Dr. Aziz explains how calling something impossible shuts down effort and locks you into limitation. He recovered from chronic knee pain by adding mobility work instead of accepting it as permanent, and argues the same principle applies to relationships and any goal you've written off.
Chapters
Impossible is like the circuit breaker switch in your own mind. So I'm no electrician, but you know how in the. In your house there's a electricity panel, and if there's a blast of electricity or something goes haywire, there's these breaker switches that flip, that turn off electricity to that section of the house or those wires so everything doesn't burn and explode. That's my limited understanding of it. We have the same kind of breaker switch in our own minds. That's called impossible. Just imagine a little breaker switch inside a little panel in your brain. It's really in there. It's a structural thing, legit. And it flips and goes to impossible. So we want something and then we say it's impossible. Maybe you try and then it doesn't work. You know what? It's that impossible thing. Maybe it's for you. It's being in an incredible relationship, being able to date freely and find someone you really connect with. Maybe it's being fully authentic. Maybe it's bold. Maybe it's being able to be expressive with a certain family member or find your way out of a challenging dynamic at work, or be more bold and speak up with a colleague or an employee. Whatever the impossible thing is for you. For me, a lot of the impossible stuff has been a lot of social stuff and also a lot of physical stuff. And so we try, and then we are not able to do it. And we say it's impossible. The switch just flips. And then once the switch flips, what happens? I'm not gonna try anymore. Why don't you try to put yourself out there for relationships? It's just not possible. Not possible for me. Why don't you be more bold in that situation? It's not possible for me. You don't know who I am, okay? And we build a whole identity around it. I'm an introvert. I got social anxiety disorder. That's not possible for me. And I have diagnoses and reasons and explanations to prove it. The same thing goes true for my physical life. Hiking around that mountain is not possible for me. Being able to run is not possible for me. Being able to use my body and get stronger is not possible for me. Because I got diagnoses to tell you. They got a whole identity around it. Same thing, right? But here's the fascinating part, here's the liberating part that I'm so excited to share with you. That's not real. That circuit breaker switch, that little label that says impossible. It's not true. What if instead of it being impossible? What if it means you need to learn something? What if it means you need to change something? What if it means you need to do something different? Little case in point from the physical side of things. So I've done a whole history of challenging and upgrading my psychology around my health. I'm not going to share that whole story with you now. But not that long ago, I was experiencing more knee pain issues that were limiting me. And I just done a ton of stuff. This summer I hiked around that mountain. I've been running, doing all kinds of things and getting more and more knee pain. And the story goes, ah, you get more active, you're gonna get pain, disease. Why? Because your body's broken. Remember all those diagnoses, remember all those problems? And I said, ah, shit, you're right. I guess doing what I want to do and being as free as I want, as abundant in my health as I want, is impossible. Fortunately. Fortunately, when that impossible breaker switch goes off, there's another part of me that's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What just happened there? Let's discover something. What if the pain you're experiencing, physical pain, emotional pain, what if it's just a signal? It's a message, it's information that's saying, hey, you need to change something. What do you need to change? I don't know. You got to figure it out. But you got to learn something. Usually the things you got to change is probably you. Other people too, they all suck. But, you know, you and your habits and your thought patterns and your focus and the way you treat yourself, that one's huge. That's why I talk about that in my book almost. If you haven't read that, check that out. On my own side, but I realized that I've been really active in the last three years as I broke through a lot of these health challenges. And I've been doing stuff like crazy. And I spent 98% of my time, my active time being active, and 2% of my time on mobility, stretching, identifying weak muscles, places where I'm stiff, and resolving those, doing mobility work, strengthening exercises, little therapies and things that do this to strengthen this muscle. You know, all those videos you can find on YouTube or find someone to teach you that stuff was like, don't want to do that shit. Just want to get out there and run. Okay, all right. How long, how long are you going to do that before it catches up to you? Well, it caught up to me and I was like, okay, I get It. I get the message. And so I started dedicating 30 minutes a day to mobility work. I found some videos online, invested in a course. I'm actually doing some work with this place called Stretch Lab. You can check it out if it's in your city. It's been fantastic for me where I just. They. They help you do more stretching in your body. Identify places where you're fucked up and address it. And I've been doing that. And within four days. I've been doing that for four days. And I'm out here hiking. It's been about six miles, a bunch of uphill. I feel fine. Four days. Do you know how long I would have been in that pain and that limitation and that impossible story? Five years ago? Ten years ago. Months. Four months. Four years. 20 years. Insane, isn't it? So what is the thing that you're telling yourself is impossible right now? And what if it's a little tweak? What if you need to learn something? Who do you need to learn it from? I don't know. Find the person. Look around. Maybe it's in my materials, maybe it's in someone else's thing. Talk to people, read things, Put your mind out there. And the other thing I'm going to guess is it involves action, involves changing something, finding a habit, trying something new. And you're going to discover that when you learn those little tweaks, everything opens up. The same is true for intimate relationships. I can tell you more about that if you're not registered for my upcoming live online event. Check that out. It's called Unlimited Dating and Relationship Confidence. But little tweaks, you know, you have. Oh, it's impossible for me to be in a relationship because I'm so messed up. I got this long history of problems. My family wasn't good enough. I'm broken. I can't be into little tweaks. Let's stop flicking that impossible breaker switch. Get the real message. Learn, grow and experience. Just absolute joy. Thanks for being with me. Until we speak again. We have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
