Confidence Journey - Lessons Learned
Part 1
It’s been some time since I’ve posted to my blog. This last year I’ve made promises to myself and then broken them. But have been okay about that. That’s huge growth for me.
I’ve wanted to come on and write about confidence for some time but I have so much to say that I’ve found it difficult to know where to start. But now I know.
I’m going to share my own exploration of confidence with you and the lessons I’ve learned. Not to provide you with a template to ‘fix’ yourself (you are not broken!), but to offer some comfort and help you realise that no matter how you feel you have a bedrock of confidence within you.
Here’s how to uncover it.
Revelation one – those shitty voices are not YOU
‘Why have I got no confidence?’ Bloody hell I remember feeling that. The shame of being a midlife woman and still being slammed with these thoughts.
It was early 2019. I’d handed in my notice to leave the corporate world and start my own business. From the outside it looked like a confident move but in the months leading up to my departure I still sat in meetings with senior men (oh the lessons I’ve since learned about that) quiet, afraid to voice my views, sweating as I turned red with shame.
WTF was wrong with me? I knew that if I was going to make my business a success, and enjoy the process, I needed to deal with this.
Insight: mine, and my clients’ experiences, have taught me that a perceived lack of confidence doesn’t always stop you from doing something. Instead, you do the thing but fuck it drains you emotionally.
6 months later after a shit load of coaching and therapy I learned that I did have a deep rooted trust in myself.
It started with a few words from my coach. ‘You know those voices in your head that tell you they’ll think you’re stupid?’ Well, um yeah! I live with them. I know them far too well. ‘You are not those voices. You are the person listening to them.’
These words have impacted me like no others. You see if you are the person listening to those voices then that means you can turn them down so that the confident you can be heard.
Separating yourself from the voices
Become an observer of the voices. Notice when they come up and remind yourself that you are not them. You are the human being listening to them.
Revelation two – your inner critic has fuck all to do with what’s going on right now. It’s a ghost from the past
That voice in my head that really kept me in fear - call it the inner critic, shitty committee, pain in your ass, your mother. Whatever fits. Mine was ‘they’ll think you’re stupid.’ I just didn’t understand. All of the facts suggested that I was the opposite of stupid and most of the time I believed this. So, why did I have these thoughts? But more importantly how could I turn the volume down so that they no longer drowned me (full of trust and confidence) out.
With the help of an awesome coach and therapist I worked out that mine showed up when I was with senior men. My critic’s debut appearance was when I was young. It arrived to protect me (it always thinks it’s keeping you safe) from ridicule from my Dad and Uncles. If I said anything silly they would jump on me and I’d feel really small, stupid and embarrassed. So, to ensure that I wasn’t put in that situation and I was accepted by my family, the critic whispered in my ear – sshhh, don’t say anything, you’ll look stupid.
Fast forward a lot of years and that whisper had turned into a nasty little snipe. It was at its nastiest when I was with senior men or in a position where I believed I was going to be judged on my competence.
But I didn’t need its protection anymore. No one was out to shame me. People were actually interested in what I had to say. I had no need for it now.
That voice you hear – it’s not out to get you. It’s trying to keep you safe because at one point in your life you didn’t get what you needed. Acceptance, love, security. But that critic of yours has no interest in the truth of now.
Understanding where it comes from and what it was trying to do enables you to turn the bugger right down. And then you can rewrite the script. I rarely think that people will think I’m stupid (note the use of rarely). Instead, I believe that people I talk to are genuinely interested in what I have to say.
In those moments that it does pop up I get curious. It’s a sign that I’m trying something new and I’m a bit scared. I give it the reassurance that it needs - that things will be okay and I work it out.
Understanding your critic
What are the things that it normally says to you? Write the words down that come up time and again
When you hear those words how does it make you feel?
When was the first time that you can remember feeling that feeling, hearing those words?
How were those words trying to keep you safe and accepted?
Take some time with this. Come back to it time and again. You will find the answers you need. I worked it out through coaching and therapy but you don’t necessarily need that.
A quick note here. Your work is not to eradicate your inner critic – don’t waste your time. Your work is to recognise it’s causing you pain, take time to understand it and give it the reassurance it needs. This will turn its deafening sound down and give voice to your confident self.
Have a wonderful few weeks and I’ll be back with more on this.