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EP: 67 Unraveling Self-Confidence: Unlearning Insecurities and Embracing Change

• Sophia Delavari • Season 1 • Episode 67

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Ever wonder if your past experiences and visual appearance still shape how you see yourself today? Join us on the Detached Podcast as we unravel the complexities of self-confidence and the hidden insecurities that hold us back. Through candid personal stories, we explore how early memories can leave a lasting impact on our self-perception. Learn how to question the origins of your insecurities and challenge the limiting beliefs that stem from past experiences. By adopting new habits, fostering a positive mindset, and reframing challenges, you can transform self-doubt into unshakeable self-assurance. I share my personal journey with dyslexia to illustrate how overcoming obstacles can unlock your true potential.

Launching something new often feels daunting, especially when you compare yourself to seasoned experts. I'll share why it's more beneficial to measure your progress against peers at a similar stage, rather than those miles ahead. Reflecting on my own 30-year journey, I'll discuss the shift from being reactive to reflective, emphasizing the power of pausing and listening. With practical advice like breathing exercises and the critical role of discipline over motivation, you'll gain the tools needed for lasting self-improvement. Embrace change and equip yourself with strategies to navigate life's inevitable challenges. Let's engage in meaningful discussions on building self-confidence, and I encourage you to share your own experiences as we grow together.

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Speaker 1:

Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of the Detached Podcast. As you might know if you've been listening to these podcasts recently, the Detached Podcast is all about detaching yourself away from your limitations and stepping into your true potential self. I created this space in order for other people to be able to have conversations and to add value for free for our listeners. Now, today's podcast is particularly one that's quite close to my heart, because confidence is something that I find is an ongoing battle and it's something that is super beneficial for any of us to learn how to be confident, and it's something that we don't actually educate anyone on. To be confident, whether it comes from a inner feeling or whether it comes from a superficial mask that we place on top of ourselves of a layer of confidence, no one actually really tells us how how to gain confidence. So, with that being said, I am going to bring you through a bit of a journey. Today, we're going to talk about self-confidence and where I've learned self-confidence and what I believe is helpful to be able to gain self-confidence. Because when you are confident, you can make more money, you can build better relationships, you become more trustworthy, people feel comfortable around confident people and when you have confidence, you can do anything, I feel. I feel like you can reach for those big juicy goals that you might be contemplating about and you will less likely divert your focus on the fear that you're currently facing now if you're potentially on a new path or a new journey that you want to go on. So, with that being said, I'm going to just breach. Well, no, not breach. I'm going to comment on a few things and share a couple of stories with you guys that have helped me, anyway, through my journey.

Speaker 1:

I feel like my whole life. Even from the very beginning, as I was a kid, I would say I didn't have a huge amount of self-confidence, but I had this burning desire to perform out of the ordinary. I didn't want to be a mediocre person. I always wanted to reach above my limitations but, with that being said, reaching above your limitations with no evidence to show whether you can do something. I did feel like I always needed confidence or I lacked self-confidence. But the lack of self-confidence for me growing up came from a really aesthetic actually came from more aesthetic. Sorry, how do I even say this?

Speaker 1:

I feel like my lack of confidence was perceived from my visual appearance for quite some time when I didn't realize it was actually deeper than that. It's not just about the visual representation of yourself when you feel like you lack self-confidence. It's often something way, way deeper. And when you get to the root cause of that, then it's like peeling back the layer. Well, the layers unfold of why you can reclaim your self-confidence.

Speaker 1:

Now I feel like when people can't feel confident in their own skin, it's because they feel like they're not enough. And for me anyway, I felt like I was never really enough because of the visual representation of myself I had. And when I realized I was actually discounting myself from existing and enjoying life just because of the way I looked, I completely flipped my focus. Now, if you're listening today and you feel like you're lacking self-confidence from a visual standpoint, I want you to understand that you are discounting yourself from changing yourself and being able to adopt new habits, because imagine saying right, well, I'm not where I need to be, so I lack self-confidence. So how am I going to react to this? You're probably not going to want to do the things that you need to do in order to get you to be self-confident, so you need to change that kind of mind frame that you need to work it, work a little bit deeper and walk through where this lack of self-confidence is coming from.

Speaker 1:

Why do you not feel confident? And for me I revert back to kind of old memories that I had of you know times back in my childhood when I felt like I couldn't do something or wasn't knowledgeable enough about a certain topic or you. You know, it could even be a memory from a friend's birthday or even a school episode where you got something wrong and you've programmed your mind to think that you aren't enough from those memories. And sometimes we can drag this into our adulthood if we're not careful. So sometimes having a little bit of a reflection and asking yourself why do I lack self-confidence? Is it something right now, in my present moment, that's making me feel like I am not self-confident? Or is it a train of patterns, that and self-beliefs that I've learned from old memories? And I'm dragging this into my future and with that being kind of like the step number one of being able to kind of unload and unpack where the lack of self-confidence is coming from, you will be able to have a toolbox ready to be able to move on from those old behaviors, those old memories that you have and fill that self-confidence up with doing things that will make you feel enough from those inadequacies that you've had before. So I'm going to give you like a little bit of an example.

Speaker 1:

Um so, if you don't know already, or if you haven't listened to some of my podcasts, I am dyslexic and this was always something that I lacked self-confidence in, because when I was in English class or, um, when I was growing up, I was always told I would need some extra help or I wouldn't be able to do higher English and all these things. So I'd learned from my old memories as a kid that potentially I couldn't do the things that I I didn't have the potential to. You know, maybe public speak or read out loud, you know all these little things that I was told potentially in school, and I remember one English teacher when she did tell me that I would never be able to do higher level English. All these little memories led to me even when I was like a personal trainer and I started doing some public speaking. It was like a block and it was a place where I lacked so much self-confidence where I realised it was a pattern and it was an idea and self-belief that I learned from my childhood that I needed to unlearn in order to be able to develop a skill. And when I when I noticed that's where it kind of came from I started to reframe the way I thought about my or my self-beliefs. I I believed that I can do this and what's the worst that could happen if I did do this public speaking event?

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, the more you practice, the more you get better at certain things and actually, to be said to well, um, to highlight this, doing podcasts and talking on social media helps develop this skill a little bit better. Now, that's not to say that I'm an excellent speaker, or sometimes I don't feel like I'm that confident to speak about something, but it needs to be practiced. And this is my number one like tip that I have for you now if you are lacking self-confidence, dig deeper, reflect and look back at your past and see is is there something in your past or a memory that is being dragged into your future that's enabling you to do the things that you really want to do? And whatever that is, see how you can exercise something to be well. Exercise a task, a task. Exercise, you know, as a public speaking exercise. You know um going to the gym in order to build that self-confidence again and give yourself evidence that you can do something. Um. Now, my second thing that I did learn, um, which has been very, very helpful for me, especially when I've transitioned through careers, is that always make sure you have a highly valued skill that you've developed in your toolbox and don't let it go um, because I'll give you, I'll give you an example. This.

Speaker 1:

So, when I started, so I did work in an investment firm for a year, so I went from fitness to finance, and to go from fitness to finance with zero knowledge in the financial world was incredibly ego-destroying and difficult. Difficult, because I'd gone from being in the fitness industry feeling very confident and knowledgeable in what I was speaking about and coaching, and I just really loved it, and it just felt so natural to me that when I led into the the fine well, into finance, I was left with no evidence to show that I could actually do this job and I lacked a lot of self-confidence to stand in front of investors and pitch about a financial product that I literally had. Well, I had some, I had some knowledge. Um, well, I had knowledge to be able to talk about the financial product. But the investors that I was faced upon were guys who'd been in the in the financial industry for 15, 20 years and even that, I just felt like an imposter and my confidence was a size of a pea and I thought how the hell am I going to get through these days? Because I know you have to be shit at the beginning. You have to be shit at anything at the beginning because it's just the way it works it, the way the cookie crumbles. We can't all be good at anything instantly and what's what's learned is earned, and that's really, really important that we all have to go through that phase. But what was really important for my self-confidence at this time was to keep a high valued skill going on in the background, and for me, I actually kept a personal training client and I was coaching her in order to feel like I was doing something right during the, the learning phase of my investment career and I found that was truly helpful for my overall well-being was to keep something to the side that I knew that I could do at a full 100% and that I felt like I was achieving something whilst I was learning something else, because it can be incredibly taxing to your ego and it's like your well-being when you're.

Speaker 1:

When you start something new, it feels like you're inadequate. You sometimes tend to compare yourself to the person that stood next to you, and in those situations as well, comparison is the theft of joy, and I always say this. But if you can compare yourself, that's, to someone who started at the same time as you, I think sometimes that can be a valuable tool just to see the rate of your progression and where you could potentially go, and it could be some evidence. But it's not the deal breaker of showing you what you're capable of either. But sometimes it's a nice guideline to be amongst these people who are starting their journey around a similar time to you, because if you compare yourself to someone who's been in an industry for 15 years, your self-confidence has got to keep lying on the floor. So that's just a little reminder as well that I found super, super useful now, one thing that's taken well, I'd say.

Speaker 1:

Now, the third element that I want to talk about today is something that's come of age. I would say I feel like I'm talking like an old woman, but I do have 30 years of experience now, so maybe some of the experiences that I've gone through life might be beneficial for you guys to hear, but I used to be so reactive to any sort of situation that I would just be ongoing, ongoing and react and just keep moving forward. And as much as I am a talker and as you know, in the podcast, my social media as well I tend to talk a lot, but I've tended recently I've slowed down a lot and listened and this has made me more confident, more than ever. You'll notice, the most confident people in the room can take a step back. They're less reactive, they listen, and when you're less reactive, you're more reflective. And when you're more reflective, you can analyze situations and you will respond a lot better and calm and collectively, where before, when I was reactive, you might say things and then you might want to return them and unfortunately, when you say things, it doesn't come with a receipt or a refund.

Speaker 1:

So, as an adult now, I have noticed the more space that I create, the more confident I feel when I'm in certain scenarios, in certain situations. So that's something to really think about and I think it becomes a practice. It becomes a skill, something to really think about and I think it becomes a practice. It becomes a skill to be able to stop and pause. People don't like to pause, they like to. They tend to fulfill conversations with words a lot of the time and you'll notice people who lack self-confidence. They'll keep talking and talking, and talking and they're like word vomit. So I used to be quite like this and, not to mention when I do get nervous, I am a little bit like word vomit, but now, through nerves, I've noticed to take a step back, breathe, and I have used breathing exercises before to calm myself down in order to restore the confidence that I have, where I will actually focus on my breathing in for four seconds, out for four seconds, and it's a like such a useful tool to use, and actually there was one. So if you've not heard of Mel Robbins, she is amazing at breathing exercises to be able to calm her nervous system down and also she talks about confidence as well, and out of this podcast, actually, I've researched a couple of people who've talked about confidence, from Russell Brand to Jay Shetty. He has the seven reels of confidence. To who else was I listening to as well?

Speaker 1:

Anyway, it's gone out of my head, but I always think it's really important that you know some. Sometimes, when you lack self-confidence. I always think it's like a lack of knowledge. So when you feel a slight lack of something and you don't feel enough, see where, where, like where is that leak coming from? I always think of like a leaky bucket. Let's see how we can, like you know, patch this back up and normally it's patching it up with some sort of knowledge or research in order to be able to give yourself that reassurance and understanding of what's the next move that you need to take, how you're reacting to a certain situation with a friend, a loved one, maybe sourcing new information, in order to have the tools that you need to be effective in the workplace, at at your nutrition, at your fitness. So all these elements can be, you know, can be learned and can be earned through knowledge that you may need to fill your mind up with. Maybe you need to practice something. So that's another way in order to build self-confidence.

Speaker 1:

Another one when it came to my fat loss journey, I lacked self-confidence because I lacked self-discipline, and some people might say like, oh, it's a lack of motivation. Right, and I always think motivation is actually, for me, I feel like it's bullshit, because if you're reactive to motivation all the time, it's very temporary, we have motivation and we have discipline. For me, I feel like it's bullshit, because if you're reactive to motivation all the time, it's very temporary. We have motivation and we have discipline. And when you create a discipline, it means that you will still do things, even when you feel like not doing them. Where motivation is normally a feeling, you feel motivated, so you'll react from your feelings. But when you don't feel like doing something, you still have your discipline, just to get something done. Because if we were always to react off our emotions, we wouldn't really have discipline. And I feel like I went through a period of my life where I was always reactive for my emotions, especially when I was overweight, because I was an emotional eater and I was being reactive off food or from my emotions to be able to run to food. So, with that being said, over some time I got so tired of being reliant on my motivation that I turned to my discipline.

Speaker 1:

And knowing your own discipline will be a profound reason why you become confident. Because when you know your discipline, you will become confident, because it rewards your awareness. You know, and self-confidence comes from being self-aware. When you're self-aware you can gain confidence. But if you're not self-aware, you will not be able to be confident. So when I went through my fat loss journey, I had to overcome my triggers, and overcoming my triggers required a lot of discipline. But my triggering points for me were certain scenarios, certain feelings that I had. And when I managed to master my triggers, I was layering my confidence, my self-confidence, because I had evidence to show that I had discipline, that I wouldn't revert back to my old habits. And this is an extremely, extremely useful tool that when you build discipline in your life, you're filling your reservoir of self-confidence.

Speaker 1:

Because we can be confident on a superficial level, where we ooze confidence because we look good for a day. We adopt self-confidence because someone told us we looked great today. But confidence comes deeper than that, because what happens when that person isn't there to give you a compliment, or what happens when maybe you have a day where you don't look as good as you did yesterday? So we need to really work on the inner self, and the inner self means that we need to know that we are enough. And this comes back down to the very first thing that I talked about today as well is that when we know we're enough, we know we become so much more powerful, and it means that, in the current, present time, even if we aren't where we are where we need to be, if we feel enough, we are confident enough to take the steps that will get us to where we need to be.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, with that being said, confidence comes from deep within. The only way you will be able to identify your confidence, or to be able to build confidence, is to reflect on your past, look at your limitations, look at your triggers, identify what they are and understand what you need to do in order to be able to gain that self-confidence. That comes within, not from the outside, not from someone who compliments you, not because you're motivated by your boyfriend, or the person who sat next to you, or the hot guy that's in the gym, or the person, the hot trainer, that you're working with. That is superficial and it's very limited. You need to gain that self-confidence within and you need to do the inner work, you need to understand where you're falling short, and then you need to put in the work and you need to put in a process and exercise the things that will help you build that self-confidence.

Speaker 1:

And with all this today, this conversation today, the one thing that I will promise you is that confidence is ongoing. It's something that is like fitness and nutrition. It's something, it's part of your lifestyle. It's something that you need to keep replenishing. You know, even in my fitness career, I some days I would I wouldn't feel like I was confident in a subject, so I'd go and research it intensively, I would get different perspectives, I would research some papers and I would come back and I would have a confident opinion on something who's trustworthy, someone who normally gets paid well, someone who can be successful and someone who can, who becomes attractive to others. But when you lack self-confidence as well, it's you become less attractive. You, you tend to be less happy and content, and when you lack self-confidence, you tend to not be your true potential self. So that's just your reminder that confidence is a huge asset and it's so beneficial and it's so attractive in order to keep replenishing that.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope it was slightly thought-provoking and if it wasn't, let me know your thoughts because, as you know, I like to talk about subjects that are relevant and valuable to my listeners and guys, if you're struggling with self-confidence as well, we're all there. I've been there, I've worn the t-shirt and it's an ongoing program that I need to relearn every now and again. But anyway, our bodies change, our minds change, our jobs change, our relationships change, and it's always good to have a toolbox in order to prepare us for those tough times. So anyway, guys, thanks for listening.