Trying To Do It All

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 be talking about doing it all. Oh, yes. Is that something that you try to do? I found that most people are in some way trying to do it all, or if not at all, everything they want or everything they think they should be doing. And then when they try to do it all at once, and then it leads to a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And in fact, when it comes to even the process of freeing ourselves from social anxiety and building confidence or anything else that you want to do in your life to improve your life circumstances, your external circumstances and opportunities and things in business or career or life or relationships, but also internally feeling better inside, feeling less anxious, feeling more centered, feeling more happy, feeling whatever it is you want to experience inside, whatever our pursuits, we can try to do it all at once, or at least too much at once. So we're gonna look at that today and help you become more aware so that you can let some things go. And at first, this is a little paradoxical because we're like, no, I need to do all these things to get to where I want to go. And if I let things go, then I'm not gonna get to where I want to go. I don't have time for this. I don't have time to listen to this podcast. I got all these things to do, but that is an illusion. That is a. It's a constant. We create that. This is how it's got to go. I got to do X before I get to Y. And it's not even just X. I need to do A, B, C, D, E, F, G all the way through X in order to get to Y. I need these 25 things. So let's take a look at that for you in your life right now. So this isn't abstract or theoretical. What is it that you're trying to jam into your day, into your Week into your life that feels like maybe too much. Are you trying to do too many things at once? I see this come up a lot for people. So basic things. You try to do too much in a workday than is physically possible to do or in a work week. And I'm definitely guilty of this one. Okay, I got some time on Tuesday afternoon, three hour block. Great. Okay, I'm gonna do these nine things during that time, let alone that any one of those things would take half the time, if not more. I don't know, I'll just figure it out. I'll just do it. So maybe you're trying to put too much into one work block. Maybe you are just trying to fit too much in a day in general. So you got work, you got family or kids or not, or social engagements or working out or going to the, doing errands, going shopping. And there's this sense, you know, you're doing. What I'm describing is if you feel frayed, you feel a little bit frantic, you feel a little bit spread thin, you feel behind, you feel that sense of when you're doing one thing, there's this little background anxiety of I should be doing something else or maybe something else too. Maybe I should be able to get through this faster and do the other thing or do them both at the same time. We're racing, we're racing to get somewhere. Where is it you're trying to get? Do you relate first of all to this way of being? I certainly do. And I don't want to say that trying to do a lot of different things is bad. So one thing that I've been playing around with right now is trying to figure out how to do the things that I want to do in the morning before, just as part of life. So I want to. So what I was doing before is we have new puppies, relatively new puppies. We haven't had them for a couple months now. And there's some aspect of taking care of the dogs in the morning. There was going to the gym in the morning and then being with my boys in the morning for about maybe two hours or so, so hour and a half. So then my wife can go take care of her body and run and exercise and do other things as well. So that's all before 8:30am and I'm trying to get sleep too. I mean, there was a phase in my life where I was like, sleep is for the week. You know, I'll just wake up even earlier and earlier. And now I'm like, ah, you know, like last night I got maybe about six hours, but I generally try to get seven. Eight is great. So, okay, that early bedtime has to keep going back further and further, right? And then not too long ago I wanted to restart or recommit to my meditation practice, which I could do another episode about because it's present for me right now. But I've had a meditation practice off and on for many years and there's a period about two years ago where I was doing it every day for an hour a day, first thing in the morning. And it felt amazing. Felt so good for me, for my sanity, for non reactivity, for equanimity, for presence, for creativity, for reducing that kind of set point of fear that I think can creep in for me. And I think most of us, that's like, I gotta do something to survive in this world. I'm an independent fragment in a hostile universe, right? And really calming my nervous system and feeling that interconnectivity, which I think can really come when you, you meditate and the mind quiets down and you really feel your presence. That's kind of beneath the sort of rapid thinking about survival and safety and achievement and stuff. So I really benefited from that. And not too long ago I was like, you know what, I want to meditate again. So I want to put that in the morning too. Well, shit, where does that go? So I kind of came up with a plan. It's like, okay, I'm going to get up at this time, take care of the dogs from this time to this time, I'm not gonna give you all the exact details and then meditate and then go to the gym and then be with the boys. Boom. Got it all figured out, right? Yeah. And then what happens? Shit happens. That's what happens, right? Like whatever your perfect plan is for your perfect workday, your perfect routine, your perfect this. I'm gonna do this, this, this, this and that, and then one thing goes off and the whole thing kinda goes rah. It's like a rickety carriage. So what happened actually earlier this morning is I get up, I have all my stuff to go into my studio where I'm going to meditate, and I'm carrying this light and this jar of water and Candice comes out and she's like, one of the dogs peed in his crate and I'm like, ugh. So, you know, going to take care of dogs and I take care of the dogs for a while and then, and so everything gets shifted off. So the question though is what do you do when that happens? And I thought it would be highly ironic, is if something interferes with my meditation practice, I freak out. God damn it. Wouldn't that be sort of defeating the purpose of the meditation? I got to get to go meditate, you fuckers. Right? So I just kind of laughed and said, okay, this is the meditation. This is the meditation. So she went back to bed, and I took care of the dogs and took them out and fed them and just did it as a meditation. Sat with them in my lap for a while and meditated and then went to my office and did the rest of the meditation time and then go to the gym because time got all messed up and there you go. That's okay. That's okay. So there's a couple things that we want to do to free ourselves from this sense of trying to do it all. First and foremost is to ask yourself, what is it I'm trying to get to before we talk about strategy and ways to shift things? But we got to take a step back, because so often we're trying to get to it all, and we don't even know why. I got to get to this, and I got to get to that, and I got to get to that. I was reading an analogy recently where it's like, we're a greyhound chasing the rabbit. If you're not familiar with greyhound racing, which I guess is still a thing, maybe you're really into greyhound racing. I don't know. Greyhound dogs. And they race them on a track, and what they do is they have the dogs all lined up in their little rows, and then they release on the inside of the inner track, this fake rabbit that shoots along this track. And then the dogs race after it, chase it. Of course, the dogs never catch the rabbit. It's just there to trigger their instincts and their training to make them go after this thing and run as fast as possible. And that's kind of what we're doing when we're trying to do it all. We're just like, chasing after this rabbit. I gotta get to this thing. I gotta sell this, you know, get to earn this money and get this promotion and get this. Get this body and get this relationship, and we don't even know why. And we never even get there either, right? Because you get the relationship and then you're onto the next thing. You achieve some sort of weight goal or physical goal. You do the race, you do whatever, and this is the next thing. So we want to slow down and say, what is it I really want? What do I really want. And even better is, what do I really want to feel? How do I want to feel? It's valuable to take some time to really reflect on that and actually describe it to yourself out loud. You know, the other day I was thinking about this, like, how do I want to feel? And it's a great question to ask yourself regularly because it's so easy to get hooked into. I gotta do more, try to do more, and then you're off to the races, right? So I'll ask myself that question regularly. Like, how do I really want to feel when I go to work? How do I want to feel around my family? How do I want to feel when I'm interacting with people? How do I want to feel day to day? And the first thing that came to mind is, well, I want to feel connected, I want to feel grateful, I want to feel guided. I was like, well, what's more there? Well, it's like, I don't want to feel that sense of questioning and doubting and unsafety. Something bad's going to happen in the future. That's something that can creep in for me even when things are going really well. It's like something bad is lurking around the corner. And what that is is just the awareness that things change. Things are impermanent. You know, things in business change, relationships change, people get sick, people die, kids can die. I mean, you know, these things happen. And that doesn't mean that they are happening in this moment or going to or imminent or something, but just that there's. I think there's a general insecurity when it's like, but that something could happen. So there is a truth to that. So how do I want to feel? Is, well, I want to feel deeply at peace, surrendered to whatever happens. Okay, with whatever happens. And not just in the big picture, but even moment to moment. So the dogs need some extra attention in the morning. Instantly surrender that, instantly accept that. And that's where the meditation comes in, is to really practice being able to quickly and repeatedly let go and surrender into the moment and bow to it and just be like, okay, and maybe there's something else. I'm just saying what I want to feel right now. Of course there's other things I want to feel, right? I want to feel love, I want to feel gratitude. I want to feel inspired. I want to feel like mentally engaged, kind of like excited or interested or fascinated. These are all things I want to feel. So what do you really want to feel? What comes to your mind right now? How would you Articulate it. What if you were to articulate it out loud right now to yourself as you're driving, or in your head if you've got other people around you right now? What is the biggest one or two that you would love to feel? I was talking about this with a client in our Mastermind program, the Unstoppable Confidence Mastermind program, which is amazing. And if you would like to know more about that, you can go to SocialConfidenceCenter.com and go to the coaching page and enter your email there and we can have someone reach out to you and talk to you, see what works for you. But that one is by far my most favorite program that we do. It's completely life changing and people are in it for a year, sometimes two or more, and they totally transform. And not just in social confidence. And I can talk to people now and I can feel free to be myself, but. But also big changes in their lives that come as a result of that increased confidence. Career changes, becoming more of a leader in their business and their career, growing the size of their businesses, as well as entering into relationships. We have a person in the group who's actually getting married next week or next month, I should say in about two weeks. And that's amazing because when we first met, when he first started, he was terrified to talk to someone, talk to a woman. So major, major progress of transformation. But we were talking about this in the group call the other day and there's a man in the group who is really struggling in his career and he's trying to make decisions like, do I even want to do this kind of work anymore? This field? He's in the medical field. He's like, I don't even know if I want to do this anymore. And he's tried to run his own businesses or his own business, I should say, in the past, and it didn't work, or it did for a while, but it couldn't sustain. It couldn't really provide that much income, not as much as he wanted. So he's like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to start trying to revamp that or start another business or just go further into the career that I'm in, get more training and more specialization. But I don't really like it. I said, what if you were going to die in four years and not like tomorrow? Because if everyone knows they're going to die tomorrow, that thought experiment's interesting. But usually people, you know, don't really think about what they're gonna do for work. Cause it's like, you know, who cares at that point? But if you're around for four years, you still gotta sustain yourself, right? You're not just gonna, I guess you could just rack up a bunch of debt, take that family. But no, it was just a thought experiment. And he said, I would just be with family, be with people I love, be with my girlfriend, travel. We started to dig about how he feels when he's with his girlfriend, when he's with his family. And guess what? It's love and connection, sharing meaningful moments with people that he loves. And when it came to travel, what travel really meant for him was exploration, new experiences, novelty. That's what he really wanted to feel. And so I gave him one little assignment. I said, you know what, you know, you've been grinding mentally and analytically on what's the best career move for the last whatever month or so. Let's just take a two week break. Probably even longer than a month, honestly. I mean really, really heavily considering for a month. But maybe even months, maybe probably even a year before then, right? But let's just take a little break for the next two weeks. Ask yourself this question. How can, can I experience more love and connection and exploration in my life? And maybe that involves career, maybe it doesn't. He's like, yeah, but what career move does that mean? I was like, I don't know, you gotta live the question, let's find out. Because that's what he really wants in his life, that's what he wants to feel, that's what he wants to go after. And we don't want him just chasing the rabbit as the greyhound endlessly in his career if that's not even what he really wants, if that's not even gonna bring him what he really wants. So that's the big picture way to ask and handle what is it that I want and how do I start to let go of wanting to do it all? Because you're really starting to go after the feelings. And then there's like the day to day smaller strategies, which is one is do less in a day. Now different people need different guidance at different times, right? So if your day is like extremely empty and you're just not doing anything, you feel like you're just playing video games or watching TV all day long and maybe you want to do something else. But even then I would say just like pick one big thing that you want to do that day. So for example, at work, what's the one main project that you want to forward that day. What's the one main thing? Of course you're going to do other things. I understand that. But what's the one thing that's most important to do? What's the one thing? And you think, wow, that's not going to get me anywhere. I don't know. One thing. Even at work, like, one thing that you progressed every day, five days a week, 49, however many weeks a year that you work, That's a lot. That's a lot of things. That's hundreds of things. So even any big project, you might break it down into 30 different things, right? But you get a huge project done over 30 different work days. It's paradoxical. But less is more. In this way, trying to jam in tons of stuff just does not work. And it does not work for your nervous system either, because you feel stressed. Because all of a sudden it's like, if I don't get to the end of this list, I'm gonna feel really bad. And the other thing to do is to. Once you have that one thing, if you want to put in more, like I'm trying to, I could just say, you know what, I'm just gonna go to the gym in the morning and that's it. And I was doing that for a while, but I was like, you know, I really want to do this meditation practice. And this feels like the best time for me in the day to do it. So now there's a game. So if you're gonna try to add in more, realize that you're just playing a game, there's no stress here. There's no necessity, there's no must, there's no danger, there's no failure. There's no identity. Like, oh, I couldn't do it. I'm not good enough. All that's made up. You just get to choose. You know, I want to play this game. And I understand this is a challenging. Think of a video game, right? Like, this is a challenging level of the game to be able to do these things. But I want to do it. I think I can handle that. And then you play the game and you see how you do. Now, for me, the one thing, when it comes to this early morning before family routine, the one thing right now is the meditation. So that means if I can't go to the gym or something, then I won't, because that's the most important thing for me. And maybe I'll get a run in later in the day or something. But even in if you're playing the game to Try to stack it to do more. Pick the one thing and that you can fall back on, and then everything else is bonus. And if you can, you know, line it all up and do those extra things, perfect. But even then, see if you can hold the whole thing just way more lightly with way more fun, way more relaxed. Because remember, the feelings that you're going after is what you're really going for. And so do you have to do A, B and C, D, E, F, G, and so on in order to get those feelings? Or maybe you can just feel that way right now. Maybe you can just allow yourself to be that way, right? Maybe the conditions that you have set up, I have to achieve X before I can feel worthy, before I can feel peace, before I can feel ease, before I can feel relaxed. Maybe those are just conditions that you set up, right? So let's deconstruct those. In fact, let's talk about how to do that right now in your action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step for today is gonna be to look at what it is, the emotion, the emotions that you really want to feel, and then apply some strategy from this episode. So maybe it's the one thing you're gonna try to do each day, you know, and sort of basically figure out the top priority. And then the other things that you might want to do are secondary. And this could be in work. This could be in your morning routine. This could be with your family life or social life. What's the one thing that if you just did that, that would feel really good. And all the rest, trying to do it all. And all the rest is, well, that's a game you could play. And just make sure that you're having fun when you play the game. It's amazing how we can stress ourselves out about stuff that's not even dangerous. It's like, I didn't get to my this, this, and that. Man, it could be so much more easy, right? So much more easeful. So play with that today, and I look forward to seeing you again in the future episodes. Until we speak, then, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

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.

Sam.