Welcome to today's episode of the socially motivated podcast. I'm your host, Jake Walker. I want to personally thank you for tuning in to this podcast. This podcast is a motivational and self improvement podcast to help you step out of your comfort zone. In each episode, we discuss different topics on how changing your daily mindset can help improve your mental health.
Are you well known for being that shy, quiet, awkward person? If you suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, or being an introvert and you want to find ways to overcome those conditions, well, I was in the same situation as you not long ago. And I'm here to help share my advice and experiences on my journey to help you overcome these invisible barriers.
Let's break you out of your comfort zone and get you to be more motivated to face all these social interactions we must face on a daily basis. So let's get started. On today's episode, we will be discussing the topic of putting yourself out there. From a simple terminology perspective, it means to embrace the unknown of being in a certain social situation.
It is a simple human trait that everyone has a fear of an unknown situation that could lead to a first hand embarrassment that no one on this planet wants to ever go through, rejection or embarrassment situation that could lead to diminishing your self esteem. Now, most people think when I say putting yourself out there, they just simply will go
to the automatic thing of specifically about dating purposes. This is a lot more than just, you know, a love relationship or, uh, you know, a future partner. This can go as far as finding, you know, friends, to trying to communicate with other people in many social situations, and finding opportunities for, say, a professional reason.
When it comes to putting yourself out there, this typically means a conscious effort to explore new things, meet different people, and allow yourself to be a little more vulnerable than you usually are. Now you might be saying to yourself, well, why would I want to become vulnerable? That just, that just sounds really dumb to even think about.
You know, it is very simple as humans as to if. That we want to be, you know, as perfect as possible, we want to, you know, have zero enemies in this world, we want to make friends with everyone, everyone needs to like us, and that's a very simple, you know, human want and desire, but that's never the case with I'm not going to You know, everyone's going to have someone that's going to just absolutely hate their guts.
You have no reason why, they might not even have a reason why. They just hate your guts. And then you're going to have people that are going to love you to, you know, the end of time. And that's going to be okay. You're going to have your ups and downs in the world. You're going to have... The people that are not going to like you, you're going to go through situations in your life that you are not going to want to go through.
You're going to be vulnerable. You're going to make mistakes. That is the biggest thing in, you know, biggest thing in self improvement is understanding that you're going to make mistakes. You're going to have those troubling times, but understanding how do you go through them. To persist past the, you know, awkwardness or the situation itself.
Now looking at it from the perspective of what, you know, when you don't put yourself out there, what is going to happen? When you play small ball or you play it safe, you really miss out on a bunch of opportunities. Putting yourself out there is necessary if you want to achieve. Anything anything in your life whether it's getting that promotion or a great job opportunity or even finding love Or it could be just as simple as meeting new friends, making, you know, valuable connections that can get you places in the world.
Everyone should be familiar kind of with this quote from Wayne Gretzky. You know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. By simply putting it, If you are a procrastinator or an introvert that doesn't put yourself in the situation to, you know, make yourself vulnerable, make yourself uncomfortable, it's going to simply make your life worse than it ever was.
You know, you are never going to experience new things. You're never going to, you know, make your dream into a reality unless you take the risk. Risk are what really make. You know, a person's life, you know, very valuable, very successful in the world. You know, if you really look at it from another lens of most of these people that become rich millionaires or very successful entrepreneurs, they had to go through a million different failures to get to the point of their success.
You know, you might see it from the perspective of, Oh, they just got handed to them. And then there's certain people that might get it that way, but majority of people. They had to work their, you know, what's off to get to where they were at. They had to fail. They had to go through some heart break. They had to make connections to get to where they wanted to be.
Life can be such a vast experience. So many things out there are waiting and opportunities can come back, can come knocking. If we put ourselves out there and show ourselves to others. However, many people limit themselves from getting the honest life possibility. Because the fear, what can go wrong, is eating them alive.
Unless one tries, you may never know if something can bring you success or great happiness. Some things can help you put yourself out there and experiences what the world has to offer. Now, if you take a, you know, in a context of today's day and age, putting yourself out there is very, very difficult. You know, you can almost do everything from the touch of your smartphone.
You know, you have everything in your fingertips. You can go and order food and have it delivered to your place. You can go and shop for clothes online. You can almost buy a house from online. You can almost buy a car from online. You can buy and do Anything online. You don't even have to go out and see movies.
You can go on Netflix. You have zero interactions with people. So it is very easy for us to live in our comfort zone. It's very easy for us to just sit there and not have to get ourselves out there. You know, w why would you want to go out and, you know, make yourself look presentable when you can lounge around in your.
And just, you know, not go through scary situations to, it could embarrass you or, you know, you feel like he failed somehow. So, I mean, it's very simple why so many people struggle with putting themselves out there in the 21st century. That's the kind of the thing about a comfort zone is you have full on control of every aspect.
You are so comfortable, you know, you have control over, you know, you know, metaphorically kind of. You have control of, you know, what clothes you're wearing, what temperature the room is, how you can handle every situation, no one can scare you, no one could hurt you. That's what a comfort zone is, is you're in a box to where no one knows you're there, only you know, and you have everything at the fingertips to be able to control it.
Once you step out of that comfort zone, then you lose pretty much all your control. You have so many things that can go wrong. You sit there and feel like you can't compare, you know, prepare for everything. And this is where you are like, You know, you feel you're most vulnerable and everyone wants to just automatically just go straight back to their comfort zone.
They never want to see or hear, you know, outside noise because they know that there's a potential for them to. Completely embarrass themselves and could ruin their reputation. I'm gonna give you a you know, good real life example I mean coming from my perspective was you know when I first started, you know working on my self improvement and self care You know, I always really wanted to kind of go out, make friends, you know, meet new people.
I was inspired to do that kind of thing. But when I first finally moved to, you know, when I moved to Texas, I didn't understand the concept of, you know, your comfort zone. I had no idea that I was so unprepared for what I was going to face. So I wanted to go out and meet new people. And as a, you know, a young 21 year old at the time, you know, I thought that it was just going to be so easy that I was just going to be able to just make friends easy as day.
And I remembered That I was, you know, so excited to go and just meet people at a bar, but, you know, days went by and I would hype myself up in the morning. I would hype myself up, you know, to be like, yeah, I'm going to go do it today. You know, there's a, you know, live music playing at this one bar and I'm going to go meet people and it's gonna be all, you know, rainbows, unicorns and butterflies and, you know, once it gets around the afternoon to like early evening, my brain starts to overthink and starts to you know, You know, tell itself like, Ah, I don't think you're ready for the moment.
I don't think you should go. You know, you're going to embarrass yourself. Yada, yada, yada. And I remember I was just like, How do I go from, I'm so excited to, Holy shit, Jake. This is going to be the worst thing you've ever experienced. And I remember Very vaguely once I finally kind of got the urge and I finally was able to kind of convince myself to go to a bar and when I walked in, I remember, you know, very vaguely my heart racing.
I remember very vaguely of just, you know, kind of looking around and thinking that everyone was looking at you. Everyone was judging you. Everyone was just, you know, completely hated you or something, and I remember it was so hard to just. live in the moment and to fully grasp what was going on because I was very overwhelmed.
I didn't have really any social battery. So it was just like, I felt exhausted and I haven't even done anything. You know, I've never put myself out there. If I ever put myself out there, it was in a controlled environment. You know, when I was younger, it was going to school, going out to eat with my parents, and that's about it.
My social interaction and my social life was very, very limited at the time. So, me being able to choose, like, hey, I'm gonna go to a bar today, or I'm gonna go meet people today. I was so focused on the moment of like, alright, I'm gonna go meet these people, but I had no idea how to do it. I was so focused on, you know, wanting this certain thing so bad, but had no idea that it was going to take effort on my part.
Putting myself out there was the hardest thing. It was the very first step that I had to do, but it was the very hardest thing that I could really ever imagine. And, I mean, I hate to kind of ramble on about that, but to kind of get back to the main part of the story was, that was kind of my first interaction with it.
But, what I did experience, and what was kind of... Very groundbreaking to me was You know, the next couple times that I started to go, there was people that actually kind of reached out because I was kind of that person in the corner that didn't really say anything that wasn't really, you know, making myself look out there.
I was just kind of the outcast in the corner that sort of was paying attention to the music, but also kind of looked around the bar and, you know, was not necessarily looking like the most. social well being out there. And I remember there was people that would talk and I remember going to the bar and I didn't go there to drink.
I was there to get myself to be out there in the moment. I did not want alcohol to control anything in my time. I had, you know, very enough, I had just enough control to sit there and say to myself, I'm not going to go to drink at a bar and have that be controlled. You know, have that control my anxiety.
So I literally went there to enjoy the music, enjoy just being out in the moment. And by doing that, I was able to have people come to me and started, you know, try to, you know, start up a conversation and all that stuff. And People are like, do you not drink? And it's like, I would sit there and be like, yeah, I drink.
It's just not really doing it at the time. And, you know, you would have those people that would kind of push and be like, Hey, let me buy you a drink. And that was the most kind of mind blowing process for me or the mind blowing concept to me was there's people out there that we're going to, you know, we're willing enough to come over and.
up a conversation with someone that wasn't really interacting with anyone that was just kind of in the corner, you know, doing his own thing, you know, there was someone out there that was able to be like, Hey, let me talk to this person, see what's going on. And also be like, Hey, you know what? Let me buy you a beer.
Let me, let me buy you a drink. And I remember very vaguely at the time, it was like, A very eye opening experience to me, was like, this is kind of always what I ever wanted, but it was like, I still don't know how to complete a conversation. I was still in the process of overthinking, but it was like, holy crap, I didn't have to control myself, my anxiety with Alcohol or some type of drug or some type of, you know, pills or anything.
It was controlled by literally me just putting myself out there. I wasn't there to make friends. I was there to enjoy live music, to get myself outta the house, to get myself outta my comfort zone. And then, you know, the times afterwards, I was there to go drink. I was there to have fun. But I was able to just sit there and slowly creep myself into the situation of putting myself out there, you know, I would go to, you know, I would go to like college football games, I would go to.
You know, differing events and getting myself out there, it was so, you know, incredibly beneficial for my mental health because it was like, man, I'm actually getting this, you know, like I'm actually getting to where I can actually feel like I've made progress to where I feel like, you know, I've finally got myself over that hump, that invisible barrier that's been blocking me for so long.
I'm finally getting myself to finally reach the, you know, you know, finally getting myself to be on cloud nine. This story is really to kind of, you know, tell the tale of, you know, I had a, you know, I had a dream that I wanted to be, you know, I hate to say the word, but it's true. It's like normal. I wanted to have a normal life.
I wanted to have friends. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to, you know, finally get myself to be out there and putting myself out there. It was not easy at first. It was definitely not easy trying to coach myself up and trying to get myself to just get off my butt and you know, you know, get off my couch, get up, get my butt out there and to show myself to the world to show myself to the people of And try to get myself to have meaningful connections with people to, you know, make sure that I'm having a fulfilling life instead of just sitting there on my butt hoping for it to just happen.
You know, the whole point of it is to really show you that, like, there isn't a step by step process I can tell you that's going to. You know, truly benefit, you know, everyone's needs, you know, my success story might be different than yours. You know, if you want to get yourself out there to, you know, find love or to find a relationship or to, you know, find yourself a new career or job or.
Whatever it is that you are searching for, you know, you don't have to go in guns a blazing You don't have to go into every situation like oh if I don't get out, you know, then i'll never do Anything in this world, you know if you want to make friends Go to a bar or go to whatever situation that makes you Not really comfortable, but whatever situation that kind of is very difficult for you to slowly get yourself into it Because if you are not putting yourself out there, you probably have you know, you're probably suffer from being introvert You probably suffer from being social anxiety or just some type of anxiety in overthinking
In this terminology, the biggest thing that you need to do is to slowly get yourself acclimated to the situation. Go to a place because you want to have fun, because you want to listen to the good music, or if you want to, you know, Go to a sporting event because you want to see a game, whatever situation you go into, you know, live in the moment, live in that one particular time, that one particular second, and just enjoy the fact that you finally got yourself out of, you know, out of your house, you finally got yourself around people.
You don't have to talk to that person. You don't have to talk to anyone, but if you can get yourself to control your heartbeat, to control your thoughts and be like, Hey, no one's looking at you. Hey, no one's judging you. It's just, that is just you trying to push yourself down. Put your, push your self esteem down.
That's all it's trying to do. And if you can control all the characteristics that make yourself overwhelmed with putting yourself out there in social situations. Then you can finally, once you can control it, you can finally start to talk to people, and you can finally start to, you know, make the meaningful connections that make, you know, this thing called life so great.
You know, you probably hear all the time people saying, you know, I want to find people that can be themselves, and If you're the person that's trying to overthink and is concerned about being judged, that's concerned about messing up, that's concerned about failing, then you are really trying to be someone that you're not.
You know, I look back at my, you know, entire lifetime And the one thing that I regret the most is that I didn't fail enough. That I did not put myself out there to at least try something. And I, you know, I sit here to this day and it just like, it irks me to death because I know that I, I could have, You know, I could have been over my social anxiety so long ago, if it was as simple as just me slowly getting myself acclimated to the situation, getting myself to finally get up myself over that hump.
It was, I'm telling you, it was the hardest thing ever, but it was the most rewarding effect when you could sit there and be like, wow. There's actually people that do care. There's actually people out there that want to see the true you. It's just a matter of you getting yourself off your butt and you getting yourself in those situations to being social.
I mean, you can make a lot of money. You can meet the true love of your life. You can meet the most amazing people that can be the most long lasting friendships. You might meet people that are going to be bad for you, but hey, you know, that's a failure. But you Get back up, and you figure out your next move.
That's the biggest thing that you have to understand about putting yourself out there, is that you will fail, but you will also find the greatest successes. you will ever have in your lifetime. That will conclude today's episode. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast and have not done so yet, please leave a like, share, and subscribe, and rating for this podcast so you never miss any future content.
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My hope with this podcast is that I can help. Bring awareness and share insight to help spread the awareness about the importance of improving your mental health by implementing better strategies to strengthen our daily mindset. I wish you the best of luck on your journey to improving your mental health to help you have a happier, healthier life that you've always wanted.
I will catch y'all on the next episode.