The 2 Kinds Of Self-Esteem...And How To Build Them

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 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. Welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about the two kinds of self esteem and how you can build them both, and how both are important. And oftentimes people think of only one or the other when they think of self esteem or self confidence. But actually there's two very different kinds and they're both very important. So I'm so excited that you're here today because at the end of this episode, you're not only gonna learn a lot about you and how you relate to you, but you're gonna have a super power, which is the ability to influence how you feel about yourself. Now, I know that's not the kind of superpower that most people think about. There's not a whole lot of superhero movies about that. I'm self esteem man. But actually, when it comes to your life and having a better life, whether that's more confidence, better relationships, better career success, anything, you want to just feel better about yourself, it comes down to your self esteem. And it's kind of the not very glitzy, glamorous, under the hood kind of change that you can make, though, much faster and much easier than some of the things people do to try to feel better about themselves. You know, I get this certain job position, then I'll finally feel good about myself. And it's like, man, maybe that job position is like five years off earliest. Or if I just get into a relationship that I can feel good about myself. Well, what if you're not? What if you're single? What if you just broke up with somebody or they just worse, they just broke up with you. So now what? You just have to feel terrible about yourself for the next 2, 3, 5, 10 years? No, no, let's change this and let's. The most important thing to start with right now is that you get to choose this. You get to change this. We often imagine that our sense of self valuation, which Is your self esteem. How you feel about yourself is somehow externally determined. Like there's a, a yardstick or a measuring stick outside of you that determines your self esteem. And it feels that way, especially when you have low self esteem. It's like, no, the world thinks that tall people or thin people or rich people are good. And I'm not tall, thin, or rich or funny or whatever. Enough. I'm too quiet, I'm too nerdy, I'm too something. And the world sees me as less than and I am less than. And you can live in that reality. And I've honestly seen people defend that reality for well, your entire life. And sure, if you want to make a case for that and prove it and have a big list of reasons why you suck, you can and you'll be right. But at the flesh flip of a switch, you can actually discover that there is no external measuring stick that you determine your sense of self worth. And when your sense of self worth or self esteem changes, all of a sudden people start seeing you differently. And this is one of those phenomenon that you can hear me say it and maybe you buy it, maybe you're excited, like, okay, yeah, great, I'm in. Maybe you're a little skeptical. This is one of those things where I didn't really believe it until it happened to me. And then when it did, it was like, it was almost like a magic trick or you know, you're watching a movie, I mean the one of the classics, this is from so long ago. I'm sure there's a lot of other ones like twist ending movies, you know, the Sixth Sense was a kind of a big one back in the day when I was younger. But you know, you're watching the whole movie. Oh, Usual Suspects is another one. I'm sure there's more recent twist ending movies, but they were big. At least they made an impression on me when I was young. Where the whole movie you think it's one way, you know, like in the Usual Suspects, you know, you think the whole movie you think there's this super villain, was his name Kaiser? I think, and you know, he's running this huge gang and this crime syndicate and they're talking to this kind of dumpy, low level criminal who's got a limp and he's kind of nervous looking and, and it turns out that he is Kaiser. So say or whatever, you know, and you're like, whoa, it all comes together at the end of the movie and you're shocked. Or in the Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis, it turns Out. He's dead. Sorry. Spoiler. Spoiler alert. Although that movie's like 30 years old, so I'm sure I didn't spoil much for you. In any case, it's like it all changes in an instant. And I remember this for myself because I had terrible self esteem, especially when it came to, well, everywhere. But as a result of that self esteem, I imagined that I was undateable. And I remember with some changes in how I saw myself. And therefore, when you change how you see yourself, you can change how you behave, right? Because if you think I'm a loser, no one's gonna want to talk to me. You're not gonna talk to anybody. But when you change that perception of yourself, your sense of self esteem, how you value yourself, all of a sudden you can go talk to people and you get different results. And it was shocking to me when I started to change this. And women that I thought were attractive and way out of my league and why would this woman ever be talking to me is how I used to feel all. All of a sudden, not only would they be talking to me, but, you know, all of a sudden she seems interested in me, like she wants to give me her number. And I remember it almost felt like something like a mistake had been happening. Like, are you sure something's going wrong? Why? Because I had been imagining that it was this external thing. Self esteem was this external thing that they, in this case women, all had agreed upon what the measuring stick was, and I just didn't have it. So that's the good news. Let's talk about the two kinds of self esteem. Because sometimes people hear this and they say, okay, but how do I do it? How do I change my self esteem? Because I feel like a loser. So how do I not feel like a loser? Or maybe not a loser, but less than inferior. Don't like yourself in some ways. Okay, first things first. You have to have a moment of, what the fuck? Wtf? Why am I treating myself so badly? Why am I not right with myself? Right, because you might just take it for granted that your self esteem is bad. Well, it's because of this, this and that and that. Okay, okay, let's say you had a kid. I don't know, maybe you do have a kid. And your kids, you know, they got some things that they're good at and some things they're not good at. How do you talk to them about it? Do you talk to them the way you talk to yourself? Usually not when you're trying to support someone, when you're trying to build their self esteem. What do you do? Well, it's very, very different than the way most people talk to themselves. So most people that I work with are perpetuating their own low self esteem by being brutal to themselves and saying, well, that's just how it is. The yardstick says this is valuable and I'm not that. So therefore I have to berate myself. And you don't have to berate yourself. And when the berating just feels like it's happening on autopilot, you don't have to buy into it and say, okay, yeah, yeah, I do suck. You say, wait a minute, hold on a second. No, that voice in my head is not me. It's an old pattern and it's time for me to change that. And there's two key ways I want to share in this episode of how to change that. The first type of self esteem is unconditional positive self regard. Unconditional self acceptance, unconditional self compassion. This is, you don't need to be the best. You might not follow a certain yardstick that is out there that someone is saying, oh, you should be more of this. Or maybe society says you should be thinner and you're not or whatever it is, you don't. It doesn't matter whether you fit in or don't. It doesn't matter if you're tall or thin or whatever. Unconditional self acceptance, unconditional worth, unconditional positive regard. And this is a very important one. You could think about these two types of self esteem. We could maybe call this has more of a feminine energy to it. It's nurturing, right? It's the mother who says, I love you no matter what. Although a father, I say that to my kids too. But in that case, I'm tapping into the unconditional quality of that. It's not like I love you when you score the goal, honey, it's I love you no matter what. I'm proud of you no matter what. And this is a place that feels very foreign to many people that I work with who've been not on their own side for so long, who've been running the insanity pattern of I'm going to beat the crap out of myself to then feel better about myself. Because here's the thing, just take a moment. I was working with a woman in my group just last night in my Mastermind program. You know, she's out at a social gathering, feeling a little quiet, a little internal, just a little tender that night. And so she's not super talkative, not a big deal. That happens to everybody. That happens to me. Sometimes I go out and I'm real excited. I want to chit chat with everybody. And sometimes I'm kind of like, yeah, I'm here. Just, yep, that's, that's what's happening. That's a normal human variation. And man, she's just going to town on herself. Like, this is terrible. No one wants you here. You're so awkward. What's wrong with you? Stop. And so I said, okay, so you're berating yourself so you talk more and connect more with people. On a scale of 1 to 10, how effective is that strategy? How much does it work to make you more talkative? She paused for a minute. She said, zero. Said, okay, so it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Attacking yourself to be better doesn't work. And I know I'm repeating myself here, but I have to say it like 5,000 times before we really start to get it. Because when we see something isn't working, it's like saying, hey, I want to, whatever you want to do, change your oil, fix a doorknob, you know, set something up on your computer. And you go to set something up on your computer and it's not on. Or you go to replace a doorknob and you bring, I don't know, a freaking hammer and a circular saw and no other tools. It's like, this doesn't matter how long you spend there, it's not gonna work. You don't have the right, you're not doing the right thing. And so it doesn't work. And when you see that it doesn't work, you can say, hey, this is insane, let me do something different. And a lot of people, the resistance, that, yeah, but if I let myself off the hook, how am I gonna get any better, huh? And if I'm not better, that I'm not gonna get love, I'm not gonna get respect, I'm not gonna get money, I'm not gonna get opportunities in life. You gotta be better, okay? That's not how life works. Because you get back what you expect to get back from life. You get out what, you get back what you put out there. And so if you're transmitting the signal of I'm a nothing, nobody worth nothing, no one's time, guess what you get, you get overlooked, you get ignored, you get poorly treated and it's frustrating and it perpetuates the self fulfilling prophecy. So we have to, have to, have to get right with ourselves. You have to get right with yourself, do some deep soul searching. Why am I so terrible to myself? I need to start treating myself with more compassion, with more forgiveness, with more sanity, like someone that I actually love and care about. And until you make that decision, this side of the self esteem equation is terrible. And this becomes really important. Cause I'm gonna talk about the second one in a moment. And you need both. You can't just load up on one of the aspects of self esteem and not the other. And if you wanna go deeper with this, definitely check out my book On My Own side, which is a deep dive in how to be on your own side, how to change the way you treat yourself. So that's one side of it, the other side of self esteem. Because some people hear that and say, okay, great, that's all I need. That's self compassion, by the way. Another great book about this is Kristin Neff's book called Self Compassion, which goes in depth into self compassion. And just reading about it will make you do it more. You're just like, yeah, this is sanity. Everything else is crazy. What am I? What have I been doing? So that's the one side of it. And the other side of it is if you just say, I love you no matter what, if you just say, hey, I'm great, this the way I am, there's something missing. And that's the other side of us, the masculine energy. And look, this is in men and women, but it's the, it's the drive, it's the, it's explore the world, go over the next hill and see what's there. It's to fully engage in your life. And that's the kind of self esteem that comes from testing yourself, challenging yourself, going to that edge, doing the hard thing. And it doesn't have to mean, you know, climbing to the top of a mountain. It could be, hey, you know what? I had that three hours in the morning and I was, I just got to it, I went in there, I listed out all the tasks I want to do, I did them. At the end of those three hours, I feel good, feel good about. I felt that feels good to me. Versus the end of the three hours where instead of doing any of the things on your list, you just dinked around on YouTube and just wasted, frittered time away online. And at the end of it, you kind of feel what, like little empty, little icky, right? And this doesn't mean it's to turn on yourself and say, oh my God, you wasted time pieces. You're so Terrible, I hate you, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, you still have self compassion, but it's the compassion of a parent. You know, the kid eats a bunch of ice cream and they have a terrible stomachache and the parents like, yeah, yeah, I know that happens. Let's, let's, let's look at next time how we can, you know, limit how much you eat so you feel better. They don't go, you're a terrible kid. You're so awful. You have no self control. What's wrong with you? Right, man? Wow. Look out. Get away from that parent. And if you're being that parent to yourself and get away from that and say, look, okay, that didn't feel great. What can I do that feels better? And this kind of self esteem is the kind of self esteem that's more like the father energy. It's like, show me what you can do in the world. I'm gonna help you bring out your most capable self. It's the one that maybe pushes you a little bit. It's the self esteem that comes from you stay in it when you don't really want to, but you, you push a little further. Not with some ruthlessness, but with grit, with determination. You know, one of the places I love to do this is in physical exercise activity, especially in running or hiking and just going a distance that is a stretch for me. And I know when I set out that on those days that it's going to be further than normal significantly. And usually there's some dread or trepidation leading into it and not like, oh, I'm going to die out there or something, but it's like, oh boy, this is going to be some moments of some strong discomforts. And sure enough, I just went for a long hike on Mount Hood, which is one of my favorite places to hike. And it was a, I'm doing a little tester hike to see about going around the mountain. I've done that a number of times and the full distance around is 41 miles and the elevation change I think is like 10,000ft. So it's, it's substantial. And I did a, I'm always sort of in awe and afraid of that distance, afraid of the feelings probably at times during it. So I just to boost my confidence and get ready for it. I do like these tester hikes. So I just did a 20 mile hike two days ago and inevitably on that distance for me and maybe there's someone out there that's nothing to them, but for me, you know, there's moments maybe at like 12 miles or 15 miles. There's moments where I'm like, I want this to be done. When's this going to be over? I don't like the way I'm feeling right now. Maybe I'm feeling fatigued or some discomfort or something. And then I work through it, you know, I get to come back to the moment, or I work with whatever I'm feeling, and all of a sudden, you know, I get to the other side of that. But by the end of that 20 miles, man, I feel good. There's something like, that's earned. It's a sense of pride that's earned. And it's not like, wow, this is. Everyone's going to be so impressed by this. It's not that kind of pride. I mean, most people aren't going to really care. But to me, it feels, I feel that sense of healthy significance that can come from, like, look, I can do what I put my mind to and I can do more. And for me, it has a special meaning because of, you know, spending 20 years in chronic pain and not being able to do anything really of any significance with my body. So to be able to go on these mega hikes, it's. It's symbolic for me. It's like, look at this, man. You. You can do so much more than you ever thought. I'm so proud of you. But I'm not saying that to myself. I just feel it. You could say it to yourself, too, but I don't need to. It just comes through. And this is true for smaller things too. Like, as I said, like a workday of productivity. Doing the. Just. You could really simplify it. It's do the uncomfortable thing now and you'll feel better later in that day. And we all know this. And then it's a matter of choosing it. And so to combine these two, let's talk about combining these two. For your action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is going to be to practice having that baseline of unconditional self acceptance. I love you when you're quiet. I love you when you're talkative. And a great way to capture that is this powerful word that I love so much, which is sometimes, sometimes I'm talkative, sometimes I'm quiet. I was just talking to my client the other day, and he said that he was at this work meeting and, you know, he's in leadership. He's recently in leadership and really has expanded his identity and his confidence to be able to do that more. But he'll have these Experiences where sometimes I'm leading a meeting and I'm feeling good and I'm together and I'm focused. And he's like, just the other day I had a meeting where I was like, it was the end of the day, I was scattered, I was anxious for no reason that I could pinpoint. And initially he said I would feel bad about it, but then within an hour or two I just let it go. He said, I thought about the thing you told me, which is sometimes I'm really focused and on it and sometimes I'm a bit scattered. And there's just this relief in his body when he says that you could even just feel that relief in yourself. You could take a full breath in, let it out with a sigh. Sometimes I'm anxious, sometimes I'm confident, sometimes I'm talkative, sometimes I'm quiet. So that's that unconditional confidence, sometimes unconditional self esteem. Then your other part of your action step is going to be to once a day do the uncomfortable thing on purpose. It could be a really small one minute thing, like a cold shower. It could be a longer thing that's, you know, in the pursuit of anything that's meaningful to you for your work, for your family, for your health, for your relationships. But you on purpose do the uncomfortable thing and just do it. Like look for one day, one opportunity a day to do the uncomfortable thing. You'll find it. I mean, the uncomfortable thing might be to, I don't know, clean up the kitchen after you make a snack when you really rather just go do something else. You're like, fine, I'll do it right? Those little things like that, that might sound trivial, but trust me, they build your self esteem. Here's a really simple one that's again, seems like how could that do anything? But you know, people in the military or former military understand it. It's like make your bed when you wake up in the morning, make your bed, make it clean, make it crisp, right? And it's like little things like that really do build this sense of self esteem. And so when you have both sides of that man, you really start to feel better and better about who you are. Your days get better, your confidence increases and then lo and behold, the world around you starts to treat you differently. You start to find more respect, more love, more connection, more opportunities. And you might not be hitting any major yardsticks. You might not have changed your height or your, you know, hair color or whatever you think you need to fit into what makes you worthy. You realize it's an inside job all along. Awesome. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are. Awesome. Talk to you soon. 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 socialconfidencecenter.com.