You have a house plant. Let’s imagine it’s a big leafy monstera (a personal fav of mine).
You water it every week without fail, you make sure it has sunlight (but not too much), you feed it plant food every few months, you re-pot it when it gets bigger and give it the ideal environment it needs to flourish.
It’s not just one of those things that supports your monstera to bloom, it’s the combination of all of them. Multiple things to help it thrive.
But let’s say when you got your monstera, it wasn’t in a good way and hadn’t been looked after properly.
It had patchy sunlight, was over and then under watered, it ended up pot bound.
Although it’s in a bad way, it’s very likely that you’ll be able to give it everything it needs to thrive.
But it will take time.
Small, consistent steps. Cutting it back, watering, feeding.
You’ll need patience. It may look worse before it gets better.
But it will get better.
This monstera is the same as your confidence.
It doesn’t take just one thing to improve it, it takes multiple things.
Consistent practices over time.
And over time you will be able to track the improvements.
Because you may have been in situations where you haven’t been treated well (I think many of us have experienced this) and this has led your confidence to plummet.
Perhaps you’ve started a new job where you are building your knowledge, but knowledge has always been the thing that has given you confidence.
Or you have had a setback, where you weren’t offered the promotion that everyone said you would 100% get
Or you constantly overthink your decisions and doubt yourself, which means you rarely speak up in a work setting.
A lack of confidence is something that the majority of my clients face when they begin to work with me. I would argue it is the biggest thing holding women back from unlocking their power and unleashing their potential. It’s a contributing factor to the gender pay gap and blocks women progressing
Women are more likely to report lower performance than men, even though scores are the same (according to a study via Forbes)
61% 10 – 17 year olds in the UK have low self-esteem (Dove beauty and confidence report, 2016)
Men apply for a job when they only meet 60% criteria, whereas women apply only if they meet 100% (Hewlett Packard report)
With even the most self assured person, their confidence will ebb and flow. Part of that is cycle driven; as females we are cyclical beings and our monthly cycle and hormones have a huge impact on confidence. Around the spring/summer phase of your cycle which surrounds ovulation (or the full moon if you don’t bleed) many people find their confidence peaks, they have more energy and feel more self assured. As you enter your autumn (or the moon is at a ¾) you may find your confidence dipping. This is a key inner critic season, so be aware of how this flares up for you and create rituals to support yourself during this period.
Having a level of awareness about how your own confidence flows is hugely important.
Here are some journaling questions to help you explore further:
How confident are you currently feeling? What is impacting that?
Are there certain situations where your confidence drops?
Are you triggered by certain people and that impacts your confidence?
What helps to boost your confidence?
I always recommend my clients have their own ‘confidence toolkits’. Sets of techniques and practises that really help them to boost their confidence and times where it may be lacking. These should be quick and simple things that you can use during your work or personal life.
Here are the favourites:
Power poses
A power pose is a way to utilise your body language to help you feel more confident. The most recognisable pose is the ‘wonder woman stance’. Legs apart, hands on hips, chin raised. Amy Cuddy has done a huge amount of research on this and there is a huge amount of data to back up her claims.
Reflect on your achievements
This is all about creating a playbook of what is possible for you, based on what you have already achieved. Block time in your calendar each week to reflect on the following questions:
What were my wins this week?
What are my learnings from what didn’t go so well this week?
What did I do to get closer to my goals?
This allows you to reflect on what has just happened, but also link that to what you are working towards
Fake it until you make it (but also know we are ALL just winging it)
This is about embodying the person you want to become and acting in a way as if you are already that person. This can be a difficult practice to master and involves trying things you wouldn’t usually do and trying to ignore the imposter syndrome that all of us feel at times.
I’d love to know which one of these you’d find most useful? And whether there are any other burning topics that you’d like me to dive into in future posts you can let me know at emily@emilybuttoncoaching.com
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