Dr. Aziz (speaker) describes how self-doubt functions using his personal experience of 20 years of chronic pain and a present-day anecdote about hesitating to do a hard run. He explains that doubt cycles through predictive negative scenarios to 'hook' a person and stop them from acting; his core advice is to repeatedly defy those stories told by doubt to avoid being held back for long periods.
If you've ever stopped yourself from doing what you want because of self doubt or a lack of confidence, then watch this short video. I've had many years to study doubt in myself. First, social confidence, doubt, doubt in myself, and then also doubt in my physical health. Because you might not know this about me, but I spent 20 years in chronic pain. So today I just finished doing a hard run up and down the hills in the woods here. And the morning of the run, my mind says, oh, don't do it today. You need to rest today. Okay, I don't buy that one. This is how doubt works. It's gonna hook you. It's, oh, don't talk to that person today. Do it tomorrow. Oh, don't do it. It's gonna go poorly. Predicts terrible things. So then doubt almost hooked me today when it said, you know what? If you don't recover enough, you're going to injure yourself forever and ever. And that's what my years in chronic pain were like. It felt like I was chronically injured. So doubt is going to keep cycling through things until it hooks you. And if it hooks you and you say, oh, okay, I better stop and not do what I want, not be who I want to be in the world, then it will hold you in its tendrils for weeks, months, or years. So what's the best way to free yourself? Defy doubt again and again with every single story that it tells you?
