Episode 3: Confidence Uncovered: What is it? How do you find it?

:: 00:00

Welcome to the Unlock Your Block podcast career empowerment with me, Robin Cartwright. Join me as I empower you to shine in your career, to up level your life and to go after your dreams. Let's talk.

:: 00:24

Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for coming again to the Unlock Your Block podcast with me, Robin Cartwright. Today I want to dive in and talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, and that is confidence. So, we're going to discuss what is it and how do I go find it. So, when you are feeling like you don't have confidence to move forward, there's a lot to uncover there. And I'm not even going to dive into the half of it. But I'm just going to give you some tips today to help you move forward. Because not feeling confidence has a lot to do with some of our fears that we've created in our head. Not even real. Not feeling confident sometimes has a lot to do with our past and again, the stories that we create and make them, and then you don't have the confidence to move forward.

:: 01:20

So, in a lot of the episodes moving into the future, we're going to talk a lot about confidence because everything that we do in our life is about confidence. You have to feel good. You have to feel confident to be able to do things. Think about it. When you're a kid and you're feeling like there's a toy on the counter that you want to go get, you are standing up, you're waddling over, you're grabbing that toy, right? Well, what if somebody slapped your hand and said, no, all of a sudden? I'm not supposed to do that. Okay, so then you're going to try it again. You get slapped in the hand and you feel no. So time and time again through life, this is what happens. Our confidence slowly goes down because life happens. Things happen to us that kind of, I don't know, deteriorate our confidence and whittle them and make them so that we don't feel good about doing certain things and so we get scared or feel fearful about it.

:: 02:24

To build your confidence to move forward and reinventing yourself, moving up into the career ladder, reengaging your career or even if you want to move into leadership, it's all about confidence. It's all about feeling good. When I wanted to go out and do career coaching, I really knew that this was something I could do. I'd been doing it for years all on my own, so why not do it for a business? I kind of lacked the confidence, to be honest.

:: 02:52

Once it got to the point where it was like, "oh, my gosh, this is my business." "This is really what I'm doing," all of a sudden, I felt this huge thing of impostor syndrome, and there's no way I can do this. But the truth is, I had it in me all this time. I'd been doing this. This is what I know. I know careers. I've sat at the tables with meetings about jobs and performances, and I can help a lot of people, and I'd been doing it before I ever decided to do it as a business. So why couldn't I do it? It was that fear, the kind of thing that goes in your throat and you're just feeling sick about, yeah, that is the fear. So, finding out what's stopping you and then dealing with it is part of it.

:: 03:39

But confidence is all about feeling good about doing something. It is not being ego driven. It is not that car salesman trying to push you to make a sale or buy a car. That is not confidence. It is not the aggressive person telling you why you need to do this. Or there was a time when I was at a baseball game a long time ago to watch my son's baseball game, and this woman, every time I said something, she would try to outdo me or say a better story because she lacked confidence. So, she needed to feel better about herself by making herself look good. And that's, to me, I felt very sad, and I felt sorry for that. That's what she had to do. That all had to do with her lack of confidence, had to do with her insecurity. And then she portrayed this huge ego.

:: 04:38

I remember interviewing this guy one time, and he came in and he felt all strong and had his shoulders up, and he just talked about himself the whole time. That's not confidence. That's ego. To me, that's lacking confidence. Confidence is when you feel good in your own skin. You can bring the authentic you to the workplace. You can bring the authentic you to your relationships, to your friendships. You can bring you and your skills, your strengths into your job. That is confidence.

:: 05:17

It's where you feel good about who you are. It's acting as you are. It's allowing yourself to be silly with your friends and laugh and have a good time. It's being who you are. It's living in the moment and feeling good in your skin. If you are confident, you are sitting up straight, you're feeling positive about yourself. And sometimes, if I'm feeling lack of confidence, I like to go get all dolled up. I put on nice makeup, I do my hair, I put on a nice outfit. My husband always jokes to me and goes, "are you not feeling good today?" But the truth is, it just makes me feel better.

:: 06:00

And I like to look good. Even when I'm doing a video, I like to look good. So, that's something that I can do. You can also take the time to do self-care, go for a walk, exercise, meditate. All of those things will help you build confidence. Go work out. It's a good thing to feel good about yourself. Have you ever noticed that when you start a workout routine, maybe you're in it for a week or two. All of a sudden, you start feeling good about yourself. You maybe haven't lost any weight, or maybe your muscles aren't to the exact way that you want them to be, but you feel good about yourself.

:: 06:39

So, it was cute when my son was starting to work out, he shows me his arms and goes, “Look, mom, look, I'm getting strong.” He'd only done it for two weeks, but the point was, he was feeling more confident about himself. So that's what you want to do. You want to make sure you feel confident about yourself. So, you want to find ways to do that. And sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone, do something a little different. So, for example, I like to, when I'm kind of not feeling real confident with myself, I like to go and cook a meal that is something I've never done before. So I'll go and look at the recipe. I'll go buy all the stuff, and I'll give it a good try because it's something challenging and something fun.

:: 07:24

And if it's successful, which usually it is, if you follow the recipe correctly, that it feels good. I created something. I did this. This is awesome. Sometimes I like to take a class, even if it's just a class on gardening or something simple, just to feel good about something that I've accomplished. It helps build your confidence. So you want to do little things that build your confidence. Be around positive people. Go and watch funny videos so that you feel good about yourself. Nobody wants to be with the downer.

:: 07:58

And so if you're feeling more confident about yourself and you're sitting there with your back up straight and talking, and you come into the office and you're feeling that way, other people take notice. They're like, she's pretty confident about herself. And be confident with your abilities.

:: 08:16

I remember, I interviewed a gentleman, and it was pretty funny because he said to me he goes, I interview horribly. I'm so nervous. And when we did the mock interview in the coaching session, and we dived into his actual job of what he did. Oh, my gosh, talk about confidence. He could just roll it off his tongue left and right, everything that he knew. He knew that job so well. He built it up into his own mind that he wasn't confident. He was exceptional. He was great. He knew the job. It was all about feeling good and confident.

:: 08:54

I worked with a gal through a coaching session who had, English was not her first language, so doing an interview with English speaking people was hard, and she had a thick accent. She was very insecure about it. I just talked to her about, “Talk about the job. Slow yourself down so people can hear you and talk about the job. If you know the job and you've been doing it and you know your strengths, talk about them, feel confident about who you are because you are exceptional.”

:: 09:29

So, I'm hoping that these tools help you. If you want to learn more, you can go onto my website at hiddengemscoaching.co or go on Instagram or my podcast here. And we're going to keep talking about empowerment and confidence and feeling good. Because to be a leader and to move and up level your life, and your career, you need to have confidence. So, go have that confidence today.