Confidence seems like one of those magically desirable yet ever-elusive traits that all of us entrepreneurs (or wannabe business owners) need more of.

But what if tapping into more confidence was all in within your power? What if it was just a matter of making a choice?

In today's episode, we'll discuss the most important thing I teach all my life coaching clients and how it can help you gain confidence aplenty. Then I'll teach you what you can do TODAY to go confidently in the direction of your dreams.

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Schedule a free coaching call with Bonnie

Hey there everybody.

Welcome back to the podcast.

I feel like after last week's episode on the fuel needed to burn brightly that

I should call you guys something like my little burning candles or something.

That's easy.

Anyway today, we're going to talk about confidence.

Oh, confidence.

I know everyone wants more of it.

And if you are listening to this, you were probably wanting more of it

because you want to put something out into the world and you are feeling.

Uh, afraid and not very confident.

Right.

So let's start off with a definition.

There were a couple of definitions that I really liked, in regards to confidence

when I looked it up and one of them was a feeling or consciousness of one's powers.

How cool is that?

Do you feel conscious of your own power?

Or a faith or belief that one will act in a right proper or effective way.

Do you have faith or belief that you know, the right thing to do,

or the proper thing to do when it comes to building a business?

So many of us struggle with confidence.

In fact, I think a lack of confidence is one of the top stressors of

newbie or want to be entrepreneurs.

We think that we need way more confidence than we have to do

some of these hard things that our brain is telling us we need to do.

If we were just confident enough, everything would be easier.

If we were more conscious of our own power.

Or we, if we were believing that we would do things right,

that seems just so elusive.

And really unattainable.

But I promise that it's not an, I'm going to give you exactly what you need today.

To become that confident, amazing business owner that you want to be.

But here is the question that no one seems to be asking.

How do we gain confidence?

What do you think, think for a second, how do you gain confidence?

Does it come from?

People telling you that you are good at something?

Maybe if enough people tell me that I'm good at being a business owner,

I will be a competent business owner.

Or is it from evidence that you know how to do things, Like

after 10 years of playing piano, I'm a confident piano player.

Is it former success.

Have you had success in one area?

And so now you're confident in it.

Maybe specialized education, right after you finish your, your bachelor's degree,

you feel confident in that area of study.

Or just more experience in it?

What is it, what specifically.

Helps us to gain confidence.

Well, the cold hard truth is my friend's confidence does

not come from outside of you.

In fact, I'm going to give you a little known secret.

No feeling you ever experience comes from out side of you.

It is all created in your own brain.

This is where we're going to start talking a little bit more about the nitty gritty

of life coaching and how I help people, because it is one of the most powerful.

Understandings that you will ever learn.

Learning how to manage my mind, which is what life coaching is, has

been the second biggest, greatest gift I've ever given myself.

The first one being my relationship with God at the second one is

managing my mind because it controls everything else in my life.

Confidence comes from within when we think confident thoughts.

We feel.

Confident.

Wow.

That seems simple.

Right?

Just think confident thoughts.

Maybe it's a little bit harder than it sounds.

It is a little bit trickier than it might seem, but it is that simple.

So it is time to learn about the self-coaching model.

So my life coach training.

Was done through the life coach school created by Brooke Castillo and she.

Teaches a model.

She calls the self-coaching model.

I will get into all the steps and teach it to you very thoroughly.

As we go on through this podcast.

And if you draw episodes, but the important thing to learn here is that

we tell ourselves stories all day long.

Our brain stories is also known as our life's narrative.

It's how our brain interprets the world around us.

Something happens outside of us and we have a thought about it.

We have thousands and thousands of thoughts every single day.

And many of them are subconscious.

Many of them are not.

Things that we are consciously thinking than reacting to.

They just flit across our brain and we react.

So a few examples.

Somebody cuts you off in traffic on your way home, and you think what did work?

There's a thought that happens because of how you interpreted a fact outside

of you, the guy cutting you off.

Your kids start to fight and you think these kids are driving me crazy.

That's a story.

Your husband forgets your anniversary and you think he's so insensitive sometimes.

Story.

That's your narrative about that event?

The reason we know.

That these narratives are ever changing.

And our subjective is because everyone has different ones.

There might be another woman whose husband forgets her anniversary

and she thinks, oh good.

We don't have to go out to eat.

I hate getting dressed up.

Or there might be another person who gets cut off in traffic and thinks, oh, good.

This is going to slow me down.

I don't want to get home in time for bedtime.

Everyone has different interpretations of the same events.

It's fantastic.

It's amazing.

It's what makes us uniquely us.

It's what creates our personality and makes us uniquely human.

And as I mentioned, these stories and reality are very rarely facts.

They're just our interpretation of them.

Sometimes these stories, this narrative serves us really well.

For example, when I was growing up, I told myself the story that having

a large family would be amazing.

It would be chaotic and noisy and fun and so much love.

And it led me to having 10 children on my own.

And it's true.

It is fun and noisy and chaotic and amazing.

It is other things too, but that story served me.

It got me what I wanted, because that was how my brain was interpreting

the large families that I saw and the experiences that I had.

Sometimes, however, unfortunately our stories do the opposite of this and they

cause us suffering and pain and grief.

Sometimes these narratives are simply the result of what we were

taught as kids or of what we've seen our peers and our friends do.

Sometimes they're just the result of our own expectations for ourselves.

So life coaching is all about diving into the why behind this narrative.

Do we want to keep this narrative or do we want to change it to

something that serves us better?

But many of us do not even know that there is a better way.

We think that our narrative is facts

and that truth alone.

The fact that your thoughts and stories are not facts is one of

the most revolutionary things you are ever going to learn.

I promise try it on and let me know what you think.

So back to confidence.

Feeling the feeling of confidence simply relies on whether or not we are

thinking thoughts that create confidence.

Our thoughts actually create the feelings that we want to feel.

So back to the examples I gave you.

Uh, a man cuts you off and you think what a jerk, what feeling comes

from the thought that guy's a jerk?

Probably irritation or anger.

These kids are driving me crazy yields.

What kind of feeling.

Irritation anger.

Right?

I, I picked a lot of similar.

Uh, examples here.

Let's change the anniversary.

When let's say your husband does remember your anniversary and he brings flowers

and chocolates and takes you on a fancy date and you think I love this man.

He's incredible.

What feeling yields from that Love and attraction and beautiful feelings.

So those thoughts create our feelings.

So

So, let me give you an example from my own life to help illustrate this a little bit.

I have had many experiences to teach Sunday school to adults in my church.

So the first time, so the way it works in our churches, you are given an assignment

to do something, to help out in church.

And it lasts for several months up to several years.

So this assignment.

To teach the adults in Sunday school.

I was first given when I was about 18 or 19, so I was a brand new adult in college.

And I was facing a room full of men and women.

Most of whom were much older than me.

And I felt like they knew a lot more than me, so I was kind of terrified.

But I chose to think that I could be a good Sunday school teacher.

And I chose to think that I had everything I needed to be a great teacher.

And then I felt the feeling of confidence and I started to become a good teacher.

So recently I've been given this assignment again and I'm again,

teaching the adults Sunday school.

And do I feel nervous and insecure sometimes.

Absolutely.

Like every single time I get up there and do it, I battle those feelings.

But instead of dwelling on them and thinking, oh, you're not going to like me.

Or they know more than me or they're going to hate what I have to say.

I lean in to the thoughts that build confidence.

Like I love doing this.

This is such a privilege.

Teaching people about God is a blessing.

And one of my favorite things.

So it's not that choosing your thoughts to lead to confidence will

eliminate other negative feelings.

You're still gonna feel nervousness.

You're still gonna feel fear.

That is totally normal, but confidence comes from leaning into the thoughts

that yield it and ignoring the ones that yield the opposite,

that nervousness and the fear.

So now let's think about you.

What do you need confidence for?

Do you need it to show up on social media to promote your business?

Or maybe you're thinking about calling a supplier and seeing how much it would

be to get your amazing invention made.

Maybe you just need to apply for a business loan.

And you're terrified at going to a banker and putting your

business plan in front of him.

Maybe you just need to talk to your husband about your idea

and you're nervous about that.

So, whatever it is, forget the confidence for just a second and ask yourself

what narrative you're telling yourself.

What is the story that's going through your brain about this situation?

These thoughts actually might be very subtle yet.

Pernicious thoughts that actually take some time to uncover.

And that's what life coaching is about.

But I suggest you do some journaling or you can sign up for a free

call with me and I can help you.

Uncover some of those thoughts that are causing this fear, this

nervousness, this anxiety that is keeping you back from the next step.

Digging into your brain is one of the tools.

That I love to show people how to do, because then it uncovers why you were

feeling the way you are and you can make progress in a different direction.

So the sooner you uncover the stories that you're telling yourself, the

sooner you'll be able to question them.

And loosen their grip on your brain.

You get to ask yourself, I series of questions when you uncover these thoughts,

the first one is, is this even true?

Okay, so let's take for example.

Talking to your husband about your business ideas I get that sometimes

just talking to the first person outside of your own head about

your ideas can be scary, even if it's your wonderful husband.

You are probably thinking thoughts like.

He's not going to like this.

He's going to tell me we don't have money to invest.

He's going to laugh at me.

He's going to say it's a bad idea.

You are already spinning in your head probably about what he's going

to say, what he's going to think and what that's going to mean for you.

Stop for just a second and ask.

Are these things even true?

Is he really going to laugh at you?

Has your husband ever laughed at your idea?

I mean, my husband laughs at me all the time, but not for serious dope.

What is he really going to rack, like ask yourself that, and

even if he is going to laugh.

So what, that's another question you can ask yourself.

So what, even if it is true, what does that mean?

What am I making that mean?

Am I making it mean something really dramatic and serious?

Or is it not that big of a deal?

The next question you can ask yourself about your thought is,

do I want to keep believing this.

If I believe my husband will dismiss my business ideas.

Do I want to keep believing it?

I could just ask him and see.

It might be true.

It might not be, even if it is, then I can choose to move on from

there, then I can choose to think another thought, like, do I need

his approval to build this business?

Do I need him to believe in me?

Spoiler alert you don't, you need only yourself to believe in you to

move forward with a business idea.

Another question you can ask yourself is what if I am wrong?

What if I am wrong about all these fears that I have so many times we hold

ourselves back from doing something that requires confidence because we have.

Convinced ourselves that we will see a specific outcome.

And then we finally get the courage to do it.

And the outcome is nothing like our fears.

It's hilarious.

We just sit there and go.

Why didn't I do this a million years ago?

Nothing like that even happened, but our fears are always the

worst inside our own heads.

So again, ask yourself, is this even true?

If so, so what do I want to keep believing it?

And what if I am wrong, what if that doesn't happen, then?

What.

Okay, so that is step number one.

We are dismantling the anti confidence narrative that might

be going through our head.

We're probably holding onto it really tightly.

And if you guys remember back to episode three, I believe when we're talking

about the primitive brain versus the.

Rational brain.

You'll remember that there is a reason why you hold on tightly to

that anti confidence narrative.

That's what we're gonna call it.

The anti confidence narrative.

The reason is it is protecting you from harm.

Your primitive brain is saying, don't do the scary thing.

You could die.

You could face embarrassment and shame and failure and bankruptcy.

Don't do the thing.

But you have to be smart enough to say, wait a minute, I'm not holding

onto these thoughts anymore because I need confidence to go out and

build the business on my dream.

So simmer down their primitive brain.

I know you think we're going to die.

It's going to be okay.

We're just going to try this one thing.

So that's such a great reminder that our brain is actually trying to protect us.

And keep us safe, but we need to keep reminding him that we know better.

Our rational brain knows better.

Okay.

So we're dismantling the anti confidence narrative.

The second step is acknowledging that confidence is not something

that is just dropped into our lap.

It is something that must be earned.

So, let me repeat that.

Confidence is earned.

In fact.

I've realized that it is a lot like faith.

. I guarantee there was once a time in your life when you did not believe

in God or any, any higher power.

You were maybe a small child or maybe you had never not

really found your belief yet.

Maybe you wondered whether or not you even wanted to have faith in a

being that you'd never seen before.

Because it requires some work.

And then you made a choice.

And that choice was to seek out God.

It was to learn about him.

And it was to grow your faith through exercising it, you made that choice.

And I guarantee.

That you are remaking that choice over and over and over again, especially if

people doubt your faith, or if you are confronted with experiences that make

you wonder if God is still there, you confronted a lot and you make the choice

over and over again to keep believing.

Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes my faith has been so

strong that I can move metaphorical mountains that nothing can touch it.

And other times it feels a little bit weak and confused and maybe struggling, but we

already know how to strengthen our faith.

First of all we don't give in to the doubts.

We don't give into that anti confidence narrative.

We pushed the doubts aside and we dive back into the

things that create the faith.

We exercise it through study and scripture and prayer and

confidence is exactly the same way.

We don't sit around just waiting for God to drop faith into our lap.

Where's the miracle.

Show me you, exist just pop out of the clouds and then I'll believe.

No, we know that's not how it works.

The Bible tells us that's not how it works.

Right?

Confidence is the.

Same way we practice confidence in order to gain more.

We don't sit around, waiting for it to just fall into our laps.

We do the scary things.

Not because it's not scary.

But because we want the next thing to be a little bit less scary.

So the first one is always the hardest and then we move forward and

the confidence gradually increases.

Why?

Because we've shown ourselves that we know how to do it.

And I promise you that God will boost that confidence for you as well, but you

have to give him something to work with.

You have to try exercising at first.

So I know what you're thinking.

Yes.

It's essentially faking it until you make it.

But what we're really doing here is we're giving our brain evidence to

bolster the belief that we are confident.

Our brain really, really, really wants to find evidence

before it believes in something.

But we know as faithful women that we actually have to believe

before we can see the evidence and confidence is exactly the same way.

This analogy will come up over and over and over again.

As I talked to you guys that the faith has to come before the miracle, you have to

practice it before you see the evidence.

And once you have a little bit of practice, your brain is like,

oh, there is some evidence.

I can do a hard thing.

Look at that.

The first podcast I ever recorded.

Was so terrifying.

We put ourselves out into the world, and it was scary and it was awful.

And we said I'm a thousand times each and then a hundred episodes later,

200 episodes later, it's getting easier and easier and we have.

Uh, years of evidence showing our brains that we can do hard, scary things.

So are we confident podcasters?

Now?

You bet your bridges because we just kept doing it where we

confident on episode number one.

Nope, not at all.

And we did it anyway.

We just kept practicing.

So I continued to do scary things.

You guys, I send out email pitches and saying, oh, do you want

to feature me on your podcast?

Or how about, you know, trying to get my name out there?

I make phone calls.

Oh, phone calls are the worst.

And I still do them.

I do trainings online and invite the entire world to come learn from me.

And they scare me and they make me nervous and I don't do them

because I'm oozing with confidence.

And I just think, where else do I want to throw my confidence around today?

I do it because I want to be confident.

I want to be using with confidence

and I know that I need to practice it over and over and over again, before I become

that perfectly confident person if there is such a thing, I don't, I don't know if

there's perfect confidence, but there's more than I have more than you have.

And we can get there two ways.

Through working on that anti confidence narrative, I'm going to trademark that.

I like that line a lot.

And on working on practicing the confidence.

. Just like anything worthwhile in this world.

Confidence requires work.

Unfortunately we can't just sit around and pray for it and

just have it dumped in our lap.

Although I do recommend praying for it that helps.

So stop waiting around for it and go out there and earn it.

So your challenge for this week is to do two things.

I want you to start journaling what a confident you would look like.

And if you can start acknowledging some of those thoughts that are keeping confidence

at bay, then start dismantling those.

That's a great step as well, but ask yourself, what does a confident me

look like in five, 10 years when I am that confident self that I want to be.

What do I look like?

What do I do?

How do I dress?

How do I talk?

How do I walk?

What does my work look like?

How do I show this confidence to the world?

Where does it show up for me in my life?

And then I want you to do one thing this week to emulate that

confident version of yourself.

So if that future version of yourself would make a phone

call to a supplier or would.

Start taking steps to build a website.

Then I want you to do that one step this week and come back and let me know,

you guys can come tell me on Instagram.

Or email me and let me know how it went.

And if you feel even just a little bit more competent after doing that one thing,

okay, friends go confidently out in the direction of your dreams.