Why You Must Face Your Fears To Build 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 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 one of the most necessary steps for you to take to build extraordinary confidence in 2022 and beyond. And that is why you must face your fear if you really want to build confidence. Now, this is something that is fairly. It's a very basic concept to grasp intellectually. You might already know this in your mind, but there's a huge difference between knowing it in your mind and living it and doing it with your practices and your behaviors and your actions and your lifestyle and your choices. And so what we're gonna look at in today's episode is why it is essential to face your fears in order to create the confidence that you want. And in the next episode, we're gonna talk more about how to face your fears. Now, before you just skip this one and go straight to the next one, you say, I already know. I already know why it's important to face my fears. I'll just listen to the next episode about how to face my fears. Well, one of the most powerful instigators of change is you seeing clearly the necessity to do something. So let's take another example that's outside of this realm. Say someone has got a lifestyle issue in the way they eat, and they're sedentary and they're not healthy and they're very overweight. And the doctor says, hey, listen, you got to change your lifestyle. You know, you need to start eating clean and healthy and more fruits and vegetables, and you gotta start moving and walking. And the person's like, okay, well, how do I do that? You know? Well, there's a thousand and one ways about how. It's like, well, you have oatmeal in your house instead of like, you know, the Egg McMuffins or whatever, right? It's like, there's a thousand and one weight house. But if that person doesn't really get why they must do it, then they won't. There'll be stories and excuses and reasons. So you can jump to the how, how to face your fear. But when you really, really get it, like let's say that person really gets why it is essential for them to change their lifestyle, all of a sudden, the how becomes easy. The how becomes clear. You pick one of the thousand and ones and you just do it. It's like, oh, I just cook the oatmeal and I eat it. That was pretty simple, right? Your mind wants to make it very complex because it's trying to protect you from the things that you're scared of. It's still in avoidance mode, so don't jump ahead. Listen to this. This one's extremely important. Why? You must face your fear to overcome your anxiety and to create confidence. So fear is a perception of danger. In order for you to be afraid, there's some conclusion that your mind comes to that you're in danger. And that's a natural response to things where there might actually be a threat. So let's say there is someone that's a potential aggressor or attacker in some certain situation, right? Or some wild animal or something like that. Or there is a fire, you know, in your house. These are situations where you're going to feel fear. The fear is concluding in your mind there's danger. And then you're assessing that there's a threat. And then you do something to neutralize the threat. You attack it, you run away from it, you freeze, right? You have your human defense responses. Then, though, there are the billion other situations, circumstances and experiences of our modern lives in which you feel fear. There's a perception of danger. And you assess, am I at threat right now? Is there something threatening me? And we conclude, erroneously, yes, yes, it is a threat to me. Now I feel danger, and now I feel fear. And now I'm going to neutralize the threat, right? I'm going to attack it, I'm going to run away, or I'm going to freeze. And so what's happening is there is a misfiring of your survival programming that is interpreting all of these things as actual threats. And I'm not saying we could split hairs here and you could say, well, you know, I don't know, maybe it is threatening. If my boss is mad at me, maybe I'll get fired, maybe I'll lose my job. Sure, yes. But in this case, I'm using, like, am I in danger for my life right now? That's the kind of threat that we're talking about because your boss being mad at you is uncomfortable. It might lead to some change in your circumstances, but it's not life threatening. And even if you perceive that as the case and it's a specific perception, it's not the only way to look at it. If your boss gets upset with you, you're collapsing this equals that, equals that equals that, a whole chain of events into one thing. You're concluding a lot, you're jumping to a whole range of conclusions. They're mad at me, which means that they're going to fire me, which means there's going to be no recourse. And that means I'm. And then I'm not going to be able to get any other employment. And then I'm going to have a series of events that leads to me being homeless and then this and then that. And you follow that whole train down, right? And you can. That's called catastrophizing. And then it does feel, you know, then you can imagine, you know, being attacked somewhere in the woods or whatever. And it's like, okay, that is a long string of cause and effects that now I feel threatened by. But that's not actually threatening. That's the mind creating this whole story, right? So what we need to do is we need to discover that you need to get that deeply in your mind and in your emotions and in your behaviors and in your habits and in your nervous system to where you really get that someone being upset with me is not a threat to my survival. Ah, so relieving someone rejecting me is not a threat to my survival. A big bill or losing money or some other financial hurdle or challenge is not a threat to my survival. And when you really get that, then you can start to take more bold action in the world, right? Because when you're in a state of survival, fear perceiving, there's a life threatening experience gonna happen, you're not gonna be taking a whole lot of bold action. You might freeze, you might take some frantic action. But that's very different than bold action. It's usually a lot less effective, right? So, you know, we must learn to face these fears because that is how we really get that it's not life threatening. In fact, let me tell you a story about this. I remember I had a client who was absolutely terrified of conflict with a certain family member. It was his brother. And for years he'd been like tiptoeing around conversations with his brother. And he was concerned that, you know, if his brother got upset with him I'm not gonna get into the whole story here, but the brother had a lot of, like, influence in the family. And basically, if I upset my brother, then I'm gonna be ousted from the family. I'm not gonna get these things. And, you know, it was like, I wouldn't be invited to family things. I'd be ostracized. He would. You know, they would sort of disown me, and I wouldn't have any access to the estate and all these things when my parents die. So he was really, like, very pleasing and ingratiating and submissive with his brother. And his brother kind of flaunted that power and was, you know, condescending to him. And he just kind of, like, took it and was like, well, this is how it's got to be. He did that for many years, and then he met me, and we started to work together. And he was working on his overall confidence, his social confidence, his assertiveness, being more direct, being more real, all of it. And so that wasn't the first thing we went after. Like, here's what you got to say to your brother. No, we talked about a lot of other things. And he made a lot of growth and progress in his social confidence overall, particularly at work, because he carried that pattern of niceness and submissiveness everywhere. And so at work, he started to speak up for himself. He started to challenge some of these stories. And at one point, though, he had this experience where he was with his brother and they were actually together in person, and something came up where his brother said something, and he didn't just immediately agree with it. He was kind of bringing the more confident version of himself that he'd been building over the last couple months. And so he basically disagreed with his brother. And then his brother started to, like, use some of his tactics to make him sort of feel hesitant or unsure of himself and doubt himself. And there was. It wasn't like, an intense conflict, but it was definitely like, we're. Wait a minute. What are you doing? How dare you challenge me? And his brother accused him of basically not caring about other family members. And it was uncomfortable, tense moment, like kind of what he had always feared, some version of his brother getting upset with him. And so he left that interaction, and he was a wreck. I mean, he was just anxious. He couldn't sleep. He didn't eat very much. He was in his head replaying the conversation. Why did I say that? I shouldn't have said that. Oh, my God, I should have agreed. And then he was going to, like, oh, my gosh, all these fears are going to happen and my brother's going to talk to my parents and then this and then that, and ah, oh my gosh, it's all over. And he was really terrified. And then we had a session and we started to look at it bit by bit by bit and slow down and say, okay, all right, he's upset with you. Wow, let's be with that. What's that like? Ah, I can't be with that. That's so intense. Ah, okay. And we just kept on bringing him right back to being with, yeah, your brother is upset with you. And now he didn't know what I was doing, but what I was doing is creating a connection with me and an energy of safety and helping him start to pair those two. Safe in my nervous system, brother upset with me. Which in the past equals death, danger. Right? So brother upset with me. Safety. Brother upset with me. Safety. Brother upset with me. So they could start to marry. Where then he started to feel like, I am safe and my brother is upset with me. And it was a profound experience. It's something he'd never experienced in his whole life. He'd been running from it for his whole life life until that moment. And a couple days went by. He worked through a lot of the discomfort. He used some of the tools I was sharing with him. And then he got to the other side of it and he said to me, he said, that was amazing. It felt horrible. It felt like death. But now that it's happened and I realize that I can get through it, I just feel different around him. It's like a spell has been broken. I just don't feel so afraid. I can just speak up more, just like I can at work. Of course I can talk to a colleague or a friend or boss. Like, why couldn't I just say things to my brother, disagree with him or have a conflict or have a conversation about something? We can just be adults. I thought that's the key word, isn't it? Adults? Because this pattern is, like, forged when you're a child, because a child doesn't feel safe. When dad is upset and you're four years old, it's freaky. He's a big adult. Or mom, dad. Mom, whoever. An adult parent in your house, it's very scary. And so now, as an adult, your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, whatever, you still, on some level, are that immature young child inside. When it comes to someone being upset or whatever other threat, rejection, the things that we tend to avoid. And so that is why you must face your fear in order to be truly free and build confidence. There is no other way. There's no affirmations that can do it entirely. There is no cognitive restructuring. There is no depth psychology and analysis or Freudian analysis or Jungian analysis or any of those things. Now, I'm not saying all those treatments or approaches are useless. But what I'm saying is they're going to give you insight. They might help you see the past. They might help you, you know, challenge some of your thinking. And I see all of that as preparation for you to go into the fire where you face your fear. Cause if you try to do the rest, it's armchair psychology. Like, I'm gonna face the fear. I'm gonna face the dragon from the safety of this cozy couch and somehow be free. Liberation doesn't work that way. I don't think someone else might have a different perspective than me, might say, no, listen, you could just meditate and you can meditate and meditate and meditate and meditate and meditate until you're 100% liberated from all of your fears and all of your discomforts and become enlightened. And that's possible. I think there are humans that have done that. I haven't done that. So that's not the path that I can speak with certainty and confidence around. And I say, no, actually, the meditation can be preparation to be able to take the action, or the meditation can be. I mean, what I was doing with that client is a form of meditation. Afterwards, right? When I'm pairing safety and the experience he was having of conflict with his brother, we're doing a body awareness technique to calm his nervous system. I guess you could call it a form of meditation. It's a form of mindfulness, for sure. And so I see that all in the service, though, of taking the action. Because it's only in taking the action, it's only in facing the fear that you really see and get. And I'm using terms like see and get, that they're incomplete words. But like, you fully understand, you fully grasp, you grok, you have an insight, an aha, an awakening where you say, ah, that isn't gonna kill me. That isn't really deeply threatening to my survival. I can handle that. And again, that's not just an affirmation where you say, I can handle it, I can handle it. Like, those can be helpful tools to get you to go test the thing out to where you actually handle it. Because I think as humans, we're trying to get the goodies without the discomforts. I want to have the breakthrough. I want to get the beach body without working out. I want to have the money without adding value to society or groups of people or whoever over time, over many years. I want it now for nothing. It's the same thing. It's like I want the confidence. I want the ability to be able to do these things and be more expressive and be more assertive and be more bold and date and all that stuff. But I don't want to go through the fire. The thing that really scares me, but there's no other way. This, in my perspective, in my opinion, is a must. And then when you do, you realize, I can handle that. I'm okay. So what are the fears that you might need to walk through in order to create extraordinary confidence in this year and beyond? And don't worry, you don't need to walk through them all at once. Even in the story with that client, we didn't start with his brother, which was like the scariest thing. He started with other stuff. Doesn't have to be all at once, doesn't have to be super intense or you just smash it for two weeks. It's a process over time. But we must lean into the fears. We must start to walk towards them. A big one in clients that I work with is some sort of rejection, rejection in dating, rejection socially rejection, possibly at work. And you might have crafted your life and your personality and your choices and everything around avoiding that. And so it's a profound change to say I'm going to start to do that, I'm going to face that fear. And you know, I've had the privilege of working with people, I mean, for many years, but particularly in a group environment. You know, I worked with a lot of people one on one before I started running groups. And I've been consistently primarily coaching through group programs for the last six years because I found them to be really effective. Because there's a group dynamic where people are sharing and inspiring each other and having opportunities to practice with each other. And it neutralizes shame because they can see each other also working through it. It's just a, it's a supercharge for effectiveness and for results. So I'm very excited about the groups. But one really interesting result of running these groups is that I get to see that the stimulus is the same for everyone coming into the group programs that I run. So I run a year long mastermind program. They get the same access to me, the same calls. Their group calls led by Me, hearing me say the same things. They're watching me coach different people or they're getting coached. They have access to tons of resources and materials and programs that they get to go through. And so they're totally immersed. It's an immersion program. And what I see is that there are some people that are like, you know, take off like a rocket, and some people that are slower, they're are people that experience complete radical transformations. And there are people that choose to stop showing up, right, like anything in life. And so I start to study it. And that's what I became really obsessed with. It's like, well, how do. What about those people that have the radical rocket transformations? What's going on there? In fact, I even interviewed them all and created this whole additional program called the advanced guidance system that people in the Mastermind get to go through week by week. That's like teaching them those things. But because my goal is like, well, how do we make as many people possible experience that? So I'm constantly optimizing to have better and better results for the people. And it came down in one of the most important areas that I would see, that the people that were making radical progress were facing their fears more consistently than the people that were making slower progress. And again, this might sound like, no duh, Aziz, but if you really get that, then it changes everything, right? Because then you're like, oh, I know what to do. Do the thing that scares me. I get it. There is no other way. And so then the question might be, well, how do I support myself as I do that? What support can I get for myself? How can I take care of myself? How can I make that sustainable? Well, those are high quality questions, my friend. And those are things we're going to talk about in the next episode, which is how to face your fear. But you rather, you know, to set yourself up to win, you really got to get deep down this is the way. This uncomfortable path is the way. Which is why I always come back to discomfort tolerance. And I'm such a big fan of it. I remember I recorded a video not that long ago for my YouTube channel, and it was like, you know, do this to radically increase your confidence. Some title like that. And in it I talked about, like, do something today that makes you feel uncomfortable. And one of the comments on the YouTube video was like, lol, are you still on this topic? And I'm like, yeah, because, you know, they probably saw a video, a different video where I talked about something like that. And, you know, the answer is yes. I'm still on that topic because I am obsessed with what helps people break free from decades long social anxiety into experiencing extraordinary levels of confidence. Like, that's a big ask, that's a big transformation that I'm going for. I'm not saying let's take someone who's mostly confident and make them more confident. I'm saying let's take those people who feel totally not confident and think they never will be. And if they're willing to bet on themselves, let's help them become radically confident where they're like above average confidence, where their friends say, wow, you're so outgoing and teach me how to be more like you. That's what I want for people. And so I'm gonna focus on the things that work and then highlight them again and again, and then focus all my attention on like, well, how do I help people take action on that, experience that, get that, do that, live that. And one of those things is the rate at which you do what scares you. And there's two types of action. In fact, I talk about this in that program, the advanced guidance system, which was based upon interviewing the top performers in group programs. And I broke action down into two things, immediate action and consistent action. So the people that grew the most after one of the calls that we had, we talked about doing something, or they had some hot seat coaching or whatever, or they learned something somewhere that they, they made a decision about what they wanted to do and then they would go implement it right away. They'd have that conversation the next day with their boss, they would go approach that colleague, they would though they would ask that person out that week, they would do something right away. That's immediate action. Now if you did a bunch of flurry of action for one week and then you stopped, that's not gonna do a whole lot, right? You gotta think about this in terms of social fitness, right? Social confidence is social fitness. So, you know, if you go work out five days at the gym in a week, that's solid. But then you don't go for the next six weeks. Is that one week really gonna do a lot? Not really. Maybe you'll feel good for that week. Probably feel sore for that week if you haven't been going for a while. But you know, but what if you went to the gym three days a week, or maybe even five days a week, but just a certain amount a week. But you did it every week, week after week after week, month after month after month after month. Now where are you at three months from now? Six Months from now, you're in a very different place. And there's no other way to do that. Right. It's like that's what people are looking for. What's like the hack where I can get stronger without having to work out? It's like there is no hack. If there's any hack, it's someone hacking your mind to get your money. Right. There's no hack that you're going to do. I mean, sure, there's ways to optimize your working out. I'm sure that's a study you could take on if you want. And maybe you could get a little more juice out of your workout with a little bit less time or whatever. I know there's that whole movement to look for that. Sure, sure. But you're still, at the end of the day, you're still putting effort over time to get results with your physical fitness. And it is the same, exact same with your social fitness and your social confidence. Confidence is a byproduct of that action. So we need the immediate action and we need consistent action. And someone in my Mastermind program just last night said that she called herself out. She's about six months in the program. And she said, I've, you know, and she took a ton of action in the beginning. She's rock star. And she's like, you know what? I realize that I took a lot of action socially when I first started. Then I started taking more action on career confidence. And I realized I'm just. In the last couple weeks, I've been kind of settling back into a new normal of comfort zone. It's better than it was, but it's still kind of a comfort zone. And I want to start revisiting some, make sure I'm engaging all the materials and videos and make sure I'm taking actions, particularly in the area for her, of social confidence. She wants to take more risk socially. So that's that power of that immersion where then she can make it consistent action. And that's the game. And when I say action here, I mean, you know, actions in which you're facing your fear. And if you do that, you can radically transform social anxiety. I 100% confidence and certainty about that. I've seen it hundreds of clients that I worked with in these group programs thousands of people face in events and over the Internet and through books and other training programs and emails we get and feedback we get. And this is formulaic. So the name of the game then is getting yourself to face the fear. We'll talk about how in the next episode. But remember I said in the beginning with that example of the person who's in ill health, who needs to change their lifestyle, There's a thousand and one hows, but it all starts with the key. Motivation and willingness. So are you willing to face your fear in order to create an extraordinary life? Are you willing to be uncomfortable? To ultimately feel more connection, more love, more enthusiasm, more passion, more fun, more enjoyment, more. I mean, experiences that are probably even beyond what you can imagine. Right. When I was looking to get a date, I was willing and had low social confidence. Like, okay, I'm willing to face my fear. I didn't know all this. I didn't have all these systems and whatever, all the stuff I'm sharing with you at the time, it was just like, you know, oh, yeah, I've avoided women. They're scary. I guess I have to talk to women to get a date with a woman. Right? That was kind of their first realization. And then it was like, okay, I'm gonna go do it. I was willing. What I did not know is. So that was 19 years ago. Now, what I did not know is that that would set me on a path where I come into my house and there is my amazing, beautiful, wise wife and our two children who are just like, just delights, and I get to experience a life with them. That was not what I was thinking about when I was 20 years old and probably not what I wanted at that age. Right. But it set me on that path. Like, the fruits of your confidence go way, way, way beyond what you might see in the short term. If you show up to life and become the kind of person who's willing to do what scares you in the service of something greater, consistently, you will create an extraordinary life. Forget just getting out of social anxiety that's gonna be so long in the dust for you. Just way back in your past. Oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, that used to be a thing for me. And now you're living something totally different. So I suppose this, this. If there's any episode that would need an action step, this one would be the one. So before we complete, let's talk about your action step. Time for action. Action. Action. Your action step today is to punch fear in the face. Well, you know, to do something that scares ya. Right? Or better yet, actually, next week we're gonna talk about how to do what scares you. I want you to start by creating a list. What scares me, comma, a list. And you can expand it to what makes me uncomfortable. Because sometimes we don't say I'm not scared, because I gotta preserve my pride and my image, even just to myself. I'm a tough guy. I'm a tough girl. I'm not scared of nothing, right? But it's uncomfortable. It's edgy. Makes me uneasy. Ooh, that would be uncomfortable, right? Okay. That's a cousin of fear. You can put that down on the list. So make your list what scares me? A list. What makes me uncomfortable? A list. And what if that list was gold? What if that list was your ticket to victory? Hmm? Something to think about, huh? All right. Until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you are 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 social confidencecenter.com. Sa.