00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 353, "Creating Confidence." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright, well hello there, my friends. So glad to have you here today. I appreciate you taking the time out of your life to step into content that I hope is making a difference. I know that for me all of this has just changed how I view the world and changed how I interact in the world. And I just cannot believe the life I'm living as a result of incorporating these concepts and these tools. So I hope that you're finding the same thing and I hope that's why you keep coming back. 

00:50 

Really quickly before we jump in, Talk with Tanya is April 8th is my next one. You can go to my website tanyahale.com, go to the "group coaching" tab and there will be an option there to sign up for Talk with Tanya. And this is just a free webinar, an hour long, where we just sit and chew the fat. We talk about whatever you want to bring to the table. You can talk about personal situations. You can talk about questions you have about any of the content. You can ask me about any question. I'm pretty open about all things Tanya and my life. And yeah, it's just a really great discussion. We've gotten some great coaching done in the past several months as we've done this. And I think you will love it. So that is second Tuesday of every month at two o'clock Eastern, 12 o'clock Mountain. And I would love to have you get on and sign up. You'll get an email with a Zoom link so that you can be there. And I hope to see you there. 

01:52 

Also the next thing I just wanted to mention again, I have started putting in my show notes a list of of podcasts that go along with the topic that we're talking about for the day. So if you love the concept, the content for the day, then you can go down to the show notes and you can find several other podcasts that will expand on the ideas or lay a better foundation or something along those lines. So it will just help you understand a little bit better what's going on. And I love that I've been doing that. I think that's a great addition to the work that I've been putting out there for you. 

02:28 

So that being said, let's jump into today's topic. We are talking about creating confidence. Now, confidence is a really, really powerful word in our society. It seems to be the magic pill that either allows us to do something or that holds us back from doing something. So we might want to do something very different in our lives, but lack of confidence will keep us from doing it. Or confidence will move us in the direction of getting it. So we may look at other people and see them doing incredible things and be amazed at the confidence that allows them to engage. And we tend to think that people with confidence are successful and that those who aren't confident aren't successful. We also tend to think that if we are successful, that we will be confident. And if we're not successful, that we can't be confident. 

03:25 

But here's something interesting I want you to chew on. What if success doesn't actually create confidence? What if just because I do something good doesn't mean I'm confident at it? So I see support for this idea all around me. Often I see people who are very successful in business or in making money or at some particular skill, but who actually don't have a lot of confidence in other arenas or in themselves. 

03:57 

Let's look for just a bit at the different aspects of confidence, I think this will be helpful. All of us are confident in a lot of things. For example, we're all pretty confident in our ability to get up out of our chair and walk across the room without falling over. We might be confident in our ability to get in our vehicle and drive across town to the store, confident to get the shopping done we need to in that store, and confident to drive home and put the food away. We might be confident in our ability to use technology or to cook a meal or to manage our finances. We all have things that we are confident doing. And  the reason is that we have done them so many times that we have proven to ourselves that we have a skillset in that arena that is reliable. 

04:41 

So I sometimes refer to this as being confident in things I can do. I'm confident I can generally eat a meal without spilling all over myself. And the thing is, a failure in this thing doesn't shake or hurt or destroy my confidence. So I might have a mishap one meal and spill spaghetti sauce all down the front of my shirt or I might spill my drink or even knock my plate off the table and I might be frustrated or annoyed but I generally just clean it up and get right back to eating my meal. That mishap doesn't shake my confidence in my ability to eat without making a mess, even though I did just make a mess. But I look at my track record and I use that as evidence that I am capable of eating without making a mess and I just get back to it. So when I'm confident in a thing I can get back up and pick up where I left off. I don't get scared picking my fork up and filling it with food. I just take that food failure in stride and quickly put it behind me and start eating again and generally don't reflect on it much. 

05:53 

But what about confidence in doing something we haven't done before, or something that we haven't mastered? This is the place where most of us will question our confidence because we see confidence as being something we can only have if we are proficient. When we're learning a new skill, we're not proficient and this lack of proficiency may cause us to shut down and not even try. Or if we do try, we only give a halfhearted effort or the whole time we are trying, we are berating ourselves, talking down to ourselves, having thoughts like, "I can't do this," which creates feelings of doubt, which impacts our behaviors by having us not try very hard to figure it out, which plays out in a result line of us not being able to do it. 

06:45 

Often when we talk about confidence, we are talking about this space of feeling empowered enough to do things we haven't done before or of being vulnerable enough to have a tough conversation or to share something personal or to engage in an activity or a behavior that doesn't feel comfortable. And because of that, we don't step outside of our comfort zone because we're afraid. We might be afraid of other people's judgment. We might be afraid of our own judgment. We might be afraid of what we will make it mean when we're not successful. For example, do we make it mean that we're a worthless piece of crap? Do we make it mean that we are incapable of being more than we currently are, that we don't have what it takes to figure things out, that we don't have the depth of character to create something different, that we're not smart enough. 

07:39 

Sometimes when I do consults with people, they end up not working with me because they aren't confident in their ability to really step into this work and create something different for themselves. Their track record seems to be one in which they don't feel confident in their ability to really do tough things, to stick with something difficult, to really create the change they want and need in their lives. And because they don't have that confidence in themselves, they don't want to invest the time, energy, and money to work with me one-on-one. 

08:11 

So what is this confidence and how do we get it? As you know, it's not something we can order off of Amazon or pick up at the market. It's also not something we can get from someone else. Other people can tell us we are great and amazing all day long and it does not and will not create confidence in us. 

08:35 

So I want to take a step back really quick and just look at a few of the definitions of confidence when I look this up online. So the first one that came up was "the state of feeling certain about the truth of something." So, in my mind, this is like trusting something that is proven to be true, like gravity. I am confident that when I drop something, it will fall to the ground, unless it's a helium balloon, right? But it could also be the truth of who I am. I am certain that when someone makes me angry, that I won't often hit them. That is a truth about me that I am pretty darn confident in. 

09:13 

This is the second definition, here we go. "The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something." It's a firm trust. So, this is like being confident when we get in the elevator that it will deliver us to the proper floor without a problem. We trust the elevator. Or like the feeling of confidence around being able to eat without spilling. We're pretty certain we can do it, and even if we sometimes fail, our confidence is pretty set and we don't question it. Or maybe even when we can trust another person to show up in a particular way. For example, we can trust our spouse to always treat us with kindness or to  do what he says he's going to do. 

09:57 

And then here's the third definition that came up, "a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities." So, this is the place where we often struggle with confidence because this is based on ourselves, on our own thinking. We are confident in this place that we will stick with a tough job until it's done. We are confident that we will return to love even when it's been difficult. We know that we will have our own back when things go awry. And notice that this type of confidence doesn't come from proficiency around things, but rather the thoughts about our ability to show up the way that we want to. 

10:45 

So did you notice what I just said there? It is based on our own thinking, on our thoughts, because confidence is something we think; it is not something we do. I believe that often in our heads we see confidence as something that is done, it's a behavior. When in reality confidence is manifest in our behavior but it starts with our thoughts. It begins with thoughts like "I can do this," or "I can figure this out," or "I'm smart enough to work through this." Confidence is something we think. And who is in control of your thoughts? Uh-huh, that's right, you are right. 

11:29 

The tricky part of this for many of us is that we have over 60,000 thoughts a day and the vast majority of those, which they consider about 57,000 of those thoughts, we are unaware of. They are thoughts that run in the background of our minds. And when some of these thoughts have been there for so long, they are just doing their thing. And we have zero awareness that they are impacting our feelings and behaviors. So figuring out what some of these thoughts are, learning to be aware of them and nudge them in a healthier direction, is the work to be done. And this is why the work that I do with coaching is so valuable because we take particular situations that you might be struggling with in your life, and we find the thoughts that are running the show, that are running it behind the scenes. 

12:19 

And then that's how we can become aware of these thoughts. So I like to think of these kinds of thoughts as parts of our house that we never think of. For example, when was the last time you thought about the trusses in your home? What about the wiring or the plumbing in the walls? What about the screws that hold the drywall in place or the box of high school memorabilia in the back corner of your storage room? There are so many parts of our house, lots of corners and boxes and drawers and cupboards full of stuff, windows and closets and parts of the home construction and the electricity and plumbing and heating and air that we just don't think of until something goes wrong. All of this stuff is in our homes and it largely goes unnoticed. And some of it is pretty darn important to our comfort within our home. We have thoughts in our brain that do what so many of these things in our home do. They make things work in the background and they rarely get noticed. 

13:20 

So we might have beliefs from our childhood about our abilities. So for example, we might have been told by someone as a child that we don't have a good singing voice. And though it was one person a long time ago, and that person may not have even been somebody who is important to us, that thought may have stuck in our brains and may have become pervasive in our brains. And our brain may have replayed that thought over and over and over until it has become a belief: I'm not good at singing. And now we have so much trepidation and fear around singing in public or anywhere that someone can hear us even though we really might have a great voice. 

14:04 

These are the types of thoughts that create crippling nervousness sometimes that feels like we're not confident. And this is where coaching or doing thought downloads can be so helpful. They can help us root out some of these background thoughts that are affecting how we show up today. A thought like "I'm not good at singing and people will judge me" is based on a thought that we're not good at singing, which is a particular skill. But it's also creating fear because of the thought that we will be judged by others. 

14:36 

An example like this makes it easy to see how even small thoughts can create a lack of confidence in a certain area over time. So in the book "The Confidence Gap" by Russ Harris, he talks about five reasons we don't have confidence. So the first one is excessive expectations. So personally, this is probably my biggest struggle with any confidence problems that I may  have. I think I should be better than I am or that I should be really good before I can show up doing something...just in certain areas because other areas I'm okay being mediocre. There's some things I can do and I'm like a mess. Okay, like I don't care but other places in my life where I'm terrified to show up not being really good. So this is a place where we will be very self-critical and where we become caught up in perfectionist ideas. Now all of us get caught up in this at times and we can often become paralyzed by these unrealistic excessive expectations. 

15:44 

Okay, the second reason we don't have confidence that Russ Harris talks about is harsh harsh self-judgment and this is where our brain will start to beat us down for not being good enough, We have thoughts about being unlikable, inadequate, or incompetent. We may think that we're going to screw everything up or it might be manifest in what people often times call imposter syndrome, where our mind convinces us we're not competent enough to do what we're doing and that someone will find out that we're a fraud anytime now. These are super common thoughts that everyone's primitive brain pushes forward and it takes a lot of awareness and mind management to soften, and even quiet, this voice. And then it's often just for a time, because it is super persistent. 

16:33 

The third reason we don't have confidence is a preoccupation with fear. Now all of us are afraid of rejection at some point. Or we might be afraid of fear or embarrassment. And so many of these fears are based in childhood experiences that have shaped how we view the world and our place in it. Some people are even afraid of fear. Fear is a common emotion for all humans and it just comes down to what we have chosen to do with our fear over the years. Some people fret and worry about every fear that comes up and they can become debilitated by their fears. Other people feel fear and step up to channel that fear into action. The more we focus on the fear rather than on the action we want to take, the less confident we will be. 

17:24 

So the fourth reason is a lack of experience. We talked about this earlier, but when we don't know how to do something, we can't expect to feel confident. What we will often do here is double down or layer this with our own judgment or the fear of other people's judgment and then the lack of confidence feels extra big. 

17:44 

And the fifth one is a lack of skill, and it is really hard to feel confident at something when we know we're not good at it and we all have things that we're not good at. I play the piano a little bit and can tinker around and play some simple songs, but if I were asked to play at church or to accompany someone, I would not have the confidence to say "yes," nor would I have the skill set to say "yes." So when we look at these, some of this lack of confidence makes complete sense, like not having the experience or skill. So obviously creating confidence in these areas would require that we put in the time and effort to develop the skill and create the experience. 

18:26 

But the others, what about the first three we talked about? The expectations, the self judgment, and the fear-based thoughts. These are all coming from our brain, from our thoughts. Remember at the beginning, I talked about confidence with things and confidence with self, while the experience and skill are confidence with things. The confidence in yourself is the expectations, the self judgment, and the fear thoughts. 

18:51 

So how do we create confidence in these areas? Well, we still have to practice, but we're practicing our thoughts rather than practicing a skill set. So rather than having confidence in the thing, we choose to believe in our self. This is why we often refer to it as self confidence. I have the confidence to know that if things go awry, that I will have my own back, that I will circle back around, that I will apologize, that I will do what it takes to correct the situation. I'm confident about those things. Self confidence is knowing that if I fall or if I fail, that I will get back up and try again. It's knowing that I have the courage to step into the unknown and take a risk, because even if things don't go as planned, I will do what it takes to figure it out. I believe in myself enough to know that I will try again and again and even switch courses if necessary without beating myself down." 

19:55 

When Sione and I decided to get married after just knowing each other for three and a half months and we planned a wedding for four weeks from that time, there was a lot that I could have been scared about, not confident about. I've known  a lot of people who entered into a second marriage only to have it end in shambles in a very short amount of time, but I had confidence in a few pieces of myself. One, I was confident in my approach to dating and in the vetting process that I had put in place. Because of this, I felt I had a pretty in-depth understanding of who and what Sione was. I was confident in my judgment of him and his character. Much of this came from the hours upon hours talking about deep topics, about things that really mattered to us, our values and our desires and our dreams. 

20:48 

And ultimately, probably most important, I had confidence in myself. I knew that if things did go south, that I had the capacity to figure out. I was confident in myself, in my determination and my ingenuity to come out the other side on top of things regardless of what happened. Being self-confident is tightly tied to our sense of self, to the belief we have in our goodness and in our inherent worth. It's also tightly tied to how closely we seek to live in alignment with our values. The more aligned our choices and decisions are with our values, the more we feel great about who we are and how we're living our life. 

21:34 

Now, let's be clear. None of us will live our lives always in alignment with our values. This is why repentance is a thing. This is why circling back around is a thing, right? So I like to imagine my values being a path that just kind of is always there, always heading straight. And me? I'm just swerving back and forth across that path all the time. And my goal is to have my life path, that's all swervy, cross my value path as often as possible and not let myself get too far away before I course correct and head back. So my life path hopefully crosses my values path often and there may be times that I actually take a few steps on my value path, right? But I know I'm not going to be perfect. I know I'm constantly going to need to readjust and I offer myself grace for my humanity and I course correct and I head back toward my values path. I might cross it, take a few steps on it, and then come out on the other side like making another mistake and I course correct and I come back right. 

22:43 

But confidence always says that I will readjust my path and head back toward my value path as often as necessary. I believe in myself, in who I am and in the goodness of my imperfect heart. So creating confidence around things like experience and skill takes time and effort and practice creating confidence around ourselves requires strengthening our sense of self cleaning up our destructive self beliefs and thoughts and being doggedly persistent in choosing these paths and readjusting without harsh judgment self-judgment and criticism confidence is really something we think and not something we do conscious mind-awareness and mind management is how we create more confidence in our lives.And I know that you can figure it out. Creating greater confidence is part of growing up. Part of growing up in the middle age and stepping into this greater confidence feels so liberating and so empowering. And I know that you can do this. 

24:06 

Okay my friends, if you feel this podcast is adding value to your life, I would love it if you would do a few things for me. One, I would love it if you would leave a review. You can do that on Apple and you can do that on Spotify, but the reviews help the algorithms know who needs this content and it will put that put this podcast up as a suggestion for them. Also, if you will share this, I would just love it. If you will share it on social media, if you will send links to people that you know who may connect with this content, lots of ways that you can share it. I would just think it's important. I love the content that I'm putting out and I know that it helps people's lives. I know that it's helped mine. 

24:55 

So if you want to make a difference in the world, that's one way you can do it. Okay, thanks for listening my friends. Again, if you want to learn more about this concept, go to the show notes and you can find some podcasts there that will talk more about different aspects of what we discussed today. Okay, wish you all the best. Have an awesome awesome week and I will see you next time. Bye. 

25:17 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.