I’m really excited to share this episode with you, I got pretty fired up recording it… I’m sharing what I think are some key elements to building confidence, from acceptance to perspective. I discuss each one and explain why such magic happens when we combine our confidence with purpose. I also share details of my new e-book, Growth Spurt: vegetative & budding, which is all about building confidence and identifying our purpose.
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:
Links and further reading
- Seedling episode 9: Self-acceptance - how to like yourself more
- Seedling episode 36: Finding body acceptance
- Fierce self-compassion by Dr Kristin Neff
- Seedling episode 18: Building emotional resilience
- Buy Growth Spurt: vegetative & budding
Transcript
Introduction:
In this episode I want to dig under the skin of confidence. I want to pull it apart and see what it’s made so we know how to build it. I also want to share the magic that can happen when we pair this confidence with purpose.
Episode:
Hello everyone, how are you? I am honestly feeling pretty great right now. And it’s funny, this was something that came up in my conversation with Madeline in the last episode of the podcast, but sometimes I hesitate to share that I’m feeling good. I guess for fear of looking like I’m showing off or in case it makes other people feel bad, but I’m trying to stop that mindset and allow myself to celebrate when things are going well.
And they are. I’m so happy in our new flat. I’m really enjoying my work at Happiful at the moment and, in terms of Blue Jay of Happiness, I’ve never felt more sure that I’m on the right path with what I’m doing. I recently launched my new e-book and I’m just so excited that it’s out there. It’s part of my Growth Spurt series which takes the analogy of a plant growth cycle to teach about the different stages of growing self-worth.
The first book is called sprout and seedling and it’s available for free to anyone who signs up to my mailing list and that’s all about understanding what self-worth is and taking those first steps on the self-worth journey. The second book, which I’ve just launched, is the vegetative and budding stage, and this is all about building confidence and clarifying your purpose.
I’ll pop the link to buy it in the show-notes if you want to learn more, but in celebration of its launch I thought I’d do a little deep dive here on what it takes to build confidence. Now, in all honesty, it takes a lot. But what I’m going to talk about here are the core elements that stand out to me when I reflect on my own journey and what I see in others.
And the first element that comes to mind is acceptance. We have to meet ourselves where we are. Before we can even think about building confidence, we need to accept ourselves as we are, recognising our inherent worthiness, showing ourselves forgiveness if we need it. You don’t need to love yourself right now, you can build to that. But if you can accept who you are and start moving away from self-hate and towards acceptance, I promise you a whole world of possibility will open up for you. And if this is an area you’re struggling with, go back to episode 9 of the podcast to hear my tips on self-acceptance, I also talk specifically about body acceptance in episode 36.
The next element I want to mention is self-compassion. This is an area I am diving deep into right now, I’m reading ‘Fierce self-compassion’ by Dr Kristin Neff and it’s teaching me so much about the role self-compassion has and how integral it is to both self-worth and confidence. Many of us are highly skilled in nurturing and caring for others and self-compassion is just about turning that tendency inwards to ourselves. In the book Dr Neff explains that we need a combination of tender self-compassion and fierce self-compassion to not only build our sense of worth but to enact change in this world. I’m sure this element will be something I share more on in the future but I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more.
Next, I want to talk about the role of courage. The root of the word courage is cor – which is the Latin word for heart and In one of its earliest forms, the word actually meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” and I love this so much. Confidence takes heart. It takes courage. It’s not easy to share our hearts with the world, but that is what courage is all about. In order to build confidence, we need to challenge ourselves. We need to face our fears so we can gain the evidence we can. And for this, we need courage.
Another essential part of building confidence is resilience. Many of us see resilience as our ability to bounce back from setbacks, and actually the word comes from the Latin verb resilire, which means to rebound, but it’s not about dismissing those setbacks and pretending nothing happened. Instead it’s about turning our attention to what’s hurting us, processing it, learning from it and seeking new opportunities. An analogy I learnt about this recently was about the way pearls are formed - and they’re formed when a grain of sand or grit gets lodged in an oyster. Instead of kicking out the irritation, the oyster tends to it, adding layers to it until it becomes a pearl - something beautiful. And again, if this is an area you’re working on, go back to episode 18 of the podcast where I talk about building emotional resilience.
The final element I want to mention here is perspective. I think an essential part of the confidence building process is recognising the power it can have not just on you, but on the world. When we’re able to shift our perspective outside of ourselves and see the greater good this work can do, we feel more able to overcome our fears.
And this is why in my new e-book I’ve combined the topics of confidence building with identifying your core values and purpose. Confidence alone is fantastic, it can help you do great things, but the real magic happens when we use it to fuel a personal purpose. This is where fulfilment lives. This is how we can leave our mark on the world, no matter how big or small. And that’s what I want more of us to do. I want us to cultivate our sense of self-worth, harness our confidence, go out into the world and create change. You have so much power within you already, I promise.
Ahhh, OK, I’m going to stop now because I could honestly talk about this subject all day and it gets me so riled up! And as I mentioned, if you do want to explore these topics in greater detail, I would definitely recommend getting your hands on my latest e-book, Growth Spurt: Vegetative and Budding AND, if you buy the book before the 6th of October 2021, you’ll be invited to join the Growth Spurt accountability session where we’ll jump on Zoom and go through the exercises and journal prompts in the book together as a group. There’ll also be time to ask any questions along the way. So, to learn more about that and to get your copy of the book, head to the link in the show description on your app or to bluejayofhappiness.com/shop.
Thanks so much for listening and until next time, take care.
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