Self-Confidence: How To Stop Worrying About What People Will Think Of You

Hey, Dr. Aziz here. And I'm sitting at my desk. I just finished a session with a client and I'm taking a bunch of notes on it because I think there is so much valuable information in that hour. We were discussing a bunch of things, particularly one challenge that he was facing that I think is universal to all men and all people struggling with shyness. I know this is something that I dealt with for many years, and it's something that held me back for many years. And my guess is it might be holding you back as well, which is why I have to share this right now. I have to get this video out as soon as it came to my mind. And what that is is what I call the bystander effect. Now, the bystander effect has a meaning already in social psychology. I don't know if you ever heard of it. It's pretty fascinating, actually. It's the idea that the more people that observe something, the less likely we're going to do something about it. Looks like if you're driving on a busy freeway and there's hundreds of cars just whizzing by and you see someone pulled to the side like struggling with their spare tire, you're on a busy freeway in like LA or something, you're not going to stop before you even have a reaction to it. You're gone, you're past. So you're like, meh. And here's the bystander effect. You say to yourself, there's so many people around, someone else will take care of it. Versus on like a small country road, no one around for miles. You see someone struggling, there's people are more likely to stop and help. So that's the bystander effect in social psychology. But I have a totally different meaning for the term. When I say the bystander effect, I'm talking about in shyness psychology and social confidence psychology. What is the bystander effect? Well, that is this. Let me ask you a question. If you are working up the courage to go start a conversation with someone, whether it's a man or a woman, someone you're attracted to for a date, or just to be friendly and work on your social skills, I want you to imagine being in a scenario. Whether it's a coffee shop or a bookstore, out on the street, or any place where you frequent, that person's all by themselves, then no one else is around. No one else can hear what's going on. Just imagine how anxiety provoking would that be? 1 to 10? 10 is. I'd be so terrified, I Couldn't do it. And one is as simple as getting the mail. Piece of cake. So think about that for a moment. How scary would that be? 1 to 10, no one else is around. Now, what about this? Imagine the same scenario, the same person, the same environment, but there are one or several other people who are standing nearby or sitting nearby who could overhear your conversation. Does that increase the anxiety that you might feel? You know, for myself and most people, that sky that doubles it, that can skyrocket it, it can go from a five to a 10 or a six to it, you know, above 10, 10 plus. Right. So what this is, and I call this the bystander effect when it comes to shyness. And what that is, is we imagine that the person listening to the conversation is not just going to listen, you know, or ignore it or not really pay much attention to it. They're going to listen intently. And they're going to do what? They're going to harshly criticize and judge us for being inadequate, for not being good enough, for all the things that we perceive people are going to dislike us for. We project all that onto that person. If you're not familiar with that term, projection, what that means is you take something that's in your own mind, like, oh, I'm not very attractive, and you imagine that someone else is looking at you and thinking, that guy's not very attractive. So the oldest, the first things you'll learn in a Psych 101 class. But it's tried and true, and we all do it all the time. But it's especially debilitating when we want to go put ourselves out there because we're imagining that someone around is going to listen to us. In fact, a teacher of mine, David Burns, said he was working with a client, and this client wanted to flirt with a cashier at a supermarket that he went to. He's a pretty shy guy. He was working on his shyness, like you might be trying to develop more social confidence. And so he wants to go interact with this cashier in a different way than he used to. He used to just go to the store. If he was in her lane. He would keep his eyes down. She'd say, how's it going? Good, thanks. You know, just very withdrawn, not really putting himself out there. Not because he didn't want to, not because he wasn't interested in her, because he was nervous, because he was shy, anxious. So he decides he's working on his shyness with David. He's like, I'm gonna, you know, put myself out there more. So he gets in line and he thinks, I'm flirt with her. I'm make eye contact and I'm going to make a joke with her. And if you're interested in like learning how to flirt and how to even do this stuff, I strongly Recommend Checking out 30 days to dating Mastery, where I guide you, step by step, day by day, how to go through the process from liking yourself to going on multiple dates with women that you find compelling and attractive and engaging. But he's working on this process where he's building his ability to flirt. He's not going to make eye contact. I'm going to make a joke or a comment or something like that. He gets in the line and he's planning on doing it. He's worked up the courage to do it. But then something happens. There's a guy behind him in line, a stranger, a random person by and who knows what, but that person can hear what he's going to say to her and so shuts him down. He just can't do it anymore. And David's talking to him. He says, why? Why didn't you do it? He said, well, that guy's going to listen in. He's like, okay. And then what happens? Well, if it doesn't go well, the guy's going to think I'm a total loser. He's going to think I'm pathetic. He's going to think that I'm horribly awkward and a weirdo and a creep. And he just went on this list of terrible things that this person was going to think of him. But what David realized and what when I work with someone, I realize is it's not really about what they think about you. It's about what you think about you. And that's what we often do. We imagine that other people are thinking about us the way that we, our critic thinks about us. So here's this really powerful technique that David taught me that I want to share with you right now. This is the kind of thing that you do in a high level coaching session where you'd be spending hundreds of dollars per hour. But I want to give this to you right now because it's, it's about liberating yourself. It's about becoming free and being able to do what you want to do whether there's someone around or not. Because isn't that terrible if there's this beautiful person you want to go see if there's chemistry there and if you have a, there's a match between your personalities you want to go on a date and you want to meet her, but someone's around, so I can't do it. Or maybe you want to do something else. You want to sing or dance or put yourself out there in some way. But there's people around. They could watch me. That's incredibly restricting and limiting. It's like living in a cage. And I hated living in that cage. And I don't want you to live in that cage anymore. So I want to share this with you to help you get free of that cage. Here's just one technique to do that. And this technique, which I learned from David Burns, is called the feared fantasy. The feared fantasy. And so what the feared fantasy is, is you sit down after that interaction where you. If you imagine going and talking to that person, but you don't, because there's people around. What I want you to do is sit down and write out what is everything that I imagine that that person, that observer, would think of me, that made me not want to go talk to her. So in the case of this guy in the supermarket, he thought, you're going to write these things out. He thought, the guy's going to think I'm pathetic, that I'm awkward and nervous, that I'm trying to hit on her, that I'm a creep, that I doing something really weird and abnormal, and that he's going to think I'm just this strange loser. Some of the ideas that this. This particular guy had, these are pretty universal when I'm working with shyness. And these are the ones that I experienced all the time. So the variations might be slightly different in the wording that you use or the insults you have for yourself, but the general theme is the same. So what you want to do is you want to write out your specific ones. What is this? What is this imaginary person going to say to me? Or we're going to think about me. And so here's how you do the feared fantasy. And you need two people to do it. You can do it on paper, though, if it's just you and you. If you can enlist a friend in this, particularly a friend that maybe you're working on this stuff with who's, you know, a buddy or a guy, you guys want to go out and practice some of these social experiments together, then that's even better. But if you're doing it by yourself, get a sheet of paper, and here's what you're going to do. The reason it's called a feared fantasy is because it's a fantasy of the Worst case scenario in that that the person is actually thinking those things. And worse still, they come and tell you about it. They come talk to you about it. They feel compelled to let you know what's wrong with you. I know it's a little extreme and kind of ridiculous, but that's the point is to show you that this is very unlikely, it's really going to happen. But you're learning how to respond to the criticisms, which even though you think are coming from that person who's watching, they're really coming from in here. So you have to learn how to deal with them. And I go a lot more detail into how to deal with these things in my book, which is going to be coming out soon. Very excited about it, called the Solution to Social Anxiety. I'll have a link down below, you can keep posted on that. But this is an essential skill. How do I respond to the criticisms, whether they come in from my own mind or I imagine them coming from someone else? So now you have your list that you've written out, and here's what you're going to do. In the Fear of Fantasy, you get someone to adopt the role of the person who's going to come up and talk to you. And if you're doing it on written paper, just write out, critic or stranger, colon. And then write out what they would say. The worst thing you can imagine, the feared fantasy. And then your role in the role play is you, me, colon. And write out how you'd respond. And there's a number of ways to respond, but the key is to you can defend yourself, you can disagree with him, the critic, you can ask more questions to clarify. You can make jokes, you can accept what they're saying, but not accept the part that you're a bad person. So if they say something like, I'll demonstrate in a minute. But they say something like, well, that was really awkward. You could say, I know that didn't go very well. So what I'm doing there is. I'm accepting that it didn't go very well, that it was awkward, but I'm not accepting the idea that I'm a terrible person or that I'm bad or weird or whatever else the critic is saying. So that's just to give you an idea of how you might respond. I'm going to demonstrate now to give you just a little more clarity. So it's going to be a little weird because I don't have anyone else in this video. So what I'm going to do is I'm Going to play both sides. The critic and my response, the feared fantasy, the stranger, and me defending myself. So here's how it would go. Here's going to be the stranger from over here. Here's me responding just from some fine theater from Dr. Aziz. So the critic says, excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear that conversation that you had with that woman there in the supermarket aisle or in the cashier line. And I just had to come tell you that that was really nervous and awkward and just really weird that you did that. Wow. Okay. Yeah, Yeah, I was actually a little nervous in that conversation. You picked up on that pretty well. You got some good social perception. Yeah, you know, it's actually something I'm working on. I was a little nervous to do it. Critic. Yeah, well, you know, it just really shows that you're trying to do it and you're nervous. That just really shows that you're pathetic. Response. Me? I don't know about pathetic. I mean, I. I think I'm working on something, and I'm trying my best, and I'm trying to build up my social confidence by doing experiments, really putting myself out there and seeing what happens. And the only way to get better is to keep trying. Critic. Yeah, but, you know, I mean, the worst. It just sounded like you were trying to hit on her. Okay. And that's just. That's just weird and creepy. Well, you know, I was actually just trying to practice flirting with her and building a little connection, getting myself out there a little bit. I didn't really plan on asking for a number or hitting on her in some way, but it sounds like you really know your stuff in this area. Maybe you can give me some. You have some tips on how to make it go a little better. So. Pause time. The role play. What am I doing here? What are you noticing about how I'm dialoguing with my inner critic or what I imagine someone else would say to me? What kind of responses am I giving? First of all, what is the tone of my voice? Am I kind of, you know, resigned? It says, you know, that was pathetic. Yeah. Oh, God. I know. I'm terrible. No, I'm not taking on that attitude. That's often how we deal with our inner critic. We imagine that someone's thinking something. You know, someone gives us a look and we say, I know what that look means. That means they think I'm pathetic and I'm a creepy loser and I'm awkward. Does it really mean that? But we are certain that that's what it means. And then we respond to it as if it's true. Ugh, I am terrible. And that just really demoralizes. That does not give you the energy and the courage and the confidence to go try again, does it? And, like, if there's one thing you learn from any of the stuff that I put out there is I encourage repetition and practice. This is not the kind of thing you just get right away. It's a skill. You develop it over time. And what's required is to put yourself out there again and again and again and try to. And if you get demoralized, it's really hard to try again. And the way we get demoralized is we hear what the critic is saying, we imagine someone thinks something about us, and we just react as if it's true. That was awkward and pathetic. So here's what I'm doing instead. I'm saying my body language is not changing. I'm not slumping. I'm like, well, I don't think I disagree there. I don't think it's quite that way. I also used some humor. I also asked a question. Well, it sounds like you got it figured out. You got any tips for me? And know what that's indicating? What's the subtext there is that I can learn this? Maybe you got some tips for me. It might seem a little strange. You're just doing this with your mind and you and you on a sheet of paper. But the way you shift how you're dealing with a critic can have a powerful effect on how you feel in the moment. It can reduce your anxiety the next time you go try to do something like this. It can help you feel more excited and positive about the process. And you'll probably get better results because you're not all paralyzed by fear about what you're going to do to yourself afterwards. In your own mind. Nothing is more terrifying than that. The rejection that we get from the outside, from the woman or from the person you want to make friends with, is not nearly as bad as what we do to ourselves. The rejection that you get in the moment is just a no, no, thanks, not right now. But what happens afterwards, that's where all the damage comes, right? You're terrible. What's wrong with you? You're a pathetic person. No one likes you. You have nothing to offer. I don't like you. You suck. And this is going to go on and on for days and days, way beyond the moment of rejection. Which is why you have to learn how to increase your refresh rate, which I'LL link to below a video about. If you haven't seen that, that is key. Being able to increase your refresh rate. So that is the feared fantasy. And the key here is to overcome what I call the bystander effect when it comes to shyness. And that is that if there's people around that can hear you, they're going to judge you. And one really simple technique to overcome the bystander effect, other than just, you know, this fear fantasy, challenging it, getting more comfortable with dealing with it. I really recommend doing that role play where you write it out or do it with a friend and do it again and again until what the critic says just doesn't bother you as much anymore. You kind of laugh at it. You know, when I did this, I was doing this with a client earlier today, part way through, we just start laughing because you see how ridiculous the critic is. One of the criticisms he had for himself, which I had for myself for years, was, you can't just go talk to someone. You can't just go talk to an attractive woman or anyone. You can't just start a conversation with a stranger. No one does that. If people were doing it, you would see it everywhere. What's wrong with you? And, you know, when I was in the role of the critic with him, I started to say that, and I was like, I just don't think anyone should start conversations with people they don't know. You know, it's just wrong. And we both kind of looked at each other for a moment, and he was going to respond in the role play, but we both just started laughing because isn't that ridiculous? I mean, the criticisms we have about ourselves, this idea of what's okay, what's appropriate, what's right, what's normal. You know, I got to conform to this idea that I have about how what everyone else is doing. That's not how you want to live. You don't want to be normal in a lot of ways. You know, our ideas of normal are often really constricted, narrow conformity. You know, I don't want to dance because that might not be normal. I don't want to start a conversation because that might not be normal. I'm not going to go try to meet this beautiful woman because other guys might not do that. That's not normal. Well, first of all, I'd challenge that idea of normal. But even that. Do you want to strive to be normal? I mean, wouldn't you want to be differentiated in a good way? Wouldn't you want to stand out In a good way, wouldn't you want to be able to be free to do what you wanted to do and maybe reap the rewards that other people are scared to do? I mean, the world is shaped by people who are willing to step up and stand out and do something different. Not the person who's like, I'm just going to strive the best as I can to be normal and not call attention to myself and play it safe. That's not how we get to where I want to go. That's not how we transcend. That's not how we expand. That's not how we grow. So what you got to do is you got to break that belief of I got to be normal and say I want to be abnormal in a good way. I'm going to share that one way to just kind of help that process. I'm going to share one more story about a client and it'll be in for this blog today. But the one technique that can be really helpful, and I got this from, it's a book called Fuck it the Spiritual Way. Powerful book. And it's a simple technique, but it seems simple and crazy. But I tried it and it has great effect for me and some of the clients I've been working with. So all it goes is you notice that there's a person over there and there's a person over there and there's a person over there and there's that person you want to talk to and someone else could hear and get nervous about it. And you just go like this. Just take a deep breath in through your nose, let out your shoulders and say, fuck it. And then you go in. So it looks like this, oh my God, what's going to happen? Are they going to fuck it? And then you go in. If you want to check out the book, I highly recommend it. It's just a simple technique. A simple little state shift that you can do is produce powerful effects for people. And the key is to just take action after it. Fuck it. Who cares if they respond negatively, if they don't like it, if they have a problem with you, they're not going to tell you anyway. And if it's just in their minds, whose problem is that? Think about that. If you're in a bookstore and there's a woman you want to talk to and there's someone else nearby and they overhear that and they think to themselves, that is weird. That guy shouldn't be talking to her. He shouldn't be talking to an attractive woman. He shouldn't Be starting conversations with people he doesn't know is that some are those, like values you want to live by. Is that who you want to determine what you should or shouldn't do? Doesn't it seem like that person might have some fears or problems or challenges of their own that they need to examine and work on? So the key here is to let go, fuck it, of what someone else is going to think. It's a great way to just trigger that and remind that in yourself to use that phrase. And it's graphic intentionally. It breaks our state. Strong language shifts us out of our current patterns. So what I want to end here is a brief story about a client I used to work with who is now, what he recently reported to me, abnormal in a good way. When we first started to work together, he came to me and he was just really shy, really closed in on himself. His body language was closed. He had very few friends. He managed to get into a relationship, a woman that selected him, but he was just like clinging to it like a piece of driftwood. He didn't really like her anymore, but he thought, there's no one else out there. If I let go of this driftwood, I'm going to drown. There's no other woman that would want to date me. So he was in a bad way. And we started to work on all this stuff. He started to change how he saw himself, that he had more ought to offer. He started to change how he saw other people, that they weren't so threatening, that he started to do a lot of social experiments and realized that he could make a shift in his life. And when he first came to me, he was obsessed with the idea that I'm not normal, there's something wrong with me, I'm not normal. And he kept on saying this, I want to be normal, I'm not normal. At some point I was like, what? What is normal? This idea that everyone's there's like me and then everyone is the same. And so we started to break it down. Like, what is normal? Like, normal in terms of your social ability, your appearance, your economic status, your educational status, your gender, your race. What do you mean by normal? So we started to explore this and he really started to let go of the idea that he needs to conform to something and strive for something. And then it kind of faded away. In our work together, we didn't talk about it much. And then just before we end it, I mean, he's doing fantastic now. He's got a beautiful girlfriend. He had a challenging situation where he had several women in his workplace that he was not sure which one he wanted to date. And he's, you know, got. He's the hub of his social network now. Just incredible progress because he's willing to just put himself out there and try stuff. Took a little bit of convincing on my part, but once he got on that track like everyone else, when you get on the track and you're willing to try things and put yourself out there again and again, you experience radical shifts and transformation. So one thing he said to me recently right before he ended, he said, you know, I was in the supermarket the other day with my, my new girlfriend. He's always proud of that. He's like, my new girlfriend, she's hot. He just loves it. And I love it too, because he's so proud. And it's something he really clicks with, that he pursued. That is a beautiful, supportive, loving, funny, nurturing woman that he selected. Not like, I'll take what I can get, you know, I hope you like me. But he felt really empowered in that choice to enter into a relationship. So he's really proud. He said, I was in the supermarket the other day with my girlfriend and we were just chatting and it was about 5 or 6, almost 6pm and we were thinking about, should we get some food somewhere? And we were both like, oh, you know, they decided that Thai food sounded good. And here in Portland area, Thai food is everywhere and it's awesome. And so he, she was gonna pull out her phone to look up on her smartphone where to find a place. And he's like, well, before you do that, and there's this person walking by in the aisle, random, like middle aged bald guy with glasses. And he's like, excuse me, do you know of a good Thai place around here? And she kind of like looked at him in surprise. Like, that's, that's weird. You know, she didn't say this, but maybe she thought that's abnormal. And the guy's like, yeah, actually I do. It's this place on the street. I don't remember the name of it. And, and this woman who was a little further down in the aisle, a bystander happened to overhear what my client had asked her. And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's the place. This place. And between these other two strangers, they figured out what the place was and they gave the recommendation. They went to the restaurant and it was fantastic. They had a great time. And on the way to the restaurant or at the dinner, he mentioned that his girlfriend said to him like, wow, you're really outgoing. You just, you know, ask people questions. That's. That's unusual. I've never really seen people do that before. And she was impressed. She was impressed with him being abnormal in a good way. That's what he said to me. He's like, I think I'm abnormal now, but in a good way. And he was really excited about it. It's like, yeah. And that's what you're striving for. You know, you don't want to strive to conform and just be normal. You want to strive to be liberated, to be free, to be a leader in your own life. And other people realize that and they're inspired by that. People are impressed by that. Someone who can step up and put themselves out there in a different way. So being different is actually a good thing. And you don't want to strive to just conform, to be normal in that way. So that's the last thing I wanted to share with you. Go out and use this. Write out the dialogue for the feared fantasy. And most importantly, keep putting yourself out there. Keep practicing. If you're stalled out, if you're not doing, check out the products on this page and find one that's going to help you. Because I guarantee that once you get started, once you really start making those shifts by taking new actions and shifting how you see yourself, that your shyness and your social anxiety will be a thing of the past. And you can really live a life of confidence. And then it starts becoming about, you know, not just, am I good enough, but who do. Who do I want to be with? What kind of life do I want? What kind of. Do I want to date a lot of different people? Or do I want to settle down and have kids? Do I. What kind of career and job and mission in life excites me that I want to pursue it? Not like, am I good enough? Just get the worst job that I can find so I can get some money. No, it's like, what do I want to create in my life? What do I want to contribute? What kind of work juices me and lights me up? And you pursue it. That's what's possible for you as you start to increase your confidence. And that's absolutely possible. It's a skill you can develop. So thanks for listening and I look forward to speaking with you in the future. Leave a comment below. If anything stood out to you, anything that resonated with you that you liked, let me know. Just put a comment in the box below. And I love reading those and responding to those. So thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.