help you create those now? And what risks are you avoiding right now to go create those things? And there was this moment where it was like this, no, I have to solve the past. And all of a sudden, it, like, clicked, and he flipped over, and he's like, he didn't say that. That's my sound effect of what I saw the shift in him. I'm like, oh, oh. And Then we hit another barrier, another obstacle which was limiting beliefs, hopelessness, learned helplessness. Like, I can't create those things. Maybe he thought he could be more athletic, although maybe not. But he definitely thought, I can't make friends. He had some stories about that. So you see what's happening there for him. And maybe this can help you understand more about yourself. Is you. There's a wall there. There's a perceived wall. I cannot get what I want now, for whatever reason I'm not enough or it's too scary or whatever our stories are. So I'm gonna look at the past and I'm gonna lament. If only I'd done X or only done Y, then I would have whatever I want now in the present. Can you see the weird, twisted logic of that and the time travel abilities of our mind now? It's not true. It doesn't get him anything of what he needs in the moment. It doesn't fill up his heart with the connections and love that he needs right now. It's totally an ineffective strategy. And yet we do it. And we do it because climbing that, overcoming that wall is there, right? It's like, I can't get those things now. So my only option is to get it in fantasy and regret. So notice if you're doing this. And that brings us back to the first point I made in this episode. I was gonna call it a lesson. I guess it is a lesson. This lesson episode, this Lessopode. Got to work on the name for that. In any case, are you not taking the risks right now? So little things, sometimes regret can manifest as guilt. Oh, I wish I'd done that. Or I hurt that person or something like that. And I'm a parent of two young kids, 2 and 4 now. Zaim and Arman love them both. And. And as a parent, there are times when I'm on my game and I'm fun and awesome and I'm a pretty rad dad. And I came up with a song that makes me nervous, so maybe I should do this. I came up with a song when Zaim was first. Like, from when he was first born for the first couple years of his life. I sang it to him a lot. Let's see if I can remember it. Because it's got a line about me being an awesome dad. Gotta put that in the song, right? Okay, here we go. See if I can remember it. I have to remember the lyrics. It's been a little while. Okay, here we go. You and me, Little Zaim, you're my boy. You bring me such joy and I'm your dad. Yeah, I'm pretty rad. And we love mom. Cause she is the best. Yeah, we love Mom. Cause she is the best. Aww. Yeah, that song, it's sweet. You know, I sang it to Zaim a lot. And I'm a pretty rad dad, as evidenced by that song. You can't argue with it. It's in the lyrics. And yet I lose my patience at times. I get short at times. I don't behave in the ways that I want at times. And so there'll be an instance, you know, like, it's usually at night. I'm lowering resources. We're trying to get him to bed, and they're just in bonker balls mode, flailing arms, hitting each other or whatever. And, you know, they'll do something. And instead of being like, you know, like, I don't know, Zaim's the older brother will hit Armand the younger brother. And instead of intervening in the way that I know is what feels right with my values and the way that I want to with love and sort of a greater sense of patience and acceptance, I'll comment in and be like, ah, dude, come on. You know, and then just be short or harsher. He'll kind of want to connect with me, and I'll be a little more like, ugh, no, just do this thing. And then the next day, usually in the morning when I wake up and I'm more resourced and I'm meditating and kind of taking care of myself, I'll feel that moment of disconnection, of harshness, of tension between us, and I'll feel pain in my heart. And maybe it's guilt, maybe it's regret. I want to be different in that moment. And that's a beautiful signal. I talk about this in the book Not Nice, about healthy versus unhealthy guilt. I think that's healthy guilt. Because what that does is that helps me reflect and see what's going on in me in that moment that I lose it. And I'm not as patient as I want to be. And I can't be relaxed or spacious in that moment, what's going on? And so I. I learn more, I grow more. I reset my intention to be that way, and then I go do that again. And I'm not going for perfection. Probably never going to hit it 100%, but it helps me grow. It helps me learn what to do. And so, in the same way, if you're regretting something, whether it's guilt about the way you interacted. Well, great. What is that showing you? Maybe I want to be more what? More loving, more spacious, more compassionate, more expressive. Maybe you feel guilt or regret or pain about not expressing something, not sharing love when you want to share it. There's a beautiful Avett Brothers song that talks about if you got love in your heart, let it show why you can share it with the person while you can. And we want to maybe express more in the moment. So look at what the signal of the regret is telling you and then go do the thing like repetitive regret is. You might say, oh, it's the thing from the past. I'm gonna always regret this. No, no, no, no, that's. I mean, you can make that so just like you can declare like, I'm never gonna forget, I'm never gonna forgive that person. Like, yeah, you could make that so you could hold onto that grudge for your whole life. Just like you could hold it because regret in many ways can be a grudge against yourself and you can hold onto that for the rest of your life, or you can choose to take the message and learn and grow. And maybe that does involve self forgiveness. There's a story that Tara Brock has, she's an awesome meditation teacher about someone she was talking to who had this like deep regret and pain and self judgment about a situation where he let his cat die. And I don't. It's been many years, like eight years since I heard this story. So I don't remember all the details. It's just coming to me right now and I don't remember all the details, but it's something about he was supposed to be feeding it or something and he thought the food was getting to the cat and it wasn't. I don't remember the details, but it was an unintentional lapse. And I don't remember if it was his cat or he was taking care of someone else's cat. In any case, the cat dies and he feels absolutely horrible about it and guilty and wants to make amends either to his friend or I think it was a friend, right? He wants to make amends to that friend. He feels so bad and so on and so forth and seems reasonable, right, to feel bad about that, to have pain about that. Only Tara Brock is talking to him 10 years later. 10 years. So how long does he have to. Like, how long is the sentence for that crime? Is it a life sentence? Is every major transgression in your life a life sentence? And if so, that's a lot to Carry around. Secondly, who's imposing that sentence upon you? Is that just, Is that fair? Is that right? Is that how it's supposed to be? If so, that's a pretty harsh punishment mentality. That's not necessarily a growth oriented mindset mentality, but how we can learn and grow from our mistakes, from our transgressions, and be more, give more, do more, be more of who we are, that it's through those mistakes, through those errors that we grow and learn the quickest. So you want to learn from the past, you want to take the signal and then you want to go act on the message. Like, what is the regret telling me? What is this regret in this moment telling me that I need to do now and in the future? That's where you want to orient it because that's where you have control. You have no control over the past. You're not going to change anything about the past. You're not going to do anything different in the past, but you can do something different now. And oftentimes because we don't want to deal with the fear because we have hopelessness or helplessness or believe that we can't, then we stay in that regret. But not you and not Rudy either. We helped him break through that. But you start going out there and doing those exact things that the regret's telling you to do. So I regret not speaking up in that situation. Boom, I'm gonna speak up in the next situation. I regret not approaching that person I was attracted to. Boom, I'm gonna go approach that person I'm attracted to. And you gotta say, boom. Every time you take the action before, boom, I'm gonna do it. And then after you do it, boom. Even better, if you go approach the person you're attracted to, start talking to them, get a number, set up a date or whatever. And then while still interacting with them, before you turn around and walk away, just say boom. She's like, what? I'm like, that was awesome. I just did that. I just approached you and then you gave me your number. It was awesome. But you're just telling her that in the moment. That would be fun, huh? Good embarrassment, inoculation, good rejection, practice, or not caring what others think. In any case, do what the regret is telling you. So we're talking about this, do this, do that. You probably know what's coming in your action step. Time for action, action, action. Your action step is to do what the one of the regrets that you have is telling you. So maybe as you've been listening to this episode. You're very aware of multiple regrets. And. And that's okay. That's a great signal, actually. It's a great wake up call. You want to think of regret as a light on your dashboard of your car. That is just telling. It's giving you some information. So it's like, oh, and usually the information is not to spend years judging yourself and not forgiving yourself. It's to learn the lesson of what I need to do now and then probably some self forgiveness as well. And then what you want to do is you want to go do that thing and you want to do it as soon as possible. Like today. So be more of how you want it to be earlier today if you. I mean, again, I bring it back to. It's usually not taking risks. Risk. I didn't take a risk. I need to go do. I should have done that thing. Well, then go do that kind of thing now. Be bold now. The bolder you are, the less regret you feel. And if you're worried about like, yeah, but what if I take the action, it doesn't go well, then I'm gonna regret doing it. That's not an issue. That's like faulty thinking. That's like that lack of a growth mindset. That's some weird perfectionism. That's like, I'm not supposed to make mistakes or everything's supposed to go perfectly. It's like, so you go take the risk to approach that person. Use a dating example, because that's what I talked about earlier. And that person doesn't want to talk to you, or they do want to talk to you. And you go on two or three dates and you're like, well, that was a terrible fit. Shouldn't have done that. That kind of regret you just want to kick to the curb. That regret is not giving you any valid information. Maybe you can say, oh, do I need to be better about partner selection or assessing someone? Or is there something I can learn here? But I shouldn't have done it because it led to some discomfort is again, maybe there's just a learning there, but the learning is not. Don't take risks ever again in the future if that's what the learning that you're extracting is. It's the wrong lesson. No, it's just like, well, hey, maybe I want to. That person was really cold and didn't seem that open. And I kept trying to connect with them and get their approval, and that's why the date didn't feel good. So the risk here wasn't putting myself out there to get a date or the regret is not telling me to not put myself out there. Maybe this regret is telling me if someone is cold and just not that open. Maybe I don't try so hard next time. Maybe I just say, well, hey, it's nice talking with you. And then don't ask for their number or end the date early. So whatever it is you want to take the lesson and whatever lesson you get from your regret, you want to put it into practice. And you want to put it into practice now, today, and then repeatedly. So if you regret not speaking up or expressing yourself more, that isn't. Well, just do it once today and then you're done. No, because then if you have lots of other situations where you don't express yourself, you'll regret those. So in the spirit of no regrets, we want to learn the lessons from past regrets and then be operating in such a way now that we don't accumulate a bunch more regrets. And you do that by taking the risks, being bold, being the way that you wanted to be then, now. Awesome. Thanks for being with me today. You got this. You rock. And I look forward to speaking with you next week. Until then, may you 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. Sa.