Why You Get Anxious Before Interviews, Dates, and Presentations (It's Not What You Think)
Authentic Confidence with Dr. AzizShow Notes
What do job interviews, first dates, presentations, and social gatherings all have in common? They're all situations where someone could disapprove of you — and your nervous system knows it.
In this episode, Dr. Aziz breaks down the single pattern running underneath all social anxiety and performance anxiety: the fear of disapproval. He explains why your brain fills uncertainty with doom predictions, why those predictions feel so convincing, and why the solution isn't about becoming more impressive — it's about building your capacity to be in the unknown.
This episode is part of a series of new discoveries Dr. Aziz has been making about how our relationship with approval shapes everything — our confidence, our conversations, our careers, and our relationships. More on that in the coming episodes.
More from Authentic Confidence with Dr. Aziz
You already have people who like you. Family, friends, colleagues, maybe a partner. None of it fully lands. There's still a tightness in the meetings that matter, an anxiety around new people, a quiet craving for the next person's approval.
You've been taking quiet satisfaction in being one of the good guys. You give. You show up. You say yes when you want to say no. In this episode, Dr. Aziz walks through what's actually running underneath the pattern most people call kindness, and why real kindness feels fundamentally different in your body afterward.
The conversation happened. Hours ago. Days ago. Years ago in some cases. You're still running it back. You've tried to just let time dissolve it. It hasn't worked.
Wanting people to like you isn't the problem. Needing them to is. In this episode, Dr. Aziz walks through the specific moment when a preference for approval crosses over into a compulsion, and lays out seven concrete signs the reader may recognize from their own life.
You've been told for years that if you just cared less, you'd care less. You've probably tried. It hasn't worked. Not because you didn't try hard enough, but because the advice was pointed at the wrong target.