27 Mar 2019 · 25 min
Dr. Aziz explains how inaccurate mental models about social situations keep you stuck. He walks through case studies of people testing their beliefs through small real-world actions: asking for a raise, ending a relationship, changing how they think about pain. Start by identifying one belief you're not sure about and test it.
Chapters
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 episode of the show. Good to be with you today. We're going to be talking about something today that can really open up doors for you. And there's usually one place in our lives or several where we feel stuck. It might be more or less intensely stuck. Maybe it's really stuck and you feel like you're in the same place and you're never going to get to where you want. You're repeating the same patterns again and again. Or it's just more something like stuck in the mud, but it's kind of like molasses. It's a little slower than you want and there's doubt about how long it's going to take to get there. And if you will. And what I'm going to share with you today is going to highlight something really liberating, which is that what you want may be a lot closer than you think and that the problem might not be you or some quality that you're missing or whatever story you have. The problem might be inaccurate intel, specifically, you might have bad maps. You might have inaccurate maps, and these maps are leading you to not be able to get to where you want to go. So I'm super excited to have this conversation with you today. It's really going to open up so much for you. And as always, if you want to go further and deeper, check out SocialConfidenceCenter.com SocialConfidenceCenter.com if you're benefiting from these podcasts, you can go there to find out about my YouTube channel. You can go there to find out about my free ebook, five Steps to Unleash youh Inner Confidence. And sign up to get that as well. That's a very in depth, step by step guide to the five steps. And then I follow that up with a video on each step to help you really integrate it. So a ton of stuff there. And of course you can Learn about my programs and products, including Confidence University, which is the most comprehensive, systematic way to upgrade your confidence in your self confidence, social mastery, dating, and relationship and career acceleration. So, so phenomenal stuff in that program. Check all that out@socialconfidencecenter.com and let's talk about upgrading your map. So you may or may not know what I mean by that. I reference maps in numerous places, but particularly in my book. Not nice. And so maybe you know what I'm talking about. But let's just start with you might not all of us have internal representations of the outside world like a map. We all have a map of how things are gonna go out there. And just like a real map, whether it's on paper or on your phone, at this point, you look down at the map and it says, like, if you go straight and then you go left, then you go left, you'll be at your destination. And then you look up at the real world around you and you say, okay, I'm go straight, I'm gonna go left, I'm gonna go left. Ah, there I am at the Starbucks or whatever, right? So that's how the map is a representation. The map shows you what's gonna be out there, and if you follow the map, then you get to where you want to go. Make sense? Also, how does this apply with our own internal maps? Well, you might not realize this, but you, me, everybody at this exact moment has thousands of maps. You have tons of maps in your head about the world out there. And I don't just mean physically where things are, you know, in spatial relationship, like northwest, east, south. I mean, you have maps about how human interactions go, how life goes. So let me give you an example. You might have a map that says, if I speak up for myself and say something I don't like to somebody, then they're gonna be upset back and we're getting into a fight and the relationship's gonna be in trouble. So that is an internal map. That's like saying, if I go straight, left and left, I'm gonna end up in the seedy part of town. I might get mugged. And so your map says, if you do these things, this is where you're gonna end up, alone in conflict, suffering. And so we say, well, I don't want to go down that route. That sounds terrible. Let me go the other way. And so your map says, well, hey, if you keep silent, if you just swallow what you're frustrated by, if you just try to be more flexible and let go, then you'll have a better relationship and you'll feel happier and you're like, well, that sounds better. How do I get there? Okay, go straight, but then go right and then go right. Oh, okay, all right. So you do that and you think it's going to bring you to a better relationship and better happiness and so forth. But where does it take you? Straight off a cliff, right? No, it takes you somewhere where you don't want to be. It takes you into resentment ville, or feeling tense and frustrated, or feeling pain in your body, or feeling self critical, or feeling more anxious and more insecure, more clingy and more needing and more afraid to speak up, less powerful. And so the end result is you don't end up where you want to be, which is in a great relationship or feeling better about connecting with people. You end up someplace that feels very painful. Does that make sense? So we have these internal maps and we have them all over the place about speaking up, about saying no, about asking for what you want, about revealing your sexual preferences or what you like in someone, about even revealing your thoughts and opinions and feelings about any topic. About politics, about sports, about religion, about hobbies, about philosophy. If I share openly about this philosophy that I'm interested in, people are going to judge me. If I share that I don't drink people, this is going to happen. Dozens, hundreds, literally thousands of maps. And they all follow this category of like, if you do X, Y and Z, if you go straight left and left, you're going to end up here. And we're following these maps all the time until we start to question them, we start to examine them, and we start to say, wait a minute, maybe something different. Maybe the world works differently. And this just came up yesterday. We were doing a mastermind call on the unstoppable confidence mastermind. And there's one participant in there who has made some radical changes in the last six months. And when he came into the program, he was successful in business. He ran his own business with a partner, and they had a company that they were growing. And he was good at that. He was very good at his job. But he was not assertive in his workplace. He had a hard time with his business partner who was very. He was kind of the softer, nicer guy. And his business partner, she was very like direct, demanding, critical. And he'd kind of try to accommodate her. He'd be afraid a lot if she's gonna be upset with me today. And then he also had a hard time being assertive with employees. You know, someone who's not working well. And then he reprimands them, has meetings with them, tries to help him out, eventually needs to let him go, but feels too guilty too. So there's a lot of, like, niceness that's preventing him from being the most powerful business leader he can be. And then even more so in his romantic relationship. He'd been in a relationship for many years, and while they were really good friends, maybe even best friends, it was a very platonic relationship. There was no sexual experience or charge and had not been that way for many, many years. And it seemed not able to be resuscitated. And so he was drawn to change that in his life. He wanted to experience both love and passion with a partner, but was terrified of doing so and mainly afraid of hurting her feelings and just be feeling so guilty breaking up with this woman that he'd been with for so long. So that's the starting point. And then just last night in a call, this is six months later, I commented on it immediately. I said, like, raise your hand for those of you who knew him from when he first came into the group. Raise your hand if he looks different and sounds different tonight as he's sharing. And pretty much everyone that knew him from when he started raised their hand, as did I, because it was palpable. And we were talking about, what has he been doing? Well, over the last six months, he's made changes in his business. He ended up breaking up with that partner and then went into a spiral of pain and suffering, as you would expect after being with someone for so long and really struggled, but had to work through it. And that's how we grow stronger. You know, some of the time we're afraid to make these changes in life because we're like, oh my God, it's going to be so uncomfortable. And when people say that to me, I'm like, well, maybe, probably. I mean, it depends upon the change. But yeah, moving to a brand new city where you don't know anyone, changing careers is going to rock the boat. Ending a relationship that you're really kind of enmeshed in or feel really close with the person, but it's not right. Yeah, those are gonna rock your world. But it doesn't mean we don't do it. That's like the price of admission. That's the cost to get to where you want to be in life. So he made this change, went through the pain and started to emerge from it. And throughout that time had been making progress in his business of being more assertive. And this is how it relates to maps, by the way, if you're wondering, just last night he was sharing, he had a conversation with his business partner and. And his business partner was asking him for something and he just said. He said, I said it in the most direct way I ever have, the almost dismissive way. He said, no, I'm not going to do that. Just like that, to whatever the request was from his business partner. And he never spoken like that to his business partner before. And inside his map, his mental map was if you say no to people, especially if you're direct in that. No, like, nah, no thanks. No, no, I don't want to do that. You know, it's not even like, oh, sorry, I wish I could. But no, just not soft. Just, boom, there it is, direct. If I'm direct like that, the shit's gonna hit the fan, right? It's gonna blow up. They're gonna be upset at me, they're gonna yell at me, whatever. And not only did his partner just say, his business partner just said, okay. Later on, his business partner messaged him and referenced about how much that she respected him or his perspective, and then even asked his opinion on something else in the business. And when he shared this, there's like a smile on his face and kind of a slightly bewildered look, like he was shocked that the map that he'd been using for, whatever, decades was total bogus. And then I asked people in the group, I was like, raise your hand if you too have had a map you've been running or living by for many years, and you've had that moment where you realize that it's total bullshit. And lots of hands went up. I was like, isn't that a crazy experience? I had that experience right on mental map, which was, there's something structurally, fundamentally wrong with my body because I had chronic pain starting at the age of 15 and got tons of diagnoses and autoimmune conditions and all this stuff, and all these treatments didn't work. And so there was something wrong with my body. And so if I use my body and test my limits physically, I'm going to get injured, I'm going to get hurt, I'm going to have problems, and they're never going to go away because my body's weak and broken. I need to be on medicine for the rest of my life. These were mental maps that I had. And so if you think if I use my body, I do push ups, if I do any kind of strength training, if I run, if I play soccer, if I do Anything with my body, I'm going to get hurt and it's going to stay hurt and be limited from then on. How are you going to operate? Well, generally you're going to contract, you're not going to try as much, you're not going to do as much, you're going to avoid opportunities to be physically active. And so that's the map. That's the map that I followed for many, many years. And it was only in the last two years that I systematically. I mean, it was longer in terms of challenging other places, but in the last two years is when I really went for the jugular and went after the original pain and the chronic autoimmune condition, which it wasn't. But all of a sudden I started having these experiences of like, I'd use my body and I just use it to the limit. And then the next day, maybe I'm sore, but I'm stronger. And it's this like, almost disorienting feeling. It's like, like, wait a minute. The ground that I thought was solid, because we hold onto our maps as if they're solid, even if they're shitty, even if they're leading us to the wrong place, we still hold onto it because at least I have some certainty, dammit. And to step into the uncertainty of, like, wait a minute, I could be. Have been wrong can be very uncomfortable. Because then you're like, but wait a minute, can I even trust my own maps? And the answer is, well, yes and no. Depends on how accurate that shit is. Because, yes, if the map is accurate, it's an extremely powerful tool. Google Maps is extremely. My experience is very accurate on my phone and it's an extremely powerful tool. You can plot me in a new city. I don't know anyone, don't know anything. I know how to find where I want to eat, because I don't eat, you know, want to eat like a hippie place, like Whole Foods or something. I know how I'm going to get to my destination, get to the seminar, get to the training, get to the vacation spots that are with my family. It's all there, you just plug it in. But if you're using something that has ineffective maps, which back in the day, maps were a lot more ineffective. Remember in the first days of the maps on the Internet, there was a thing called MapQuest, and I remember MapQuest, like, you'd get the instructions and you get the map, then you'd have to print it out on paper. You'd print it on paper and you have the sheet of paper in your car and put it on your passenger side next to you. That's what I would do. And I remember, I have a distinct memory of one time following it to the table and literally ending up in, like, some vacant lot. Just like. And, you know, have you ever had that experience where you're following an inaccurate map? And along the way, especially as you get closer and closer to the destination, you're like, this does not seem like I'm getting closer to this place. Like, why is it. Why is it so far out in this weird residential area? You know, this is like a business establishment that I'm going to like, what's happening. It doesn't seem like there's going to be an REI out here. And then you get to the. But you keep going, though, because you're like, well, the map. The map says the map's got to be right. Might as well follow it all the way through. Maybe it'll just be around that corner behind those weird abandoned train track things. And then you get there and you're like, oh, no, no, that map is totally inaccurate. And that's our experience with these maps. So where are you following inaccurate maps? What are some of the maps that you've been following that just do not. That are not true? And here's the challenge with this question, though. We think our maps are accurate. And so when I say which ones are inaccurate, you're like, I don't know, maybe other people. Mine are probably like, totally. All right, though. Well, here's the thing. Are you where you want to be in these different areas of your life? In your social life, in your self esteem, even, but in your career, in your romantic life, Are you where you want to be? And if you're not where you want to be, you're probably following an ineffective map because the map might tell you, hey, if you take action in this X, y and z way, you're going to get pain and problems and it's not going to work. But in fact, it's actually going to work. It's actually what you need to do to get what you want. So here's a real basic example. If I approach someone that I'm attracted to and reach out to them on an app, online, in person, and put myself out there, you know, especially with someone I'm really drawn to, I think is really, you know, beautiful, smart, intelligent, valuable, whatever. Whatever you're into. If I do that, they're gonna be like, get away from me. You're not good enough for me. You're out of my league or I'm out of your league. You know, they wouldn't say that, but that's. You anticipate a rejection and kind of like a dismissal. So that's your map. And if that's your map, how many people are you going to approach? Right? None or very low. And that one fundamental error in your map can kill your dating and relationship life, your love life for months or years. And I've seen it happen. And I say kill it in the sense that it's totally non existent as it was for me for many years when I was younger. Or you end up settling for someone that reaches out to you even though it's not a very good fit, but you're like, hey, take what I can get. Or you are afraid to break up with someone who's not a good fit for you because you think you're not gonna find anyone else. Because if I approach people I'm attracted to, it's not gonna work out. So you stay in a relationship for months or years longer than you actually want to. Do you see how profoundly one map can impact your life? So where are you not where you want to be? And what map might you be following? What if then statement? What anticipated result might you be living by that is limiting you? And then the follow up question is, well, what do we do about this? How do we get out of this? And there is really only one way to upgrade our maps that's effective because you can read ideas, you can learn the mindsets of people who are more successful or have more of what you want in a certain area and that's a way to get a sense of what their map is. So maybe you say I don't speak up at all because people are gonna get upset at me if I speak up. And then you read about some powerful business leader or look at your friend who's more successful in work and business and you find out what they do and what this other business person does is hey, I don't like something, I bring it up right away. You might be like, wow, that sounds proactive, but we still probably won't do it. Other people's maps and mindsets can pave the way for us. But there's only one way to change your map and that is to go the new direction and see what actually happens, is to test out reality. So this client from the mastermind that I was mentioning earlier, he had the direct interaction with his co worker, right? So he had that experience as the business partner and only in doing so did he see that his predictions were total bogus. Another map was, well, if I break up with this person, it's going to utterly devastate and destroy them, and then I'll feel guilty and be a terrible person. So he broke up with that person and he found out what actually happened, which is, yeah, they felt upset and I felt bad and I hurt, but I worked through it, and now I'm getting to the other side of it, and. And my life is starting to brighten up and get better and better. Another client I worked with who had been in a relationship for many years, that was a marriage that was not optimal for him, and he knew it for many years, but was staying in it because he felt scared to end the relationship. He had kids with his wife, and he was convinced that he would be a bad person, he'd be a terrible father if he left, even though he was dead inside, especially romantically. And so over a period of several months of really examining this and really looking at what was possible for him, and even hear from other group members who were saying, like, you know, my parents divorced and actually got better after they divorced. And that kind of blew his mind, that instead of, if you end this relationship, you're a terrible father and things are going to go south for you and your family and everyone. What if life could be better? And then he had the courage to test it and sure enough, flash forward. Yeah, these things are these transitions. I'm talking about big transitions here, but we have small maps, too. But in the big transitions, you're going to feel pain. He felt a lot of pain. It was hard. And on the other side of it, he's way more alive. He's more solid and confident in himself. His energy is magnetic. People are just drawn to him for dating, for relationships, for business. And he says this with total 100% congruence and certainty. He's like, my relation with the kids is so much better, and he has a house nearby, and he spends a lot of time with them. He's like, but I feel so much more alive and fun and playful when I'm with him because I'm not, you know, dying inside. I feel alive again. So let's turn this into action time for action, action, action. Your action step for today is gonna be to find one of your maps that you have a hunch is inaccurate. You might not know. Maybe part of you says, like, no, no, it's totally accurate. But you have a hunch and you just want to test it and look, you know, does that mean to Go end a relationship of 10 years tonight. I don't know, maybe if you're crazy, you want. You want to go big, but start small. Maybe you have an idea that if you ask someone a favor or ask for something that you want at work, in a relationship, in a friendship, in a romantic situation, that the other person's gonna say no and actually be kind of like upset at you. Well, test that out. Because a healthy relationship, whether it's at work or romantically or socially, is built on a capacity for you to ask, be clear about what you want and ask for it. And you just might find. And this has blown my mind so many times. I had so many nice Guy maps and so much anticipation of upset and rejection and someone not liking what I said and really imagining that the most common response I'm going to get for just being me, just saying what I want, asking for what I want, responding with more authenticity was going to be surprise, upset, dislike, rejection, disapproval. And so I didn't test it for many years, said, oh, yeah, that's how it is. I was not even conscious of all this. That's the beauty of this episode. And if you take this and really apply it, you'll start to become more conscious and then you'll question these things and then you can test them. And then when you test it, that's when you really get on a deep level. Because otherwise it's just intellectual. Like, oh, yeah, possibly that's true. But no, no, I really do think that my map is still accurate. I'm not going to take that risk. And ultimately, though, when you do, when you test it out and you see, wait, actually, if I go this way and this way and that way, I end up where I want. I have a better relationship. The person respects me more because I said no, because I have boundaries that people like me more when I ask for what I want and I say no to things. This is a map that has come up with my wife, Candice, for sometimes there'll be an opportunity with a friend or maybe even a newer potential friendship, and she's trying to coordinate with them. And life is full with the two little kids. And so it's like they'll reach out and offer something and then she's not available for that, so she'll say, no, I can't do that. How about something else? And sometimes she'll have to say no several times. And she's talking about how she has this anxiety of like, well, if I say no several times, you know, they're going to be like, well, forget you. I don't have time for this. I said, well, maybe I guess if they're like, hey, can you do this? And you're like, no, period. It's like, but if you're warm and you're like, I can't, but I'd love to see you another time. How about this? You know? And you're indicating that you actually do want to spend time with them, but you're just not available after several times of that, actually, you might be even more desirable to that other person. I've experienced that if there's someone I want to hang out with, like, if I don't really care that much and they're not available, I'm like, eh, whatever. But if I really want something or I really want to connect with someone, like, this person's awesome. I want to hang out with them and they're not available for the first time or two, I just want it. I still want it. I might even want it more. It's like, ooh, person's scarce. So these maps, they show up everywhere and test, test like crazy. That's your action step for today. Thanks for being with me. 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. 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 social confidencecenter.com it.
