Confidence is not something you are born with. It is a skill that is later developed and sought after. It does go hand in hand with our programming and it is significantly linked to our self esteem and self worth. Confidence does not mean that you need to be an extrovert. Confidence is mastering a new skill.
When I took my schooling to become a certified health coach, we were taught that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And I just didn’t understand this concept at all. I was trying to understand how I could apply this to my life but I couldn’t seem to put the dots together. I listen to quite a few podcasts but the one I’ve been glued to for the past two years is Kim Constable – The Sculpted Vegan. Now veganism is not what I am promoting here, and I can’t seem to get the handle on that either and I have no shame in eating meat, but this woman is so powerful and so confident that I have been addicted to listening to her for the past couple of years. She has shared a lot of her life and how she grew her business to a million dollar empire – all while building and sculpting her body to stand on stage and win her bodybuilding competitions. And the more I listen to her, I finally understood what it meant.
The way you do one thing is the way you do all things
She is an incredible ALL in type of woman. Like she goes balls deep in everything. She trains insanely hard, to failure every single workout and she takes high risks in her business dominating face book ads and her Instagram account. On her latest episode she was comparing herself to her husband and how he takes little or calculated risks and how he doesn’t really train to failure and does not like being pushed out of his comfort zone both in business and his training, while she is like, “I’m on the edge of comfort zone and pushed out daily” – that’s where she loves to show up.
This was such an #Ahamoment for me. How you do one thing is how you do all things. So how can this relate to self confidence? Well as your level of confidence grows you will find that your self drive is stretched and your abilities become rooted – your skill set develops and you start to unveil your true self. You finally find momentum and start to trust yourself.
When you trust yourself and know yourself your confidence shines.
This will start to show up in all areas of your life. When you experience set backs you start to develop #resilience. Resilience is what helps us to deal with #stress, like really deal with stress. I remember when shit would hit the fan – a big one for me is when I went through my divorce. That hit me hard and I felt like a failure. I was embarrassed to tell his family that I was leaving him because I really did like his family, and we had “our” friends. I remember wanting to leave him knowing that it wasn’t the right relationship to be in and I had asked my friends who had left their husbands when did they know? One friend said to me, Katrina, one day you will wake up and that will be it. That will be the day you decide and you leave and you don’t look back. I remember waking up day after day asking myself each day if this was the day? Did I have the courage to walk out the door? And you know what? One day it did happen. Just like magic, all of a sudden, I didn’t care what everyone else thought of me. I stopped judging myself and worrying about what others were going to say and think. And that was my turning point. I finally went numb to what other people thought. I was so done living in this sick cycle. So I packed up my kids and we left. I had gotten myself to the point of being so bloody uncomfortable that change was screaming through me. Going through that experience taught me so much more than I ever thought possible.
My point here is that through experience we learn, we grow, we gain #confidence. And entering my second marriage, I certainly know everything I don’t want in a marriage which makes the two of us cherish and work harder at the relationship we do want. We want a confident marriage.
The opposite of confidence is fear, so let me ask, what are you fearful of? How can we develop confidence to combat that fear? My mama taught me from a young age to always walk with my head up, shoulders back, tummy in and tits out – that was the confident walk. My mother never wanted me to be pray to men and if you walk with confidence and assurance, you were less of a target. So confidence for me was a bit of a safety mechanism.
On the topic of #selfesteem, I’d like you try a little exercise with me here, hunch your shoulders, slouch down, look at the floor and say “I feel great.” How did that feel? How loud were you? Do you believe yourself? Now, let’s try this a second time, but this time stand up tall, roll your shoulders back, tits out, tummy in, head up, and smile – and say “I feel great!” How much energy came out of you this time?
Just by changing our stance and adjusting our body we can shift the mood, energy and emotions that may be a little stagnant within ourselves.
Are you familiar with the saying “You always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take?” Thank you Wayne Gretzky. How many shots have you missed? What have you learned through it all? There is always a take away. Confidence can unleash your full potential when you easily accept your weaknesses and failures with the knowledge that these experiences do not change your sense of self worth.
You can appreciate the fact that you have strengths that you can celebrate even amongst adversities and feel empowered to use them fully. #Confidence is what helps #align your actions with your #values, #principles and #standards. When you are aligned this offers you a superior sense of #purpose. Confidence opens you up to #selfdiscovery so that you can appreciate who you truly are and what you represent. This is exactly what #soulsearching is – figuring out and understanding what makes you tick. What excites you, what frightens you, where do you want to go, who do you want to be?
And it doesn’t matter how old you are – my 17 year old daughter is currently stuck here. Or reverting even. She is weeks away from graduating high school and all she wants to do is stay in her room and color. She is avoiding answering questions and feels too young to be thrown into the world right now. I’m trying to show her that she is taking baby steps. She still gets to live at home, she is taking entry level courses at University come the fall, and not much change is happening except she’s attending a bigger school and has an opportunity to make new friends. I don’t think the right word is fear here, it’s nerves, it’s being pushed into the unknown, and about 90 % out of her #comfortzone. But this is where the magic happens. This is where self discovery is at its peak. Now you don’t need to be 17 and on your way to University as most big life changes will do this for you. They will push you into the unknown and out of your comfort zone. And then your level of confidence kicks in here. Your level of resilience kicks in here. Your level assurance and alignment kicks in here. And your mindset kicks in here.
Your level of confidence, resilience, assurance and alignment can all be controlled with one skill set – your mindset.
The beauty of our #mindset is that we can easily choose to shift it at any time towards the direction we choose. Life is full of unexpected experiences, last minute, uncontrollable and stressful situations. How you handle them is all about mastering your mindset. All I am going to say here is ask yourself, how can I solve this problem or offer a solution? Don’t even bother wasting your time with the what if’s and negative thinking. A confident person does not waste time with stinkin’ thinkin’.
Building blocks that you can start thinking about and setting up micro goals to get to the bigger picture
- Know your direction in life. Where are you going? What do you want? What does your ideal day look like?
- Visualize your ideal day and feel it. Does it excite you? Can you actually see yourself living your ideal day?
- Who are you being? How are you acting? Who are you with? When you start to visualize these tiny aspects and day dream about it, particularly in the morning this is setting your subconscious mind up for success. This is making an imprint and starting the work of alignment.
In all of the marketing classes I have taken they tell me to define my ideal client, and niche down. Once I know exactly who my ideal client is all of my content and decisions are made on weather or not my ideal client would want this. I am to gear all of my work towards my ideal client and it clarifies which direction I should take or not take. The same is true for you and your path on life – ultimately we want to get so clear on creating your ideal day that every decision you make is bringing you one step further towards exactly what you want.
The visualization and the changing of vibrations that happens in your subconscious and conscious mind starts to automatically make things happen. - Get out of your comfort zone. If you have desires that you are not acting on it will stagnate you right where you are. When you fail to explore new experiences, you are letting fear take away your sunshine. You are simply digging deeper into your zone of comfort, the one you’ve been sitting in for a few decades now…
As I’ve said before, what if your desires are seducing you to become the person you were meant to be?
I know that a lot of people overthink things. Stop the insanity – it’s time to step into your power and authenticity, you can prove to yourself that you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
The secret to having unshakable confidence? It starts with you. Let it grow and get stronger each year. - Instead of judgement, I ask you to get curious. Get curious about your thoughts and judg-y-ness in the first place – why do you think that way? Why are you judging? And then get curious about the person or situation instead of judgement. A quick side story – my mom used to teach at the college that I was attending. She was helping people prepare their resumes and prepping them for interviews to help them build their confidence so they could pass an interview and get hired for a job. I sat in on one of her seminars one day, and there was an international student who was actually in my class, taking the same course as me, he was a bit older and he kept asking my mom all sorts of questions and simply drilling her. She held her composure, answered all of his questions and then afterwards, she totally unloaded to me thinking he was rude, and she just felt drained from him attacking her with questions and possibly wondering about her credentials. I laughed. I said mom, he’s from Mexico – he’s trying to make a life here. He was asking all of those questions was because he is genuinely interested in what you have to say. He is soaking up the education. This is how he learns. You are blowing his mind with information and helping him to be a better human so he can get a good job and move his family to Canada. What you did back there was awesome. And you know what? Ever since then, my mother stopped judging. She understood from a different perspective, and I got to teach her a lesson that day.
So, in any situation if you are overwhelmed or feeling judged or feeling a little attacked, take a breath, and view the situation in a different light. Get curious as to why you feel that way and how can you flip this script in your head to be confident, professional, kind, and serve whoever you are speaking, teaching or learning with. - Believe in yourself. Know your worth. Know your values. Stand up for your belief’s and don’t waiver from your truth. In saying that, understand that the only person you can change is you. Once I got that, like really got that, I shifted and went to work on self improvement and self development, and it’s made me a way better person, wife and mother. I had to change my thinking and my expectations. I think with the confidence that I’ve developed over the years and I’m still working on this one, but it’s to learn when to pipe in, offer advice and when it’s time to just shut up and walk away. I used to be very confrontational, now I really have to decide if its’ worth my time and energy. And that is stepping into authenticity and personal power.
One more important part to unshakable confidence, is #failure. Let’s talk failure real quick. Failure is inevitable. But we always fail forward (It took me a long time to figure this one out too) But to #failforward is to grow and make the mistakes so you know what you don’t want. Get clarity on what you do want. Don’t be afraid to apologize. If I am wrong or if I offend anyone, I am the first to apologize. It is never my intention to make people feel bad, but sometimes we need to talk about the hard stuff to get to the good stuff. Take responsibility for your failure, note it and move on. A long time ago, I heard a famous person say, and I don’t even remember who said it, but it was in relation to winning a championship – whether you win or lose you get 24 hours. 24 hours to brag and sing and celebrate the win, or 24 hours to be sad and accept defeat. After the 24 hour mark you are back at it and re strategizing. Back to training or creating or launching or building because the only way we get better is to fail forward, keep training and enjoy the journey. You may reach a destination but you get wired to the journey. No really, your brain actually starts to release dopamine as you train or create or launch and you become addicted to the journey of your long term goal. So once you’ve hit that goal, you set another one but this time your starting point has all of the experience and conditioning from what you’ve just gone through. It’s a great place to be. Keep on keeping on.
Final Thoughts
Never stop learning – they say knowledge is power but I don’t know anymore, I think that experience is power. Knowledge is growth and evolution. Personal and professional development is needed more now than ever and finding that balance point. In the book Outliers they say that to hit mastery on a skill you need 10 thousand hours honed in on that skill. Michael Jordan – 10 thousand hours of basket ball to become a master. Tony Robbins 10 thousand hours of life strategizing. While your goal may not be mastery, you will certainly gain confidence in any area you wish to learn and gain experience from.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help – I love mentors and sometimes your mentor can be a book or a you tube channel, a coach, or a friend. Fake it till you make it. Visualize yourself as your most confident self and then act like that. See how it feels. Try it on.
Reach out to friends – if you are feeling a little uncertain call up a friend you trust. Friends are there to lift you up, give you honest feedback, wipe your tears and help combat self doubt and insecurities.
Finally, I will repeat myself here, confidence begins with your mindset. This helps you to remain genuine and true to yourself. It is the thing that helps you retain your true identity no matter what circumstances you face in life. I ask you to tap into your heart centered warrior – have a chat with her. Decide on a plan of where you want to go in this life and start walking it. What needs to change? What do you need to do? Get curious and set up your micro goals, stay present, and step out of that comfort zone.