Aligning Who You Are With What You Do To Build Confidence
I believe wholeheartedly that at our core we are all awesome confident women.
Do you ever get those moments, no matter how fleeting, when you get a rush of excitement, a flutter in the stomach as you visualise yourself doing exactly what you’ve been too scared to admit that you’d love to do? At those moments, and hey they may be few and far between, you know you can do it. That is you connecting with your awesome confident self.
But life gets in the way. Our upbringing, societal and people’s expectations of us, drowns out our confident self. Taking action, stepping out of our comfort zone, and turning the volume down on our inner critic can all help us to gain confidence. But, that’s for another time…..promise.
Aligning who you are with what you do helps confidence to naturally flow through you. I worked for many years in the corporate role driven by the need to support my family. It was never about a burning desire to work in that field. Whilst I had lots of success and enjoyed it at times it came at a cost. It never felt like me. I always felt like I had to fit in, rein myself in, temper the best bits of me. As a result I struggled, particularly as I became more senior and was plagued by my inner critic and a lack of confidence. I no longer had confidence that I had anything of value to say.
What I was doing, working in a big corporate, wasn’t aligned to who I was and eventually I got the balls to leave. Now? Well now I’m not plagued by that lack of confidence that kept me in fear and held me back. Don’t get me wrong - I have my moments but they’re not crippling. Part of this is because I’ve done my own work on my inner critic but another huge part is that what I do, in my life and work, is far better aligned to who I am.
Here’s the process that I went through and I take some of my clients through, to align who you are with what you do:
Get clear on your unique set of strengths, abilities and qualities
What are you good at? What do you love doing? What amazing traits and characteristics do you have? Ask those you love and trust. If you were writing a CV to sell yourself what would you put down? Clifton Strengthsfinder is brilliant - go have a look.
What are your core values?
What is absolutely at the core of who you are and how you like to live? What’s important to you? Hop on over to my Resources Page and download my values tool.
What’s your manifesto for life?
It’s a statement of what you stand for and how you [want to] live your life. It’s underpinned by your core values and beliefs. See mine here.
Do an audit
Looking at the different areas of your life ask yourself to what extent are you utilising your unique set of strengths, abilities and qualities? How are you living your values and being guided by your manifesto for life?
Dare to dream
Journal, think, record - but imagine a life where you were doing what you really wanted to do. Where you were drawing on your strengths and qualities and living your values. What would that look like?
Action plan
What changes would you like to make to just one small bit of your life to start to align who you are with what you do? What do you need to make it happen? Who can support you? When are you going to do it?
And, keep going.
It sounds simple right? And in some respects it is, but it isn’t necessarily easy. It took me a painful summer of soul searching, of journaling, of talking, of reflection to get really clear on this stuff. But, it’s so worth it.
Let me know how you get on.