The Benefits Of Doubt

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to talk about something strange. We're going to talk about how doubtful might be good. What? What? And I don't know if I've done it on this show, but at a number of the events I lead, whether it's in person or online, as I'm guiding people to work with doubt, one of the things I help them do is access their sense of power to be able to defy doubt. And we go through a mantra. We talk about defying doubt and defeating doubt and destroying doubt. And so you might. If you've ever been to one of my events or online events, you might think, well, oh, so what we need to do is we need to not have any doubt. We need to eradicate all doubt. And I would like to offer a different perspective in today's episode where we're going to look at doubt in your life, the role that it plays and how it might actually serve you and where it might not be serving you. So are you ready? Here we go. First of all, how much does doubt show up in your life right now? In fact, let's even take a step back before I ask that question. What is doubt? How do we define doubt? Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction, which is just another way of saying uncertainty. So doubt is a feeling of uncertainty. Hmm. So is that a problem? Is doubt inherently bad? Well, I don't know. It depends. Is feeling uncertain bad? Well, interestingly enough, I actually think that our inability to tolerate uncertainty is actually more of a root of our problem. Because think about this. If you're gonna do something you've never done before, if you're gonna take a risk, if you're gonna go for something or try to create something or try to make a change in a positive direction in your life, but you've never done it before, are you gonna have total 100% certainty that you're gonna make that change. Total 100% certainty that the next thing you're gonna do is gonna work. Or are you gonna have uncertainty? In fact, I mean, think about any change you wanna make in your life. What's something that if you were just to double or start doing more of? Is it speaking up for yourself? Is it saying no? Is it asking for what you want? Is it being more direct? Is it setting a boundary with somebody? Just think of anything that pops into your mind right now. Okay, great. Now that thing that you're thinking of, it might be a specific action, like, I gotta go tell Barry at work to shut up. But actually it's probably part of a longer process, right? Like you might want to speak up for yourself in general more often at work, not just with Barry, but with other people. Or if you're like, I'm gonna go ask that person out, you know, maybe in general, you, you have a certain overall direction that you're heading. You. You want to create an awesome relationship or be able to date more. So we're steering in a certain direction in life. And that outcome that you want to create or those outcomes that you want to experience along the way are not just a one time event. It's not just you versus Barry. It is you being more of you, you being more expressive, you being more outgoing, you being more bold, you living your life more. And I don't see that as a one time event. I see that as a series of events. That is a process, that is an ongoing way of living or being. And in order to do that, you need to consistently step into uncertainty again and again and again. Because how is the conversation going to go when you talk to Barry? I don't know. Is Barry going to get defensive? Is Barry going to freak out? Is Barry going to, you know, counterattack? When you ask that person out, are they going to say yes? Are they going to say no? Are they going to say no and get away from me and how dare you? Right? So we don't know how it's going to go. And uncertainty is the name of the game. So I don't think uncertainty is the problem. So if you define doubt as a lack of certainty or a feeling of uncertainty, and doubt is bad, therefore I shouldn't feel uncertain and say, well, jeez, let me not feel any uncertainty. Well, how do you do that? I guess one way is to. And the most common way and what people are trying to go for is like, well, I'm going to become so confident. I'm just going to be A badass. And that's kind of like what Tony Robbins might be teaching, right? You know, it's like, hit your chest and be like, yeah, let's do this. And there's definitely value in that. And I'll teach some of those tools and techniques. And it's like, you know what? I have such a total state of certainty that I'm just gonna absolutely make this thing happen. Let's do this. And then you gotta visualize it in your head 7,000 times, and you gotta make your power move and hit your chest and go. Yes. And go. Take action. And you're totally certain. Absolutely, totally certain. Let me do my Tony Robbins voice. You are absolutely, totally certain that you're gonna achieve the outcome that you want. Right? And that's. And that makes total sense. You look at it on paper and you're like, story checks out. I guess that is the thing to do. Now let me go find my chest hitting room in my house and get myself in a state of total absolute certainty. Here's what I find often happens, though. As good as that is on paper, just like the diet can look great on paper. And then there's what people actually do. The workout routine looks great on paper. And here's what we actually do. Same thing with this. Getting yourself in a total state of absolute certainty and then taking the action feeling. Yes, I'm getting the results in advance in my head by visualizing. Sounds good on paper. What people end up actually doing is to get that state of total certainty. You know what they do? You might guess it. What have you done in the past? That's right. We don't take any freaking action. That's how we get the state of total certainty. Because we know that if we avoid talking to Barry, if we avoid asking that person out, if we avoid saying no to that friend because we're afraid that they're gonna be, you know, be disappointed in us or gonna feel guilty if we avoid all that stuff. If we avoid the action, then we have a state of feeling of total certainty inside. I know what's gonna happen when I go to that meeting and I don't speak up. I know what's gonna happen if I don't ask that person out. And I certainly know what's gonna happen if I say yes to that friend, even though I wanna say no. Everything will be smooth. Everything will be okay. They won't be upset. Barry won't be upset. Cause I won't bring it up. And that person won't reject me because I didn't Ask them out. Now just take a moment. Is this what's happened in your life? And maybe not all of the time. Maybe sometimes you do work yourself up into a certainty frenzy and then go take that action. But let's look overall. Cause remember, it's not a single event. Confidence isn't just a one time event. It's a process. It's a way of living, it's a way of being. So we need to consistently show up and do that. So how do you consistently talk to Barry or whoever Barry is in your life? How do you consistently ask that person out? Or if you're already married in a relationship, how do you consistently go deeper, have the conversations you need to have, keep things alive and fresh and vital and sexy and fun and charged? All that is the same kind of risk taking that is there at the beginning. As a side note, that's a big problem in a lot of relationships for people is they lose the charge, they lose the passion because they don't take any emotional risk in the beginning. Oh my God. Full of charge, right? Like, are they gonna say yes? Are they gonna say no? Oh my God, I'm so freaked out. And then, you know, you're together for a while and it's like, I'm not freaked out at all. I know they're gonna be there. So what people do is they pile up lots and lots of certainty in their relationship. Why? Because they're uncomfortable with the uncertainty. We want to avoid the uncertainty. So what does this have all to do with doubt? And why is doubt potentially good? Because if doubt is a feeling of uncertainty, we want to embrace that feeling of uncertainty instead of trying to only feel total certainty. And then I'm going to take the action and then I'm going to do this thing, you know, what happens if you don't get yourself into a state of total certainty? What happens if you try to say, I'm gonna do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And then it doesn't matter how many times you say that, hit your chest and jump up and down inside, you feel like, no, I can't, no, I can't, no, I can't. Or that voice is still there. Even if you're pumped up and you're ready to take action, that voice is like, no, it won't in the background there. And that is what creates the uncertainty. And then what do we do with that? Well, I'm going to say that when I talk about defying doubt and defeating doubt, I don't mean Grinding it out of existence. I mean, being able to be in forward motion regardless of the doubt and regardless of the feeling of uncertainty. So how would we do that? Well, let's take a moment to look at you. Are you able to move forward in the face of uncertainty? That's the key question. That is the muscle that we want to build. And I don't think that it might start with the decision. I might start with a commitment, A moment of, like, you know what? I'm going to take more action in my life. A moment of a seizure of motivation. But it doesn't sustain until we do the work and we build that muscle. That's a muscle being able to assess the situation and then act. Even though there's not 100% clarity or certainty of which way to go. You just make a call, you just decide. You just freaking do something. That process repeated again and again and again and again, allows you to start to navigate the terrain. And that's really what we're talking about. Like, certainty is ground under your feet. Certainty is footing, solidity, permanence, predictability. Now, how much of this life. I don't know how old you are. How much of this life. When you look around at nature, at the world around you, at the worlds that humans have constructed in civilization, how long are things, like, totally stable and certain. I mean, there's certain stable things, right? Like sunrise and sunset. But in terms of the world, of humanity, I mean, there's a. There's temporary stability. There's an illusion of stability. Like, my house is still here when I got home today. That's good. But, man, things are changing. Things are changing fast. And they're only going to increase at the rate that they're changing the speed. And the rate of change is fast. That's how humans like it for the most part. It seems to be a general trend to want to go fast in all areas of life. And then when we go fast, what do we want to do? Let's go faster. You know, like, we made a car, great. Can we make them go faster? We made airplanes, great. Can we make them fly faster? When are we going to get rocket ships that, like, fly into low atmosphere and come back down and fly around the world in three hours? Come on. Right? So we want to go fast, and that means a lot of changes, and that means a lot of uncertainty because you don't know exactly what the future is going to hold. And so instead of thinking about it as like, I need more stability, I need more solidity, I need more things on My feet on the ground say I got to learn how to fly better or swim better. I don't know if it's water or air, but we're in something that's not solid ground. I got to learn how to move. And I like the idea of flying and like being in these wind currents and you're up in the air and you're able to balance, you're able to, you know, direct yourself, but you're certainly not solid and stable and static and unchanging. The only way to get that is going to be to ground yourself and not be in the air. And if you're grounded and you're not in the air, you're not soaring, you're not flying as far as you can, you're not exploring the world, you're not having the adventures that you want to have and having the life that you want to have. And so what we want to do is we want to increase our capacity to take that action. And I'd say one of the best ways to do it to, to get practical here for you is to treat it like a muscle and look to build it consistently throughout the day. So some of the people that are, I think some of the best athletes in any area, any field that they're in, you know, the average person like me, I'm not an athlete. I would say I do consider myself, I have the identity of an athlete, but on paper I'm not like a competing athlete. Right. But you know, I've been watching this guy Alex Honnold a lot recently. I love him, he's awesome. They did the movie free solo about him and I just watched like, went on a YouTube, scoured YouTube for all the videos and interviews I could. I thought this guy's fascinating. And you know, he's just constantly looking for places he can rock climb. He goes all over the place. He accepts adventures, he just, he's kind of looking for it all over the place. And then when he's in between rock climbing, he's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna do some pull ups on the bar in my van. So he's just constantly looking for that opportunity. Now contrast that with the average person. The average person's like, hey, I work out from 6 to 7am Monday, Tuesdays and Saturdays. It's on my schedule and I go do it now. I don't know, maybe the average American is like, I have it on my schedule, I don't do it at all. But assuming you're fit and healthy you have a schedule and you do it. And you stick to your schedule for the most part and you take care of the activity that you're gonna do. But do you see how that's very different than, like, seeking out the opportunity regularly? Right? So someone who's a little more active, you know, you might be, like, looking, hey, there's an opportunity to do some pull ups here, or I can do some dips against this bench or whatever it is. And yes, I already worked out this morning. But hey, there's another opportunity to use my body. I love using my body. So what if you treat being able to act in the face of uncertainty that muscle and you look to seek to build it in that way, right? You're just looking for those opportunities. And look, you could start as simple as this. You're looking at the restaurant menu and you're like, should I go with this or should I go with that? You just, three, two, one, boom. Choose something and go. Start with the small decisions. Am I going to focus on this or am I going to focus on that? Okay. You know, and, you know, the bigger the decision, the more you might want to take some consideration into account. Not everything has to be as impulsive as what you order at a restaurant. But at the same time, you do some analysis and then you decide. And if your analysis ends in, I don't know what to do, I don't have enough certainty, so I'm not going to do anything. Then you know that you're prioritizing certainty and keeping your feet on the ground and totally staying safe and static instead of taking that action. And what we want to do is we want to practice that because the more you build that muscle up, the more, boom, you can just make decisions. And I believe this, that the more you access that muscle, the more you are guided. I really believe that. And I think you can see that in people like Alex Hondal. Maybe one of the reasons I'm fascinated with him, one, I just absolutely am enamored with rock climbing and am looking forward to checking out a gym here in Portland where I can do some rock climbing. I've never done it before in my life, and I'm really fascinated in it. I mean, obviously something about them being, I mean, these guys are like, out, you know, on amazing rock faces and mountains, you know, which I don't think I'm gonna get to that level. Not gonna be climbing El Capitan anytime soon. But something about watching someone at like, this pinnacle of ability, and it could be in any sport or any field. Or anything, whatever floats your boat. But when you see them operating at that pinnacle of ability, I feel like you're watching God. You're watching the divine move through them, right? I mean, you know, he's honed his blade to be able for God to move through him in that way. But it's beautiful, right? Just. I mean, you could get the same feeling when you watch. Listen to a singer who. Who's just like, they're totally open. And, yes, they've practiced their voice and their craft and their singing for years to be able to open that channel. And then what comes through them is just like, it's divine and it moves you and you feel it in your heart. You know what I'm talking about. And it might not be rock climbing for you. It might be something else for you. But whether it's singing or rock climbing or a certain guitar riff or watching someone play soccer or slam dunk a basketball, whatever it is, it moves you. And I believe that we don't have to be superstar athletes or something to have that. You just start to feel, feed that muscle, and stuff starts to come through you. And so a lot of the hesitancy and fear about making the decision is it could go bad or I don't know what's going to happen, or I'm not going to be able to handle it. And when you start to make those decisions more regularly and take those actions more regularly, there's a part of you that's like, I will be able to handle it. And it doesn't matter how many times you visualize yourself handling it or give yourself a mantra of, I can handle it, I can do it. I can handle anything that comes my way. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Sure, those are great ways to augment, to add, to patch up some of the cracks. But the main thrust of it, the main impact, is going to come from repeatedly building the muscle, taking the action. And then as you do that, you're going to start to feel more of a sense of guidance. You're going to get a gut sense or a feeling, or like, this is the direction to go. And you may not be able to explain it intellectually. You'll just be like, this is the way to go and I'm gonna do it. And I've seen that more and more and more because you know what it is? It's like the soaring, right? The flying metaphor. It's like you're going where you're supposed to go in this life. And if you hear the call and heed the call, and take the action swiftly. Then the call gets louder and the current, the air currents can take you further and further, way, way beyond what you ever imagined. Why? Because you're just. You're along for the ride. You're saying, okay, show me. Show me where to go next. So let's bring this back to doubt. You know, I say, okay, I got a doubt. I don't want to feel doubt. I hate this sense of doubt. Well, what is that? Doubt. Generally, the doubt is a feeling of uncertainty. And the biggest challenge, I think, with doubt, where doubt can become problematic is not that you have it, but it's that the dial of how much attention you give it and how real you make it and what you interpret it as is turned way too high. So that dial of your attention, your focus, and your believing is turned way too high. Another way to say that is the best way to operate with doubt is to turn down the dial of believing it all and listening to it thoroughly and giving it so much attention and focus, Right? Because here's what doubt, the voice of doubt, will do. It's uncertainty. I don't know how the outcome will go. Whatever the action is, whatever the goal, whatever I'm trying to do in life, good things can happen, bad things. And I'm putting good and bad in quotes here. We call things good when they go the way that we want, and we call them bad when they go the way we don't want. So never mind that life is a total mixture. And I'll have another episode about stop judging stuff and start growing because is it good or bad? Who gives a shit? Whatever, it's life coming your way. But we say, okay, I want the good, I don't want the bad. I want the yes, I don't want the no. I want the person to be happy with, not upset with me. So already there we're kind of setting ourselves up. But the doubt says the bad outcome is inevitable or very highly likely. So don't take the action. And what we want to do is we want to say, okay, there's a possibility that this could happen, and there's a possibility that it won't happen. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the action and see what happens. Now, sometimes the downside is too great, the potential downside is too great, the probability is too high, or even if it's a low probability, if it happens, it's not good, right? So I don't know. Not that long ago, I was hiking around Mount Hood, an amazing My favorite place in the universe is to be around Mount Hood. And I was doing this long trail around the mountain, 43 miles. There was a podcast episode about it. So there you go. But, oh, man, so many memories from that. Along the way, you need to refill up your water. And I had a filter so I could dip my camel back. Water bladder thing. Terrible name. Water bladder. It's got to be a better name for it. Water plastic sack. That doesn't sound good either. I don't know. I'll work on that. Anyway, you dip it into this beautiful, pristine mountain stream, and then you got to suck it through a filter, though, because there's a. There's a chance that this beautiful mountain stream contains. Is it called cryptobacteria? I don't know what it's called. It sounded like it made me think of, like, cryogenic chamber. It's like cryobacteria. I don't know. But anyway, and if you look at the symptoms of this stuff, if you get it, it's like, man, you could have six weeks of diarrhea and stomach pain. Sometimes it lasts up to a year. And I was like, oh, my God, that sounds terrible. Right? So especially high up on Mount Hood, the likelihood is very low because you're very close to the initial snow melt. However, the downside of that, of having stomach pain and diarrhea for, like, four months or something, that's horrible. So that's not a risk I'm gonna take. So I'm gonna have the water filter. I'm not gonna drink anything that's not through the water filter. Right? So that's an example of where that voice of uncertainty or doubt says, hey, you know, you don't wanna get cryobacteria in your guts. You listen to that and you're like, that's a great point. Another example, there were a few parts of the trail where you're on, like, a edge of a cliff face. There's a mountainside to your left. You're on a trail. It's about 2ft wide, and to your right is death if you fall. And in that moment, in my mind, my head's like, hey, there's a cliff there. You're a little tired right now. Just, you know, pay attention. Don't die. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Voice of Awareness of undesired outcomes. I don't want to get cryobacteria, and I certainly don't want to die when I'm on this hike. So that voice is providing useful information. That's one of the benefits of Doubt, it's alerting you to the upside. And, well, doubt's going to tell you about the potential downside. When you're looking at the downside, you want to look at, okay, what is the likelihood of this? And is there a way to protect myself or mitigate that? Example, water filter example, being aware so I don't just throw myself off a cliff on accident and. Or is the downside totally, totally unacceptable, in which case maybe I'll avoid that risk, like drinking the water without a filter. So now that you've done that, let's look at the example in the area of confidence, in case you're like, how does that exactly apply? Well, you could think about it in your life, but let's take the example of talking to Barry, right? You have a good outcome and a bad outcome. The good outcome is you clear the air and you're able to work more effectively with Barry. The bad outcome is Barry gets all entrenched and angry and defensive, and then he's all critical of you the next time you guys meet, and he creates a lot of chaos in your conversations, in the meetings or whatever. Okay, so what is the likelihood of that happening? Now you want to actually ask yourself this question, because the voice of doubt is like, it's gonna go terrible. It's gonna go bad. Bleh. And that's what I'm talking about. Turning the dial. Letting the dial be turned too high. So you wanna get clear. You wanna go for a little walk, meditate for a few minutes, take a few breaths, sit in silence, Just be like, okay, here we go. Let me actually think clearly about this. What is the likelihood that it's gonna go to total shit? And then, like, really assess that and then say, okay, is there a chance? How would I mitigate that? How would I make that less bad? How would I make it better? How could I? So you're actually problem solving. You're addressing the potential downside. Okay, great. And if that were to happen, if it. No matter what I did or whatever, could I live with that consequence? And I'd say, and the stuff in life that really matters, like, you know, for the most part, we got to be able to live with some of those consequences, or else we can't take any risks in life. So, yes, I'm gonna go hike on trails, even though there's a chance you could die or get attacked by a mountain lion or whatever. But, you know, I want to live my life, so I'm not gonna, you know, be able to avoid all risk. I want to Also fly on airplanes and drive in cars, even though there's risks of dying on those things, too. So, you know, you could say, well, I don't want to have any risk with Barry. Well, what's going to be the downside of not taking that action? You know, what kind of life are you going to live if you can't speak up for yourself and be more you? Or what kind of life are you going to live? And you can never ask someone out? That was the question I asked myself when I was younger and I looked at my future. It was pretty damn dismal. So I decided I better do something different. So you've assessed the risk. You're able to look at some of the downsides. And then now, you know what? You're done. You're done. You don't have to sit there feeding the doubt. It's like most of us are stoking the flames of doubt. Most of us are, like, turning to that voice of doom and gloom, the voice that I call Chicken Little in my head, and treating it like it's the CEO of the company, like it's the parent in the family, like it's the trusted advisor. Okay, tell me more about the 7,000 things that could go terribly wrong. I could break my ankle and then fall off the cliff. Oh, my God. I could break my ankle and then slide down the cliff and not quite die, but be off trail and not have any access to anyone, and no one would be able to find me. Try to die a slow, terrible dude. That's pretty good, too. Okay, what else? Oh, God. Oh, my. You know, how long are you going to do that? And that voice just predicts it as if it's so, and if it's so. And that's when I talk about defying doubt and defeating doubt and destroying doubt. It's being able to say, you know what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I hear you. I hear you. I'm gonna analyze the situation, and then I'm gonna act. And I'm not gonna spend more time than I need to listening to you, deferring to you, letting you run my life. So when I help people access that, I defy doubt. I defeat doubt. I destroy doubt. We're accessing a sense of power inside of you that says, you know what? I am the captain of my ship. I'm the one who's gonna decide where I go in my life, not this voice of doubt. And, yes, the voice is helping you, because some of the things it's going to Bring up. You might want to pay attention to. It was a good thing I bought a water filter before I did that hike. You know, maybe it's going to say, hey, Barry, it's going to go terrible with Barry. And you're like, okay, let me look at that. I wonder why. I wonder. There's a way to mitigate that. And you say, you know what? Barry tends to get really defensive. Okay, let me think about the best way to approach him. Well, instead of approaching him in the meeting with everyone watching, let me approach him after. And you know what? I'm gonna say it this way, because I know he's gonna react if I do it that way, but I'm still gonna get the outcome I want or at least communicate what I need to in order to improve the working relationship. So you don't just throw in the towel, but you are able to navigate, so the doubt is actually serving you. That makes sense. Okay, let's talk about how you can put this into action in your life. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is quite simple, and if you haven't guessed it already, I'm sure you'll know what it is as soon as I say it. You need to go talk to Barry and tell that S.O.B. no. But you. I would say, I would invite you over this week to activate the muscle of action in the face of uncertainty. So just take note of that. You know how much uncertainty is there right now. Good. I'm going to take action even before there's total certainty. And if you like, you can go through that process of. When you're looking at the doubt. Okay, what is the message of the doubt? What are the things that are actual things I need to prepare for or protect against or mitigate against? And then beyond that, let me just get into action beyond that, if the voice of doubt comes up, say. All right. Thank you. Think of it like the bouncer at the door, but you can just walk right by the bouncer. That bouncer has no power to actually get in the way and physically stop you. It's just a noisy guy by the door, so give him a nod and walk on through. Walk into your own life. Fantastic. Thank you for being with me here today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're awesome. We'll 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 vlogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.