A short motivational talk by Dr. Aziz (YouTube) explaining that a single recurring thought—"They won't like me"—prevents people from taking social risks. He advises reframing the prediction into a curiosity-driven prompt ("Let's find out") and acting despite uncertainty to overcome avoidance and fear of rejection.
This is why you didn't do that thing that you wanted to do. You didn't say hi to that person. You didn't speak up in the meeting. You didn't go ask that person for their number. There's one thing that you're telling yourself repeatedly in your mind that is stopping you from doing that. When you change this one thing, it will completely solve the problem. What's the one thing you're telling yourself? They won't like me. Or some version of that. They'll think I'm stupid. They're not going to like me. And here's the problem. You are predicting the future with that thought, and it's skewing heavily towards the negative. And guess what? It's not even necessarily true. You don't know what's going to happen. It's just something. Something you tell yourself to deal with the uncertainty and the risk of potential rejection. So instead of buying into it, here's what you do. The next time you want to take that risk, want to go approach that person and your mind says, they're not going to like me, say, let's find out, and walk right into that risk.
