Episode 1: 9 Habits that are Killing your Self-confidence (and how to change them)

Self-confidence can make or break your life. It’s what’s needed if you want to go after your dream job, start your own business, begin or end a relationship or step out of your comfort zone in any area of your life.

Without self-confidence, your life will stagnate and the longer you’re stuck in a stagnant rut, the harder it is to get going again. 

Thankfully, self-confidence is like a muscle; flex it often enough and it’ll get strong enough to carry you into the life I know you really want to create.

Your habits have contributed to the life you're currently living, if you want something more, but you’re not feeling confident enough to go after it, this episode is for you.

I share 9 habits, you may not even be aware you're doing, that will kill your confidence faster than a galloping race horse.

If what I share here resonates, I'd love to hear from you. Please pop me a DM on Instagram and share your thoughts - @emmaobriencoach 

Are you fed-up of having your life ruled by stress? If what you need is more calm, better focus and improved productivity instead of constant frazzle and overwhelm, you'll love my brand new Stress Less PDF Guide.

Inside you'll find 21 practical, actionable stress reduction strategies to help you get your groove back. Buy the PDF guide here.

If you know you want more from your life or career but you're totally stuck about where to start, I invite you to book a complimentary strategy call with me here.

We'll uncover what's holding you back from the goals you want to achieve and you'll leave the call with actionable steps to get you moving in the right direction.

For the tea on me, how I work, who I coach and the packages I offer, please visit my website - www.emmaobriencoach.com

You can also connect with me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach where I share an abundance of tools, strategies and brilliant content, you might also see the occasional dog.

Check out two of my FREE online workshops:

My 7 Step Formula for Getting Unstuck

4 Ways to Stop Procrastination in its Tracks...

Transcript

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Emma O'Brien: Hi folks, a very warm welcome to episode one of season, 2 of the lemons and pineapples. Podcast I'm really excited for what is coming up this season. This is a series of episodes that are really geared towards women's personal development.

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Emma O'Brien: I have got some brilliant solo episodes coming with some really powerful topics. I've got some magical guest episodes coming for you, so make sure you are subscribed, and you are listening. There is going to be so much information and strategy and wellness, and in a game and outer game and success stuff coming your way, you will not want to miss out on all of this.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm going to kick us off with episode one talking about 9 habits that are killing your self-confidence and how to go about changing them.

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Emma O'Brien: Confidence is something that comes up often in my coaching, session and

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Emma O'Brien: confidence, or the lack of confidence more specifically, is something that will hold you back in all areas of your life.

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Emma O'Brien: But there are a lot of things that we end up doing that that literally kill off our confidence. But actually, maybe you just don't know that you're doing them. So without further ado, I'm going to jump in

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Emma O'Brien: and share what these 9 habits that you might be doing inadvertently are.

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Emma O'Brien: So number one is comparing yourself to other people.

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Emma O'Brien: Getting stuck in a comparison. Trap is not only unhelpful because you might be comparing yourself to somebody you've seen on Instagram. You might be comparing yourself to somebody, you know. Really. Well, either way, what happens when we start comparing is either you'll sit and hold yourself up next to this person, or the perception of this person that you have.

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Emma O'Brien: and you'll have a look, and you'll

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Emma O'Brien: to have a conversation that might in your own mind, which might go one of 2 ways it might start with.

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Emma O'Brien: Look at that person doing all these wonderful things. They're completely useless and talentless. I am much better. Why is it that they're succeeding? And I'm not.

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Emma O'Brien: That's out of the conversation. Why, they're succeeding, and you're not.

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Emma O'Brien: or you'll sit and look at them, and you will again

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Emma O'Brien: look at where you are falling down, and you'll sit. And you'll say, Oh, look at this person! They're so amazing. I'm not.

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Emma O'Brien: And you can list all the ways that you're not.

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Emma O'Brien: Neither of these

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Emma O'Brien: patterns of thinking are helpful at all, because what they do is they just pull you into a negative mindset vortex. And that's a waste of energy when you're sitting around focusing on what everybody else is doing, what they've got that you haven't, how they're succeeding, and it's firing off all sorts of negative emotions, like jealousy and anger and envy.

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Emma O'Brien: All you're doing is distracting yourself from the job at hand, which is, how do you better yourself? How do you get your life where you want it to be going? And the only way you're going to do that is to get back in your own lane and stop worrying about what everybody else is doing. It is a massive waste of energy. Imagine all the time you spend going down rabbit holes looking at what other people are doing, and then getting angry and frustrated about it.

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Emma O'Brien: Imagine, if you put that energy into your own thing into improving yourself, you're going to be way further along. If you're not being distracted by what everybody else is doing along the way

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Emma O'Brien: number 2 spending time with toxic people.

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Emma O'Brien: Jim Rohn famously said that you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most amount of time with.

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Emma O'Brien: And I think this is such a powerful thing to consider.

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Emma O'Brien: If you're spending your time with people who are complaining, people who are negative people who are

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Emma O'Brien: blaming everybody around them.

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Emma O'Brien: What are you doing in that dynamic? It's very difficult to be on a positive path. It's very difficult to step up for yourself. It's very difficult to do inner growth work when you're surrounded by people who want to keep you mired in negativity.

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Emma O'Brien: and unfortunately, this might be family members. It might be really close friends, and I would suggest it's time to reevaluate how much time you spend with those people

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Emma O'Brien: when you can get into spaces with people who are positive people who

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Emma O'Brien: are successful people who are optimistic. They will lift you up with them if you're prepared to to go on that journey. But all that happens when you sit with negative people who gossip and whinge and moan is that you sit in the same

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Emma O'Brien: bottom feeding scum pond that they do.

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Emma O'Brien: and nothing good ever happens there.

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Emma O'Brien: Number 3. Procrastinating.

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Emma O'Brien: confident people do hard things.

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Emma O'Brien: and they do hard things

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Emma O'Brien: imperfectly, not having all the information, not necessarily knowing what

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Emma O'Brien: what's going to come next, but they know that they'll be able to figure it out, so they just get on with it.

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Emma O'Brien: When you procrastinate, you're literally just putting yourself off all the time, and procrastination really is fueled by fear.

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Emma O'Brien: It's not that confident people aren't afraid they feel the fear, and they keep going with things anyway, because they have their end goal in mind.

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Emma O'Brien: Stop putting yourself off, stop procrastinating and start getting into action, and the more you do the more confident you are. Confidence is built by action. Confidence is built by doing

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Emma O'Brien: stop procrastinating. Get into action.

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Emma O'Brien: Number 4 having loose boundaries.

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Emma O'Brien: When you are unable to state your needs clearly, when you are unable to say no to people, your confidence will be completely eroded because effectively your life is being dictated to by everybody else around you. You are not in control of yourself when you don't have any boundaries.

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Emma O'Brien: confident people say no confident people say, No, I can't do that today. I can do that

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Emma O'Brien: another time.

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Emma O'Brien: Confident people speak their minds. They know what they want, and they know how to get it.

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Emma O'Brien: If you're listening to this, and you're thinking, God! You know I'm at the mercy of doing everything for everybody else. It's time to start having a look at. What do you want instead?

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Emma O'Brien: And where and who can you say? No, to very, very important boundaries is one of the 1st steps to building your confidence levels

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Emma O'Brien: number 5,

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Emma O'Brien: seeking external validation.

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Emma O'Brien: relying on other people to define your self-worth is a 1-way ticket to misery.

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Emma O'Brien: If you are constantly reliant on praise from other people. Social media likes reinforcement from the people around you in order to feel good, you're going to be constantly seeking feeling. Good.

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Emma O'Brien: being confident, is about being able to self evaluate and be able to be really clear on what your qualities are, what your skills are and where your brilliances are, and to own those, regardless of what's happening around you.

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Emma O'Brien: it doesn't mean that things aren't going to go awry. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have problems to deal with, but

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Emma O'Brien: it is about really owning yourself and your value when you live your life waiting for other people to give you feedback and to make you feel good.

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Emma O'Brien: You're on a roller coaster all the time, and that kind of emotional roller coaster is terrible for confidence levels. How can you feel good about yourself if you if you don't know what's coming next? If you don't know whether someone's gonna like what you've just posted or like. What you've just said.

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Emma O'Brien: Confidence is learning to like yourself and be able to self validate

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Emma O'Brien: number 6, blaming other people for all of your problems.

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Emma O'Brien: Confident people take responsibility for their lives, and they take responsibility for their results. And they're able to reflect on

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Emma O'Brien: what has worked, what hasn't worked? Why hasn't it worked? And what do I need to do differently next time?

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Emma O'Brien: People who don't have any confidence sit in victim mode all the time. And again, it's much like seeking external validation. You're constantly at the mercy of other people, of being pushed around by other people, having your worth defined by other people.

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Emma O'Brien: and having your life defined by other people, start to take responsibility for what's going on in your life, and you take back the reins. You take back the control, and you can start to steer it in the direction you want to go in and believe me, when you start to step up for yourself

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Emma O'Brien: and take action, and you see the results coming from what you have done. That is an amazing way to build your own confidence.

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Emma O'Brien: Number 7. Perfectionism waiting for the right time to start something. Put yourself out there, or make a positive change in your life will always keep you stuck on the sidelines. There will never be a right time. You will never be perfect at anything. There'll always be someone who's slightly better in your eyes. There'll always be something else you need to know. And you need to learn.

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Emma O'Brien: Start with what you've got and

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Emma O'Brien: coming back to the action piece when you start and you take action and you start to move things along. You'll figure it out along the way.

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Emma O'Brien: and when you do that you make more progress, even if it's imperfect progress, and you will, sitting around waiting for the right thing, the stars to align

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Emma O'Brien: perfectionism will get you nowhere

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Emma O'Brien: starting

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Emma O'Brien: before you're ready

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Emma O'Brien: starting, even if you don't think it's perfect, will move you far further along.

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Emma O'Brien: Number 8.

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Emma O'Brien: Negative self-talk

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Emma O'Brien: the way you talk to yourself matters and you have the ability within your own mind to bolster your confidence levels or completely and utterly shatter them with the way you talk to yourself.

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Emma O'Brien: If you're in a dialogue revolves around. How crap you are! How rubbish you are! How much better somebody else is! How hard things are, how awful this is, how useless you are, how you need to learn something else.

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Emma O'Brien: You're going to be very, very stuck on a loop, and when we're stuck in and a loop of negative thinking, it's impossible to take any action, because you've just whipped out the confidence rug from under yourself.

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Emma O'Brien: Getting a handle on your self-talk starts with becoming aware of it.

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Emma O'Brien: There's some statistics that we have 60,000 thoughts a day.

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Emma O'Brien: 80 of which are negative and 95% of which are repetitive. So

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Emma O'Brien: this takes work to be able to counter a lifetime's worth of pre-programmed thinking.

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Emma O'Brien: But if you can start to become aware of the chatter that's happening within your mind.

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Emma O'Brien: and one thing I like to do is think about if I've got phrases going through my mind, and I'm having an opinion about myself is to think, would I talk to

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Emma O'Brien: somebody else like this? Would I say this phrase out loud to somebody else.

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Emma O'Brien: and the chances are you probably wouldn't. So if you wouldn't say it out loud to somebody else. Don't say it to yourself.

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Emma O'Brien: It starts with the awareness, and when you are where aware of it, you can start to go hang on a minute. I don't want to talk to myself like that. Is this thing I'm saying to myself, even true.

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Emma O'Brien: And you have a choice, because it's happening in your own mind to stop it.

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Emma O'Brien: My anxiety levels and my general feeling of wellness has really improved.

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Emma O'Brien: When I have got a handle on how I talk to myself, and I've stopped being so horrible to myself

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Emma O'Brien: when you can stop trash talking yourself and switch it round for

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Emma O'Brien: wow! That went really. Well, goodness, I got that thing, you know. I've been trying that for a while, and I've got it right that time. Great! If you can start to turn the dialogue around and really monitor it, you will be able to build up your own confidence levels. And this comes down to that self-validation piece rather than waiting for other people to do it for you.

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Emma O'Brien: and Number 9 is letting your emotions run the show.

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Emma O'Brien: If you are at the mercy of every single emotion that's coming up for you all the time.

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Emma O'Brien: If you are stressed out all the time, and you are triggered all the time. You're a going to be very mentally distracted by all these big emotions that are coming up.

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Emma O'Brien: and you're not going to be showing up as your best.

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Emma O'Brien: People who are triggered all the time tends to be very reactive, and being very reactive generally doesn't endear you to the people around you. If you're like this powder keg that people tiptoed around because they think, Oh, I can't say anything to Emma, because she's just going to explode, getting a handle on your emotions and learning to regulate your nervous system, and to be able to

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Emma O'Brien: notice when you've got emotions coming up and process through them before they come out and process all over. Everybody else is very, very powerful. Confident people are not ruled by their emotions.

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Emma O'Brien: they're in control of their emotions.

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Emma O'Brien: and they're able to confidently handle them. It doesn't mean like I've said. Confidence doesn't mean that difficult things don't happen. Confidence doesn't mean you don't get angry. But confident people know that they've

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Emma O'Brien: got a feeling of being angry, and they know that they need 5 min to go and process it, or they know

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Emma O'Brien: that they're angry about something, but instead of blaming everybody else, they can take a few minutes to have a reevaluate and calm down, and then come back to the situation.

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Emma O'Brien: If you're constantly reactive, it also means that you're going to be very distracted by those reactive thoughts, even if you don't blurt them out all over everybody else. The chances are they're going to run on a loop in your mind.

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Emma O'Brien: and they're going to stop you from

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Emma O'Brien: taking forwards action because you tend to get very stuck in. These. These big emotions are like a vortex they suck you in.

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Emma O'Brien: so the more you can learn to get a handle on them the easier your life will be, and the quicker you can recover when something happens that is triggering, because it doesn't mean triggers. Don't go away, but you can learn to respond to things rather than be reactive all the time. It's exhausting living like that, and you really don't get much done.

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Emma O'Brien: I hope this has been helpful. This is a topic that comes up often for me. It's something I coach clients around

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Emma O'Brien: making progress in life, whether you are changing careers coming out of a relationship.

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Emma O'Brien: starting your own business.

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Emma O'Brien: moving continents, whatever it is you're doing. Success in life really is an inner game. When you can start to master what's happening internally, you can start to take control of the results you're seeing externally.

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Emma O'Brien: and confidence is a big part of that. And it all, it's a it's all internal. And when you can start to take control of it, you're going to see your life unfolding very, very differently. So if this has resonated with you. I invite you to book a free strategy. Call with me to talk through where your confidence gaps

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Emma O'Brien: are. If you recognize behaviors in here that you do, and you'd like to not be doing them anymore. I can help you with that. Sometimes. It's really helpful to have somebody who is objective to be able to help you to evolve and grow on your personal growth journey.

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Emma O'Brien: So please feel free to book a free strategy. Call with me. The link is in the show notes, and we can chat through those gaps, chat through what might be some really strategic ways. You can start to bridge the gaps and do the inner work to get your outer life, showing up more in alignment with

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Emma O'Brien: what you want and what you deserve.

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Emma O'Brien: Thank you for being with me. Thank you for joining me for the very 1st episode of season. 2. I will see you same time next week bye, for now.