The Myth of Perfect Confidence

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 second, 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 show. I'm excited to be with you. Today we're going to be talking about the myth of perfect confidence. The myth of perfect confidence. So you're gonna learn a lot about what confidence really is in today's show, and I think it's really gonna help you not only create more natural, healthy confidence in yourself, but also see some ways that you might have some expectations for yourself, for your life, for your emotions that don't serve you, that actually are counterproductive, that striving for this perfect confidence actually, in a way might be reducing confidence. So I'm excited to share this because it's really helped me and a lot of clients that I work with, so I know it will help you as well. And thank you for being with me today. I don't know if this is your first episode or your 50th or your. Well, not your 500th. Haven't done that yet. I think we're right around 250, though. Oh, yeah. Show's been going for more than four and a half years. Whoa. So a long journey here. And if you haven't listened to that many of this show, then you have a lot of fun stuff to listen to. Many, many hours of me yammering to you. Also, if you want something more targeted and structured and more deep, dive into a specific topic. If you haven't checked out any of my books, I highly recommend them. You can get my audiobooks on Audible and paperback and Kindle through Amazon. And particularly the book Not Nice seems to be really popular. People seem to be wanting to be less nice. So if you really want to go deep into how to uproot a pattern like excessive niceness or social anxiety or something like that, that's a great way to start, is the books and of course, other stuff, too. Go to my website if you haven't done that yet. SocialConfidenceCenter.com SocialConfidenceCenter.com tons of good stuff there, including a free ebook to get you started, as well as videos. Endless amount of stuff there, so check out those resources. Let's talk about perfect confidence. When you are looking at yourself throughout the day, do you have a subtle expectation that you need to be more confident? This is very common when we start working on something. Like we're trying to develop an area, whether it's our health or our mindset or in this case, maybe your less anxiety, feeling more certain in yourself, being more bold or assertive or whatever your targets for confidence are. And we decide that we want to improve in this area in our lives, which is potentially very empowering. We're no longer a victim, we're no longer helpless. That's a great place to be. But then we can also start to have this subtle expectation that we should always feel this way. It was really interesting. There was a student of mine that I worked with for more than a year now, and he's really exploring what he wants to really do with his life. He works as an engineer, but that's not his passion. He's really passionate about sports and athletics and also confidence and helping people grow their confidence. And you can see it when he talks to people in the group program at the live weekends. He really cares about others and wants to help them, is fascinated in the topic. And he realizes that he actually wants to help people improve their lives. Some sort of life coaching is what he wants to do. And then he told me, he said, yeah, but I have this fear. If I teach about something like confidence, I'm not totally 100% confident. Like, how can I teach people that? I was like, oh, yes, I know that one. I know that crazy, weird inner demand. So here's the thing. If I was waiting till I was 100% perfect, unwavering confidence, then you wouldn't be hearing my voice right now and you wouldn't be listening or reading to any of my books right now or watching my videos, because I've never been that. And I really hope that that's not what you are taking away from the show, that you need to get there or that somehow that you are going to get to this place where you never, ever have anxiety, you never have doubt, you never feel inhibited or shy. You're just like rock solid, permanent certainty, blah. I don't know. That doesn't seem realistic to me. So what are we actually striving for? That's what we're going to be talking more in this show. But I want you to take a second now to reflect on yourself, though. Do you have this subtle expectation? Because I find that most people are not walking around consciously thinking I should have perfect confidence. But you notice it when something happens and you don't feel confident how you treat yourself. So think back to the last time you struggled with confidence. Maybe you felt anxious or insecure or jealous or inhibited or held back in some way. Hesitant, passive, something. And maybe you're feeling one of those things or several of those things right now in this moment as you're listening. If so, great. But maybe it happened earlier today, yesterday, a week ago. And just notice. How do you relate to yourself? How did you relate to yourself when you're in that state? Are you kind and curious? Are you impatient? Are you frustrated? Are you irritated with that? Or do you feel embarrassed or ashamed? Oh, man. If people knew that I was anxious right now, they'd think I was just a total loser. Interesting. I'm laughing because I'm working on it. It's gonna be hesitant to say. Some people will be like, when's it coming out? But I'm working on my next book, and the topic is Omos on my own side, no matter what. Not you being on my side. Although that would be great. I mean, you being on your own side. But I want you to be Omos in your life. On my own side, no matter what. And so I'm writing it. And the reason I say I'm working on it is because I haven't. It's new. I'm sort of mucking around, and I haven't hit, like, a stride where I just sit down and crank out a bunch every day. It's like, I'll write something, and I'll be like, that's not quite right. And then the next day, I'll write something. And I notice that at first I'm like, oh, this isn't. I'm not getting anywhere on this. And then I realized, like, wait a minute. Actually, this is getting somewhere. This is how I'm really refining. What exactly am I writing? What is the key theme? What is the tone of this book? What am I really here to communicate? So it's part of the process. But I noticed in there, like all my other books, I am being real and being vulnerable. And so I'm sharing different, you know, experimenting with what stories I might share. And I notice some of them, especially if I reveal certain thought patterns that I have. There are. There's a part that's like, oh, don't write that, ugh, that makes you look neurotic. That makes you look not confident. And the funny thing is, that's okay. Except for if I'm writing the book on how to be on my own side, then instantly I should never have any self criticism anymore. And when I caught that, I was like, wow, that. That's pretty extreme. That would be pretty sweet to have absolutely not even a hint of self criticism or judgment or demand or pressure on myself. But I don't think I've gotten there yet. And that's what actually led me to want to record this episode. It's like, wow. I think my client mentioned it. I feel this. I wonder how many people out there are demanding that they be in this perfect state of confidence. And I think a lot of people actually are demanding that. Not just a perfect state of confidence, but kind of like a perfect emotional state. And that anything that varies off of feeling energetic, happy, enthusiastic, confident, energized, bleh. I can just do it. Yes, I can. I'm awesome. Anything that veers off of that is met with impatience, frustration, and maybe even harsh dislike or shame of ourselves. Shame about ourselves. Is that your experience? I find that as I've worked on being more on my own side, that there are areas that I don't feel that kind of pressure or shame anymore. And then there are areas that I still do. So maybe you've noticed the same in yourself. Like, what are the areas where you. It's okay to not be in a totally. Whatever your version of a perfect emotional state is, and what are the areas where it's not? And I found that there's like, it can be okay to be in that state by yourself. And then there's places where it's not okay to be that state around someone else. So, for example, I can feel, I think. So if I'm feeling anxious, oftentimes I'm okay with that. It's like, okay, just feeling anxious right now. I'll try to get in my body and breathe and feel in my heart. That's okay. If it's a strong anxiety or intense, I think I do still like, okay, let's get rid of this shit. I might fight it, I might resist it, but if it's not as intense, I think I can be with it. Okay. However, I notice that if I have anxiety about working with clients, like leading a live event or something, that there's a part of me that views that as totally unacceptable. And it's that loop of craziness that my client, who wants to be A life coach talked about, well, if I'm teaching, if I'm leading a live event about confidence, then I should not feel fear. It's so absurd when I say it out loud. And Candice, my wife, will remind me of that. She's like, dude, that's not. She doesn't say dude. I say dude. But she said, that's not what you're teaching people. You're not teaching people to have absolutely no fear at all. You're teaching people how to feel their fear, be in their bodies and their hearts and have the courage to go do what matters to them in life. Like, you're doing it matters to you to teach these events and spread this message and help people. And so you're doing it even though it's scary. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. You should lead the workshop. I'll hide behind the curtain. I'm not confident enough to teach this one. Guys gotta sit this one out. So the problem, though is not that I feel fear or that you feel fear of something, or that you feel anxious or that you feel sad or anything, Anything that's happening, any emotion that's occurring in you. The problem is this demand of, I should be blank. Do you feel that pressure on yourself as we're talking here? It can be happening. Like, there can be like these punctuated, intense kind of spasms of it where you're just like, I suck. I should have. But then there can also be this low grade kind of background pressure that you feel. You're just not quite doing it right. Just, come on. You should just be a little more happy. You should just be a little less worried. You should just be a little less sad. You should just be a little more talkative. You should. Come on, come on. Do you feel any of that? Is there any subtle pressure on you right now in this moment as you're listening? In fact, just take a moment to fully breathe and just relax your face, your jaw, your belly, and just breathe and feel. Feel in your body, feel in your heart. Get out of your mind and into your body with your awareness. Is there any pressure there? Is there any threat? And what happens if. Well, just notice that actually before we do anything with that. Is that there all the time? What are you demanding of yourself? What are you demanding of yourself right now? And the funny thing about demanding that we feel different and that we feel more confident is it's like the more you try to squeeze it, the further it gets. These emotional states kind of arise in us and then we can enjoy Them or use them. And then a different emotional state comes in. And there's these tools to kind of work with our feelings, whether it's cognitive, behavioral therapy or other things. And it can be easy to try to use those tools. Well, it's like, well, that helps me work with my negative moods and depression. That I should feel amazing all the time. That's what I really thought. And there's this behind that, there's this denial of reality. A denial of reality that we are going to have a variety of emotions every day. Every damn day, man. All these feelings and shit. But we have this simplistic idea that we're just supposed to feel awesome all day long. And if you don't, you're failing. And here's how you feel awesome all day long. There's a clear recipe. You know, you wake up and you say your affirmations and you do your 87 minute meditation and then you do your push ups and then you go to go for a run or go to the gym. And then of course you eat healthy and then you go to work and you have a positive attitude at work and you take on challenges and you're not afraid of nothing. Don't feel any fear, wimp. And you go attack your problems and your challenges and you crush it. And then you crush your enemies and you increase your sales and you get more of everything and everyone's in awe of your incredibleness. And that's all before lunch. So you become this amazing. You become amazing in the external world and everything goes your way. And then you're going to feel awesome all day long. Any of that ringing any bells? Is it? You feel any of that pressure on yourself and say, well, what if I don't feel that way? What if I don't feel awesome today? Well, then you're fucking a loser. Come on, man, pull it together. Do more disciplines in the morning. You lack discipline, right? And so then we're trying to do our discipline. Have you ever done that? I've done that. Like I'm gonna meditate so hard right now. I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna get this. Or I'll go into my head and like fantasize about how hard I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna meditate for like an hour and a half a day. Yeah, imagine doing that every day. And I could tell people I'd do that too. Get a little boost of significance. Number one. Number one, meditator, man. I'm in an awesome state all day long. And you might be thinking I'm being absurd or silly or ridiculous here, but just notice it because let's say someone asks you how you're doing. Doing great, doing fine. How you doing? Doing better than you. Right? Isn't there this pressure to look great, feel great, act great, be great, be in this permanent up state? And then aren't we doing all this shit to try to sustain that? Like, drink your coffee in the morning or else. Why? What happens if you don't drink that coffee? Oh, I feel like shit. I mean, it's so universal that we have, like, T shirts and mugs that say, like, I hate my life before my coffee. Fuck you before my coffee. It's like, isn't that a problem? Like, what if someone said fuck you until I have my alcohol this morning? Everyone's like, whoa, whoa, man. Jeez, you got a problem. You need to. You're an alcoholic. You need to go to aa. But if someone's like, man, I'm just so fucking grumpy without my. I'm cranky without my coffee. Just wanna kill someone, we're like, oh, I know what you're talking about, man. Yeah, let's get this man some coffee, right? So there's these things that we do that are just universally accepted because of the pressure in the culture, because of the demand and the expectations of the culture. This is how you got to be. That's a product. It's a working man's drug. Working woman's drug coffee. And we're trying. We're trying so hard to be in this positive up state. So if we can't, we feel shame, and if we can't, we pretend like we are. And the worst is if you feel like you have to pretend that around your friends, around your family, around your spouse, your partner, your loved ones, your kids, that's the worst. Because maybe you're like, yeah, it sounds like a great fantasy disease, but I do got to be up and positive at work. Okay? All right. And I'm not saying like that if you're feeling down, you show up to work and people like, how you doing? You're like, fuh, I fucking hate my life. You know, maybe you decide how much you want to reveal and how you want to talk about it. Usually there's a way to be more real and describe things as they are as opposed to just some dramatic negative statement. But in any case, when you get home or you wake up in the morning and your sweetie or someone asks you, how are you? Do not put the guard up there, man. It's hard Enough. Because if you do, you. You're gonna start to feel real isolated real fast. Cause then the only person knows. Well, probably your partner and people close to, you know, you're full of shit anyway. But the only person that really knows how you're doing is you. If you slow down enough to acknowledge it, because you can't hide from yourself for long. But if you start to let people in, just share. Oh, I'm feeling anxious right now. I'm feeling this right now. You know what's crazy is I've done this a lot. I have a great practice of this with my wife, Candice, who teaches workshops on authenticity and open communication, all this stuff. So I have a very supportive environment to practice this in, which is good for me because I grew up in denial mode. And in my family, you know, everything's great. It's funny in my family, when you talk to people, my mom, my brother, my dad, to some degree, my mom and brother do this a lot. Like, hey, how's it going? Or tell me what's going on? And they'll give you, like, a report of how things are going. And they'll have, like, a really big, peppy, upbeat tone. Oh, it's pretty good. Oh, we did this. And this is great. And it's like. It's kind of different than a normal way of talking. It's only specifically, like, on the phone and relating something. And for me, as I've gotten more and more perceptive, it's very, very easy to tell when there's something bothering them underneath that they're giving a little pepe thing on. But that's just how we learned. That's what we learned to do. And so I did that for a long time in my life. And even when I got together with Candace, she'd ask me, like, how are you doing? Or what do you. And I'd always be like, I'm doing great. I'm fine. And she started asking me, like, how are you really doing? You can share, you know. And so I started, over time, slowly testing things out. One of the hardest ones to reveal was when I felt angry, though, or irritable. Man, that one held out for years. So I'd almost deny it or just downplay it or whatever, but then be, like, irritable about, why do we have all these lids in our pot drawer? I'm getting rid of this lid right now, Aziz. That's the lid we actually use for the main. No, I'm going to get rid of this lid right now. I'm not upset I'm just frustrated about the pot lid situation. Not that I'm really angry inside. So over time, I started to reveal that one too, which I realized the reason I didn't want to reveal that is I felt a lot of shame. I felt like I was failing as a man. Like, I'm supposed to always be have a better attitude. Like, anger means you're failing is what I linked up somewhere along the way. And so I made it a practice more recently to just identify, like, I'm irritable right now. I'll say it out loud. I'm feeling cranky right now. Cranky is a good one too, because the kids understand that one. So sometimes when I'm with them, I'll just be like, I'm feeling cranky right now. And that really helps, actually, because the moment you name something, there can be start to be some more acceptance of it. In fact, that brings us to like, well, what's the pathway then? This might seem like a doom and gloom episode. You might be feeling relief actually hearing about this, letting go of this perfect idea of confidence. But you might also think, well, this is doom and gloom. Like, I do want to feel better. I do want to feel less anxious. I do want to feel happier. Are you saying that I can't and I'm just supposed to be it and then tell everyone that I feel terrible? No, no. I mean, we have so much potential to empower ourselves in our lives. We can take actions. And confidence is a byproduct of action. So if you take actions that are uncomfortable, over time, you will start to feel more confident. So my baseline confidence and how I feel about myself day to day now versus 15 years ago is like, I don't know, 1,000% increase, scientifically measured by the way, thousand percent. So it's great. I mean, really challenging days now. I'll take any of those now over what I used to feel like almost all the time. So, you know. But your standards improve over time, so I want to feel even better. So how do we do that? Well, take action. Confidence is a byproduct of action. The other thing you want to do is. What I'm leaning towards a lot in this episode is acceptance. We had an episode not too long ago about saying yes to yourself, to life, to emotions. Saying yes to emotions is what this is a lot about. Yes. Yes, I'm feeling irritable. Yes, I'm feeling anxious. Yes, I'm feeling afraid. Just face it, name it and be with it. And if you want next level relief, then really Let go of needing to get rid of it. That's the in between step. Because a lot of people are like, okay, fighting my feelings and fighting the anxiety and fighting. This hasn't worked. Fine, I get it. What do you got? And then I'll introduce this idea of acceptance and whatever, and they're like, okay, all right, all right, I'll play your little game. So you're saying, accept this shitty feeling and then it will go away. Alright, let's try that. Let's try that. I'm like, no, no, wait, that's not gonna work. And I do it too, right? Especially the feeling's really strong or really intense. Like, oh, jeez. Okay, whew. You know, let me fight this for a couple of days. Try to operate on top of it, stay extra busy and then slow down and be like, alright, fine, let me feel this feeling. Okay, I'm gonna feel you for like 10 minutes. Are you gone yet? It doesn't work. It just persists. So I'm talking about full acceptance of a feeling and so naming it to other people can be helpful. And then just being with it, loving yourself, loving it, not needing it to go away. That paradoxically brings in a lot more confidence. You don't need to hide as much. You don't need to be anything other than you are. And then you start to feel better about you and more able to show who you are, more able to express yourself, more able to say what you want, more able to be assertive. All the things that that rock star, perfect, confident person does, just more organically and maybe not every day, all the time, just letting it go, having a much more relaxed stance with yourself. In fact, let's talk about how to put this even more into action right now. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is to just start to name the feeling that you're experiencing throughout the day and see if you can name it just neutrally with more neutrality. Instead of like this, it's like, oh, hmm, this is what's going on right now. Almost like a status check. Like you're in a spaceship in a sci fi movie. And they're like, what's the status of the oxygen tanks in the space basement? And the person's like, um, they're at 74%, captain. So you could just do that for yourself. Do you like that? Should I do, like a little space drama someday? Maybe just the whole episode would be like me acting out different characters. Something goes wrong in the space basement. What are we gonna do, Captain? And then of course, the story. I'm getting a good idea here. Of course, the story of the episode would teach the lessons of confidence. Space Basement. Stay tuned. You just might have a space opera coming. Coming your way. But you just name it. Like I am. Like, what are you right now? You happy right now, you sad right now. And don't make them fancy, fancy words. Just afraid. Stressed, sad, scared, hurt, happy, excited, enthusiastic, bored, energized. Just pick one or two. Like, how am I right now? What's the status? Okay, and then just notice. What's the. Is there a pressure? If it's a negative emotion, is there a pressure to be different, be better? Is there shame around it? And if so, just see if you can relax and soften that a little bit. And that's really what Omos is all about. That's what I'll be conveying in that book one day. One day. When it's done. I'm in no hurry. You can wait. You can wait. There's plenty of other stuff out there. Other books. That's what my critic was saying one day when I was sitting down to write. Oh, my God. Other people have already written on this topic. There's way better books on this shit. Just tell people to go read Tara Brock's Radical Acceptance. Your work here is done. By the way, you should read that book, if you haven't already. Tara Brock, Radical Acceptance. She's my competitor. Her book's better than mine, I think. But I'm still gonna write mine. And it will help people too, I'd imagine. Maybe you. Maybe you one day. Anyway, thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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. It.