Feeling more confident is the one thing that every woman I've worked with wants more of after divorce. Why? Because when we feel more confident we show up in our life different.
We trust ourselves. We make decisions easily. We don't let people walk all over us. We have more fun. We spend less time thinking about how terrible and foolish we are, and spend more time loving, giving, and enjoying life. We feel good more often. We accomplish goals. We create the life that we've always wanted.
In today's episode I'll be talking about why you don't feel confident right now, how shame and arrogance are playing a part in it and how you can start to feel more confident.
What you'll learn from this episode:
What true confidence is.
The shame/arrogance continuum and how this plays a part in your overall confidence.
Why you're not feeling confident right now.
How to start feeling more confident immediately.
List to the full episode:
If you want to feel more confident so that you can trust yourself to make strong decisions. So that you can be happier. So that you can be the good mom you know you are. So that you can go into a new relationship when you're ready without worry of falling into the same old trap as before. So that you can support yourself and your kids fully and independently. So that you can live a life that is EVEN BETTER than when you were married. Then you need to schedule a free consult with me. I will teach you how to do all of this for yourself way faster than you'll figure it out on your own. Schedule your free consult by clicking here and let's get you living a more confident life today.
Featured on this episode:
Interested in the Divorce Betrayal Transformation? Learn more here.
Are you lost and confused about who you are after divorce? Don't worry. I've got 51 Ways to Get to Know Yourself Again. Click here to download.
Want to know first hand how Karin can help you with your specific problems and create an even better life than when you were married? Click here to schedule a free consult.
Haven't left a review yet? No problem. Click here to leave one.
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome back to Becoming You Again. I’m your host Karin Nelson. I’m a certified divorce confidence coach and this is the podcast where I teach you how to reconnect with yourself, create emotional resiliency and live a truly independent life, so you can have an even better life than when you were married.
Hello everyone. I’m back. I’ve got a little cold right now and so I apologize as my voice is not at 100%, but I still wanted to get this podcast episode out because I think today’s topic is a really important one for so many of you as you go through your divorce. Today is all about feeling more confident so let’s dive in.
My job as a life coach for divorced women is to help women learn to love themselves again by creating more self confidence and a more loving relationship with themselves after divorce. I truly believe that if everyone loved themselves more and had more self confidence that our world would literally have zero problems. I know this sounds like the most delusional, nice idea ever, but I think we can all start with ourselves and that is where change is truly possible.
Let’s talk a little about what confidence is and what it is not. Confidence is an emotion. It’s how you feel about yourself. It's created by your overall opinion of yourself.
Most people think that other people’s opinions of us, like that outside validation, or being loved by other people, how skinny we are, how much money we make, what we spend our time doing, how successful we are, that all of that and so much more, right, is what leads to feeling more confident. But they’re wrong about that. Nothing outside of us will create a feeling of confidence. The only thing that creates a feeling of confidence is our thoughts. Because all of our thoughts are what fuel all of our emotions.
In the simplest terms possible, when you have a positive opinion about yourself that is what creates more confidence and on the flip side, when you have a negative opinion about yourself, that’s what is creating less confidence. It’s creating self doubt. Of course all of this can really be cyclical. If you start thinking more positive thoughts about yourself and you feel more confident you will do things in your life because you’re feeling more confident. You will take more chances. You will step out of your comfort zone. You will do things that make you feel more confident. You will create more confidence by acting in a confident way which will create more thoughts that you are a confident person, that you like yourself, that you trust yourself, that you believe in yourself which will make you feel more confident which will help you create more confident actions in your life. It is very cyclical when you start having a more positive self identity. You will act differently and create amazing results in your life when you feel confident more so than when you are feeling self doubt and insecure.
Like I said, your feelings are created by your thoughts. So if you’re a confident person you probably have thoughts like:
I’m enough. I’ve got this. I can do hard things. I’m becoming stronger. I can figure this out. I’m competent. I’m capable. I’m worthy. I love me. Things like that.
And if you lack self confidence you have some thoughts like: I’m incapable. I’m bad. I’m a loser. This is too hard. I’m not enough. I’m unworthy. I’m not lovable. I always do it wrong. I’m such an idiot. I totally messed up. Things like that. Almost all of us struggle with a lack of self confidence. A coach of mine introduced me to this idea of self confidence kind of being on a continuum with shame on one end and arrogance on the other end. So I want to explain this a little more so that you can understand why we struggle with confidence and how we can work to feel it more often in our lives.
If you think of a continuum it’s like a line where the extremes on either end are very different and distinct and the more you move inward from either side the more balanced it gets. What is the shame/arrogance continuum and where does confidence fit in there?
On one side you would have shame and on the other side you would have arrogance and then right there in the middle is where confidence is. Now we as humans naturally will drift farther to one side or the other at different times throughout our lives – maybe we even feel a little more comfortable in the space of one over the other, because of our brain’s default thinking. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be closer to one side or the other – there’s nothing wrong with you when you do this. We all do this. But I want you to see that it’s within your power to start intentionally choosing thoughts that will bring you closer to the middle of this continuum where you’re going to feel more confident.
Let me talk a little bit about shame and arrogance. Both are emotions. Both tend to be emotions that lie to you. And here’s why.
So have you ever heard of Brene Brown? She is a writer and a researcher who has done many, many studies on shame and she describes shame as an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” So in other words, shame is when you think, “something is wrong with me.” Shame makes you want to hide because you “did something wrong.” Shame will tell you “I’m not as good as others.” I messed up. I did it wrong. Shame is when you compare yourself to others and think, I’m just not as worthy as they are. Shame is a lie because shame wants you to believe that you have to be better or different to have more value or more worth and it’s just not true.
And then on the opposite side of the spectrum is arrogance. Arrogance is also a liar because it’s based in insecurity of self. It’s an over-bearance of pride. Arrogance is when you think I’m better than you. Arrogance is like I can do this thing or I have this thing and you don’t which means you’re just not as good as me or worth as much as me. Arrogance is when someone is like, “Well I think this or I believe this and you don’t so obviously I know more than you. I am better than you.” And all of that also is a lie.
Here’s why arrogance and shame are complete liars. Because you, me and every other human was created whole, and complete and valuable and equal to every other human. Period.
I want to say that one more time. You, me and every other human was created whole, and complete and valuable and equal to every other human. Period.
So if we think about the continuum again, and we have shame on one end and we have on the opposite side and right smack in the middle is confidence. And the goal then, if you choose; like clearly you get to choose how you want to live your life. If you don’t want to do this I am not telling you how to live your life but I promise you that you will feel so much happier and better about yourself the closer you get to confidence. So if you choose, the goal is to try to get us to think more intentionally to stay as close to the middle as possible which is confidence.
Here’s what confidence looks like. Confidence is when you think, “I’m amazing and I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t create me. I was created and I am worthy and I am valuable and I am whole and I am complete exactly as I am. And so is that person, and that person and that person.”
I like to think kind of like that time in Oprah, on Oprah, years ago when she gave everyone in her audience a new car. Like maybe you’ve never heard of this or seen it but you’ve probably seen like a meme or something. Or maybe you actually saw the actual clip of Oprah doing this, right? But it’s like she is just standing on stage and she’s like and you get a car and you get a car and you get a car and she’s just telling everyone in the whole audience that they get a car. That’s kind of how this worthiness and value and you know completeness is for every human. It’s like, and you’re worthy and you’re valuable and you’re worthy and you’re valuable. It’s like every human is equally as worthy, valuable, whole and complete.
None of us is any better or worse than anyone else and true confidence is really understanding that with humility and acceptance. Confidence feels loving. Confidence is trusting, it is faith filled, it is belief filled. It is open. It is whole.
True self confidence feels so amazing. And here’s what I want you to understand about it. Confidence feels incredible and shame feels terrible and arrogance feels awful. So if you were going to choose out of all three of those; one feels terrible, one feels awful and one feels incredible and amazing, which one would you want to choose overall? Of course you’re going to choose confidence.
Sometimes when I teach this concept, people will say, yeah but isn’t confidence selfish because then all you’re doing is thinking about yourself and showing off and all that. And I show them that feeling confident is actually the complete opposite of selfish or showing off, because when you feel confident you’re not constantly thinking about yourself, because you don’t need to. You truly believe at your core that you are capable and worthy and you accept every part of you. It doesn’t mean that you think that you are perfect or never make mistakes. None of that. That is not part of confident at all. Confidence is when you know that there are parts of you that are showing up and have it all figured out and the parts of you that makes mistakes and still struggle with things. Right? And it’s accepting all of that. And because you know that about yourself and you accept that about yourself, your thoughts are not constantly on you. Are not constantly on how terrible of a person you are or how you’re so much better than everyone else. You’re focused on living your life, and helping, and serving, and loving. Do you see that difference?
So I’m going to ask you some questions that I want you answer on your own when it comes to confidence, because once you answer these questions you’re going to have a better idea of why you want more confidence in your life and what your life can look like when you begin to feel more confident.
What do you think the benefit would be to creating more self confidence in your life? What would change about you if you felt more confident?
This is what I came up with when I answered these questions for myself but I want you to answer them for yourself too, whether you do it now and pause the podcast and then come back or do it later. It does not matter. I will tell you what I came up with but I definitely would encourage you to do this on your own time as well.
- I would trust myself more and do what I say I will do.
- I would accept myself fully – even the parts of me that make mistakes and messes things up.
- I would give myself compassion and grace when those things happen.
- I would give others compassion and grace when I recognize that they too are having human moments and messing up.
- I would be able to feel all of my emotions, even the negative ones, even the scary ones, even the hard ones knowing, completely trusting myself that no emotion is too hard to handle or too hard to make it through.
- I would be able to make decisions in my life and make those decisions right for me rather than hoping, crossing my fingers, “oh gosh, I hope it works out.
- I would instruct people on how to treat me by how I treat myself.
So how do we actually feel more confident and create this feeling more often in our lives, especially if we tend to fall more on the side of shame or arrogance? The first and most important step to being able to create more self confidence is being aware of your thoughts about yourself and how you feel about yourself. Right? I will say this in probably every podcast episode I do because I am telling you this is the one eternal truth of the universe. Awareness. Awareness is where everything begins and it will change everything when you start to recognize what is happening in your head. When you start to become aware of what you’re thinking about yourself. This is the way. This is the path. This is the opening to change and it always will start with awareness. So how do you treat yourself? How do you think about yourself? How do you talk to yourself in your head? Start paying attention to this so that you can understand why you don’t feel confident at this moment.
I’m going to give you some questions and if you want you can answer them for yourself because these questions are going to kind of help you find that awareness. Help you understand really what’s going on in your head and understand why you are not feeling more confident and how you can create more confidence moving forward. And when you answer these questions I really want you to be honest with yourself as you answer these because the more honest you are the more aware you are going to be. Take a few minutes to write you’re your answers from your own life. I’ll give you my answers as examples but please, please, please spend some time really seeing what’s happening in your brain to be able to take a look at what you’re thinking about yourself so you can gain some more awareness about where you’re at right now.
1. What does self confidence mean to me?
You get to answer that for yourself but for me – self confidence means that I know I can handle any emotion that comes into my life. The worst thing about feeling emotions are the thoughts that come along with them and if I can trust myself that in any given moment that if it gets too hard or too heavy or I am spinning down a rabbit hole I can take myself out of my head and into my body and I can process through those emotions, then I have the confidence to know I’ll be able to handle anything. It means that I can trust myself to do what I say I’m going to do more often than not. It means that I show up for myself when I’m down, and when I need to be loved, and when I need to be supported and when I need to be validated.
2. Do I have a lot of self-confidence? Why or why not?
Only you can answer this question but it’s one that you have to be willing to look at rather than be afraid of answering. You won’t get any leverage over changing it if you’re not willing to look at the answer. For me, some days I have a lot of confidence and other days not so much. It’s ongoing work that I continue to do because I love me and I want to get better at feeling more confident more often.
3. What thoughts do I have that are preventing me from feeling more self confident?
So many of my thoughts that were preventing me or still do prevent me from feeling more self confident are things like, I’m not enough. I’m always doing everything wrong or I did that wrong. Or often for me, this is a big one that I still work on today is I apologize. I say I’m sorry even when there is nothing for me to apologize for. Even when I’ve done nothing wrong, I will take that on and apologize for it. And this is something that I have to work on. Or I’ll think I really have to fix this. Or I shouldn’t have said anything, then everything would be fine. The more I can become aware of when those thoughts show up in my head the more I can be willing to just let them go. To give myself some grace and compassion and move forward and feel more confident in who I am rather than leaning more to one side or the other of shame or arrogance.
4. The next question is what results do I have in my life that self doubt has created?
What I created in my life through self doubt was a marriage where I was pretending to be someone else. I wasn’t authentic to myself and was trying to people please in order to manipulate the situation so that my ex or my children would feel a certain way. That created more self doubt in myself and more pretending of being someone that I wasn’t. So what is not having self confidence creating in your life for you?
5. And then the last question is what results do I want to create in my life when I feel more confident?
Again, this is something that only you can answer for yourself. But it’s definitely worth asking the question and taking a look at. For me, what I wanted to create was a life of helping people. A life where I give myself permission to be me fully – the good, the bad – all of it. Everything in between. Right? A life where I love me and don’t beat myself up and I don’t go to that inner critic as often as I used to. A life where have confidence to show up exactly as I wanted to. No more pretending. What kind of life do you want to create by having more self-confidence?
So we’ve got some awareness of the thoughts that are keeping you in self doubt, that are keeping you in shame or keeping you in arrogance. We’ve got a better picture of what’s holding you back from feeling more self confident. And that’s a good place to be because awareness is always what will open the door for us to move to our next best version of us.
Alright my friends, that’s what I have for you today. I’ll be back with another episode next week on Becoming You Again and hopefully I’ll be feeling a little better, my voice will be a little less squeaky and high and cracked but I thank you for being here and I will talk to you next week.
If you like what you heard on today’s podcast and you want to know more about working 1:1 with me, you can go to www.karinnelsoncoaching.com and schedule your free consult to find out more. That’s www dot Karin nelson coaching dot com.
Thanks for listening. If this podcast episode agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow, rate and leave a comment. And for more details make sure to check out the show notes by clicking the link in the description.
Comments