You Look Confident But You Don’t Feel It

How often are you doubting yourself, second-guessing yourself, questioning yourself, and then feeling that sense of uncertainty? Did I say the right thing? Did I do that? Why did I do this? I should have done that. Does that follow you after professional situations, work meetings, just being in at work? Does that follow you after a social engagement? You can't put it down. You keep thinking about it and you're wondering and you're questioning and you just feel unsettled. You don't just feel at ease with it. Yeah, that's me. That's how I showed up. This is how I did it. That is self-doubt. And many people that I talk to been experiencing that in the background for decades, and it doesn't go away. It doesn't just go away on its own. That's why it's so important for you to stay with me today to discover where this is actually coming from and how to fundamentally shift it. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the Center for Social Confidence and author of 7 bestselling books on confidence. And what I've seen is that people doubt themselves regardless of how successful they are. So one of the first strategies people have when they feel doubt is they say, well, I'm questioning myself. I'm feeling like I'm an imposter. I doubt myself here at work, maybe because I'm not smart enough. I'm not skilled enough. I don't know enough yet. I'm not old enough yet. I'm not professional enough yet. I'm not established. I haven't achieved enough yet. And so they go out and they take trainings and get more advanced education and more advanced experience. And then they get experience in the field and then they go into leadership positions or they speak more and they connect with other people and they learn how to do it and they actually get more skilled professionally. And the doubt's still there. I remember I was speaking recently with a client who is a physician, highly skilled. Highly specialized, been doing that for 20 years and still questions inside secretly herself at the end of every workday. Ah, did I do that? Oh, people are going to think this about me. I could go example after example, no matter how high up the ladder you go, CEOs, founders, executives, they look polished and confident on the outside, but it's a performance because inside that doubt doesn't just let up. And a lot of people I know have just settled and said, hey, okay, I guess this is just how it is. And that's if it goes well, that you're able to still persist despite this very unpleasant headwind. It certainly sucks the joy out of your life, but it gets much worse than that because most people are not like, "Yeah, I got that doubt. I'm still going to push through and become a leader of this company." Most people are submitting to that doubt and just saying, "Ah, yeah, you're right. I guess I'm not smart enough to try that thing. Oh yeah, I shouldn't speak up in this meeting. I don't know. I'm not a— who do I think I am?" And I'm not just talking about professionally. You can doubt yourself personally. I see this all the time. There might be a superpowered person at work, you know, they're high-powered executive and then their dating life. Should I say this thing? Am I allowed to go talk to this person? Am I bothering them? Oh, who do they want me to be? Uh, and we lose ourselves. And that's what doubt does. It makes you lose yourself. And we're looking for something, right? Like, did I do the right thing? Did I say the right thing? Was I the right person? Am I enough? And when we ask those questions, it's like we're searching for something, right? Like you're rifling through some papers, some documents, like, oh, am I enough? Am I enough? What's happening? What's happening? What are you looking for? Do you find it? Do you question what you said enough about the party and then and at 3 AM you're like, "Oh yeah, I guess I did. I just had enough," right? Or sometimes we'll settle on, "Well, here's what I'll do next time. Next time I'm going to walk into that meeting and I'm going to say," or, "Next time I'm going to deliver this smooth, suave opener and they won't be able to resist me." And do you next time? Or is next time a brand new, fresh moment of life where we don't have control of the future? We don't know what's going to come next. The world, life is uncertainty if you step fully into it. So how are you going to use that line at the next party? How are you going to know exactly what you're going to say? Right? The solution is not to have some fantasy of some future you that's gonna do this thing. The solution is to stop the constant undermining that is self-doubt. That is a killer of confidence. It is a killer of authentic expression. It is the killer of dreams because that's the biggest thing that stops us from pursuing anything of meaning in our life is not that the obstacles are so insurmountable, it's that we've barely brought our full self to those obstacles. We barely might not have even left the station. Might have said there's probably some obstacles out there, but I'm not enough to overcome them. Or we get out there and we have some head, got some momentum going, we hit a no, we hit a rejection, we hit a failure, we experience a loss, we experience a setback, and then we throw in the towel radically prematurely. Not because we've assessed the situation and said, you know, I really assessed all the variables here and I've come to a rational conclusion. No, it's an emotional discouragement, deflation, and it's that voice of doubt. And what does it say? I told you, told you it wouldn't work out. Told you you couldn't do it. But have you ever slowed down to actually study that voice of doubt versus just believing it? I have. I became obsessed with it. I became obsessed with doubt because I realized that there was this voice of doubt in my head that had been with me my entire life. And I'd succeeded a lot, and yet it was still there. And I thought, I mean, certainly when I was in my 20s, I thought, well, if I succeeded enough socially, then the voice would go away. If I got enough professional success, that voice would go away. But it didn't. It didn't, especially in my professional life. I'd succeed more, achieve more, reach more people, and it'd be like, this next talk, this next event, this next thing, this next everything, it's gonna be— you're gonna fail. It's not gonna go well. It's gonna go bad. And I'm like, why? Why is this headwind still coming at me? I mean, we've done a lot here. And it's like, yeah, you've done a lot, but that doesn't mean anything about tomorrow. It's all gonna go away. And it was about 6 years ago that I was like, all right, all right, we gotta do something about this here. This problem is just not gonna solve itself. And that's when it began, my study, my dance with doubt in earnest. And it eventually led to the release of my book Doubtless, which you should check that out if you haven't. It's called Doubtless: How to Believe in Yourself and Trust in Life, and it is a profound study of doubt and how to liberate yourself from the clutches of doubt and why doubt is functioning, what purpose it serves, its operatives, how it hooks you, and why we continue to choose it. Because doubt is the default in humans and certainly in our culture now. Just like being— at least the United States— being sedentary, relatively unhealthy, is the default. What I mean by the default is it's, it's what's just automatically happen unless we make a conscious choice to do something different. So if you don't think about it much, if you're not actively planning, like, what kind of workouts am I going to do and when, and what kind of sports do I like, and how do I want to stay active, and how am I going to take care of my body, and where am I going to eat if we go out, and what kind of food should I order, and what should I buy at my— for my regular groceries. If you don't consciously think about that stuff— and I see this in my kids right now, they're 10 and 12 years old, and they're just like, we just want to eat all junk food, we just want to— and they don't even like— like, why are you making us Eat this terrible food. We're like, you mean like a sandwich or some chicken? Like, what do you— what's, what's good food? Chips is good food. Soda is good food. Okay, sodas and chips are fun food. They're not like your staple of your diet, right? But they just want that. And, and if we had no restraint on that, the default of the culture, what's available at school, what the other kids are doing, what tastes good to their— at least their mouth, not their whole body— what's engineered with billions of dollars to trigger things in their brain when they put it on their tongue. If you want to go down a fascinating rabbit hole with that, check out the book by Mark Moss called Salt Sugar Fat that goes into the insane money and research and fMRIs that are being used on people to see when it touches your tongue, does it get you hooked? That is the default, and that's why the current is going to pull you that way. And all of our society, all— every evolution of technology is how do we make this easier and more comfortable so you don't have to get up. I could go through my life and be a completely successful human on a professional level, make plenty of money, and literally like barely walk. I could sit in my office chair, I could walk to my car, I could walk into my house, I could sit on my couch, I could be completely sedentary and do just fine to a certain degree, right? Obviously there's gonna be some major costs for my health and my mindset and my energy, but you can just do that. And a lot of people do. And maybe you hearing this is a little bit of wake-up call and you're like, uh-oh, I've been falling into that on the health front. Although this video is talking primarily about doubt and inner doubt, but it's the same thing. The culture, the normal, whatever else is doing, how everyone else is talking is going to pull you towards doubt. Why? Because it's the path of least resistance. It's easy in a way. It takes no effort. So my mind just sits there chewing on like, I didn't do that right. What's wrong with me? Ugh. Oh, that's probably not going to work out. There is no effort inside of me when that's happening. Just like there's no effort to sit on a couch. And that's why it's the default. For us. Also, we humans love certainty and comfort. It's like deep in our survival evolutionary animal brain body. We like that stuff. And so doubt actually gives you certainty and comfort in a weird sort of way. I'd say, wait a minute, Aziz, how can telling myself it's not going to go well and I messed up and I suck— how is that giving me certainty and comfort? Let me explain. So the certainty comes from this: when you're about to go into a situation and that voice of doubt pops in your head and says, you're gonna mess this up, it's not gonna go well. Now, it often might ask a question: is this going to go well? How do you know? How do you know it's going to go well? Did you prepare enough? Is it going to go well? Are they going to like you? Right? And if you listen to that voice, though, it's asking questions, but it's really implanting an idea, which is it's not going to go well. It's not going to go well. It's not going to go well. They're not going to like you. And if you ask that voice about— I have done this with clients thousands of times— and I said, that, that story in your head is not going to go well, that part of you that's saying that, how certain is that part of you that it's not going to go well from 1 to 10, and you want to answer, I always get 10. Oh, they're like, oh my God, or 100. They're like, 100 out of 10, it's for sure. That, that voice thinks that in my mind. Great. Now, are you influenced by its certainty? Because that's how it works between two humans. If I'm more certain than you about something, you'll start to buy it no matter how weird it is. Like, if I'm like, no dude, seriously, Bob Lazar, aliens, legit, look it up, and I'm like super, super certain, this guy's full of it, I start saying more and more and more things, you'll be like I guess I should look into that alien thing, right? So if that voice is really certain, we start to listen to it and it gives you a sense of certainty. Because if you notice, when that voice of doubt spikes, it's when you're going to go into uncertainty. That talk, that presentation, that moment, that date, going in for the kiss, going in for your life. And that voice is like, it's not going to go well. And it gives us that certainty because the truth is, I don't know how it's going to go. I really don't. And that's what confidence is, is to be able to move into the unknown with faith in something, in yourself, in humanity, in life, in your resilience, something. Otherwise, we have doubt. And doubt helps us be comfortable too, because if you listen to the voice of doubt, I'm gonna write this book, I'm gonna put my ideas out there, I'm gonna take this MBA and go pursue this career. And the voice of doubt says, you, an MBA? Come on, you're an idiot, right? Your book, yeah, people are gonna want to read that. And when you listen to that voice of doubt, isn't that more comfortable? I don't have to write a book. I don't— I bet MBA sounds like a lot of work. Even going over and talking to those people, it's easier not to, isn't it? Avoid that whole thing. And then we get to go back into that cocoon of doubt and our stories like, I told you it wouldn't work out, doesn't work out for me. And all that we're left with though is a booby prize because the wheel of time keeps turning. And then you're 20 and then you're 30 and then you're 40 and then you're 50. And every year, every decade, you either are living fully or compounding regret. And if you come to submit to doubt as your authority, you will compound regret. It is a formula. And you might see this already in your life, and if not, you will. And at some point, the dam of denial breaks and people are flooded with it. And then instead of having a profound wake-up moment at the age of 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 and say, "Oh, this voice of doubt has been holding me back for the last two decades, and oh my gosh, I'm gonna change everything," I'm going to defy that voice. What if that voice isn't true? I'm 40. I still got how many decades left? And I'm gonna live. I'm gonna live. I'm gonna put myself out there. I'm gonna share my ideas. I'm gonna write that book. I'm gonna go pursue that goal and dream. I'm gonna get that MBA. I'm gonna go approach that person that I'm really attracted to. I'm gonna make a change in my life. I'm gonna go for it. Is that what people do? You know what often happens, I find, is they have that moment, that dawning awareness of like, oh my God, this voice of doubt has been going, controlling me for 20 years. Ah, ah. And then they say, you know what, I'm 40 now. It's too late. I missed my boat. If only I'd done it when I was 20. I've I've heard this from— I promise you this is not made up. I've heard this exact line of thinking from people who are 20 years old. I worked in a college counseling center for 2 years as part of my training in my degree in clinical psychology. And I remember there's this guy, we'll just call him Rusty. His name was Rusty, and Rusty was 20, and he was awash in doubt and regret. And you say, well, what regrets could a 20-year-old have? First of all, we can have regrets for missing out on a week of our life, let alone years of our life. And it had been years for him. And when he was 16, 17, 18, he was in high and he just missed out on everything. Said didn't get invited to anything, didn't put himself out there in any way, just hid, played video games, the smallest invisible-in-plain-sight life possible. And now he's 20 and he's regretting it. He's in college, he doesn't have any close friends, and he's like, I didn't learn how to make friends in high school. He doesn't have the— he's not pursuing any career, and he's like, well, I didn't have any— I didn't get motivation in high school. I smoked too much weed in high school. And I said, wait, wait, Rusty, you're 20. What are you saying? You want to create friends now? Are you saying you want to get more motivation in your career now? Like, what, what do you want now? Yeah, of course I want friends, Aziz. Of course I want to grow in my career. Of course I want to do all those things, but I can't. Why? Because I— back then— do you see this infinity loop of insanity that doubt traps us in? And it— I used him as an example because it might be more crazy hearing it from a 20-year-old, and— but you might be wrapped into your own story, like, well, Aziz, I'm 46, so you don't understand. My past— my prime is past me. It's over. We have a million reasons why it's over, but the real reason is that Rusty was scared of defying his doubt now at age 20. You are scared of defying your doubt now. And there's nothing— there's no slight against you. I'm scared of defying my doubt. Defying doubt is scary. That's what doubt is all about, is trying to protect us from the things that are scary. But that is the only way to feel fully alive, is when you defy the voice of doubt. You challenge the voice of doubt consistently, and you say, let's find out. It's not going to go well. Prove it. Let's see. What, what if it does? Let's find out. Let's find out. I don't know. Let's discover. I don't know. Radical curiosity, stepping into uncertainty, and Stepping in uncertainty can be done in the doubtful way, which is like, oh, I guess we'll find out. It's gonna go so bad. Oh, it's gonna hurt. But then we've already armored ourself. We've already preconcluded to get certainty. We've already agreed with our doubt that it's not gonna go well. So you walk into that group of people and you're like, hi, you probably don't wanna talk to me anyway, huh? All right, I'll see you later. You don't say that with your mouth, but you say it with your energy. I've seen this 1,000 times. So we have to do something very different and it takes a lot of courage and it's so vulnerable and we have to open our hearts. We have to approach those group of people as if it could go well, but we don't know. And we gotta bring our full selves because I only bring my partial armored self, my pleasing self, it's not going to go well. Why would there be any energy there for them to want to hang out with me and see me again if I'm just like, hi, I'm a— I'm a mirror to you, whatever you want me to be, I'll be. Then why do they need to hang out with me? They're already hanging out with themselves. Instead, I'm going to be a full, different, authentic person. Here I am. Here's my humor. Here's my voice. Here's my ideas. Here's my heart. Here's my passions. Here's my soul. Who are you? And I show up and I I show up wide open, ready to connect. And maybe they say yes, maybe they say no, but the only chance I have for real connection is to show up fully like that. And that is defying doubt, not just in action but in spirit. And that's why the opposite of doubt is not total certainty— every person's gonna love me, everything's gonna go my way. How— that's so brittle. How long is that going to last? Until one person doesn't like you, and then we collapse back into doubt. The opposite of doubt is an adventurous life of faith and That means a wide open curiosity, aliveness, discovery. What's gonna happen in this moment now? Let's find out. And that's the second way to approach uncertainty, which is with the enthusiasm and anticipation of a kid. Like, I don't know, let's find out. What if you break it? Well, then that would be a mess. Let's find out. Let's see. Let's discover. Can you feel that energy when you approach people with that energy socially, work, creative projects? People feel it and you become a magnet, a leader, because that energy, people want that. Because why? Because doubt is the default and everyone else is living with that voice. And they see someone that's this energy of enthusiasm. They're not perfect, far from it, but they're alive and people want that. And so you want to discover more about how you can break free from doubt in your life, go to www.draziz.com. You can discover your primary way that doubt hooks you. I call it your approval type. And when you're not sure how it's gonna go, there's one of 4 ways that your nervous system responds, and it's hidden. It's beneath the surface. You could find this out in 2 minutes, take a free quiz, and then figure out exactly how to shift this. I share in a deep, in-depth training you'll get access to for free that will show you how to profoundly shift this and step into a life of full, authentic confidence.