How to build confidence + believe in yourself again (even when you’re knackered)

0:07Hey and welcome to MotherKind, it is me your host Zoe. This is the show about you, the woman behind the mother and we are proudly sponsored by World Nutrition. women's supplements. So I found some research last week that shows that becoming a mother lowers your confidence and self-belief for up to three years. And no one tells us this, no one talks about it, no one prepares us for it, but I'm not here to tell you the problem. Today, I want to talk to you about the solution, how in five simple steps, you can rebuild your confidence quickly, even when you're exhausted, even when you're overwhelmed and you have about seven minutes a day to yourself.

0:44So today I'm going to give you the five exact steps that I took to rebuild my confidence from honestly on the floor in those early years to levels now that I never imagined. So if you are here thinking, I used to feel confident, where the hell did that go? You are in the right place and I am really glad that you are here.

1:11I'd like to take this moment to thank our headline sponsor Wild Nutrition who are offering Motherkind listeners 50 % off for the first three months. When I was pregnant with my first 10 years ago I asked a few nutritionist friends what's the best pregnancy supplement and they all said the same thing Wild Nutrition so I listened and these incredible supplements have kept me feeling great through two pregnancies, starting this podcast, writing a book, a relocation and everything in between for the last decade. So it's magical to me that I now get to tell you about this incredible woman founded brand every week.

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2:39Okay, let's get into it. Confidence matters in motherhood more than anyone admits because real confidence, it's not loud, it's not extroverted. Real confidence is actually self-trust. It's the quiet voice inside that says, I'll handle this. Even when you have absolutely no idea how you are going to handle it. And when you've got that, when you can trust yourself, you parent differently, you lead differently at work, you ask for what you need and what you're worth, you set boundaries. And quite frankly, you live a bigger life because you have that sense of, I can handle whatever this day, whatever this week, whatever this month throws at me.

3:24In my early motherhood, my confidence was low. I don't know if you relate to this, but it felt like starting again with my confidence. I didn't know what to wear anymore. My old career in marketing felt like it didn't fit. How I used to spend my time, which was mainly working and going out, that definitely didn't fit anymore. The list is endless actually for how our confidence changes. And it doesn't just change once. Building confidence is a lifelong journey, or at least it is for me. But I am so done with the generic confidence advice that doesn't take into account how we change as women when we become mothers.

3:59So let's fix that. Let's talk about how in the early years of our motherhood journey, how do we get our confidence back? Before I get to the five steps, it's important to say that this nose dies in confidence yes it's due to the massive transition of becoming a mother but it's also bigger than that because your confidence is inextricably linked to the environment that you are in for too long i think women have been blamed for our own lack of confidence where in fact it's our environments that haven't helped us to feel more confident it's hard to feel confident walking back into work when we can hear whispers of part-timer from colleagues.

4:43It's hard to feel confident when you're told that you're just a mother or how was your break when you get back from parental leave. Love that one. It's hard to feel confident when the world, let's be honest, doesn't value the invisible life-forming emotional work of motherhood. And it's hard to feel confident when so many women are pushed out of the workforce every year based on maternity discrimination. It's hard to feel confident when the motherhood penalty means that on average a man he'll earn 21 % more when he becomes a father. A woman she will earn 30 % less when she becomes a mother. It's hard to feel confident when you're half as likely to be promoted when you work part-time to compared to full-time and it's hard to feel confident as a mother when you are bombarded with unsolicited advice at every turn.

5:32So that long list is to say don't blame your lack of confidence on yourself. Let's just ditch right here, right now, any self-criticism for your lack of confidence and begin working on what you can change, which is building your internal confidence despite what is going on around us. Okay, so here's the five steps. The first one is to master your thoughts. Here's the thing that no one talks about with confidence. Confidence actually starts with what you say to yourself. And you've got to know this, motherhood, becoming a mother, it actually makes that critical part of your voice louder. Why? Because the more you care, the more self-critical you become.

6:16My self-critic used to be brutal. I used to hear, I'm not good enough. I'm never going to be successful. I'm a bad mother because I snapped, shouted, forgot something, insert error there. If you talk to yourself like that, honestly, your confidence doesn't stand a chance we have to work first on what we say to ourselves and here's how i changed it and what i still do to this day notice the thought if you can notice a few of those critical thoughts you're already winning don't make them true okay you are not your thoughts we have about 98 000 thoughts a day most of them are random they are not true and then when you notice that thought create a bit of distance from it realize it's not true and say something kinder to yourself just like you would a friend and repeat that three little step process quite a lot of times and one day after you've made a mistake or you feel like you're not okay you might notice there's a kinder calmer inner coach voice that is coming in i live this today i actually have of course that's still critic but also a voice that is much kinder so a little micro action is to see if you can catch a thought and replace it with a positive or neutral one second step get self-trust right so dr nicole la perra she's been on the podcast twice i love her she said this to me and it changed my life self-worth comes from making and keeping promises to yourself even when no one is looking wow that is it that's the whole game right i used to break tiny promises to myself all the time i'll go to the gym didn't go i'll sort out that cupboard didn't do it I'll stop doom scrolling yes still there on Instagram at 11 p.m if you constantly break promises to yourself guess what then what you're really saying is you don't trust yourself and that is where my confidence was disappearing so this is how we do it I feel like this is kind of the keys to the kingdom this is the key to all of it and it's just so amazing because it actually is quite easy to do if you start small and explains why my confidence was so low because I couldn't trust myself to do what I said I was going to do.

8:26So I've built this skill up over a decade. And I told myself at the start of this year, I was going to have a year off refined sugar and I've nearly done it four weeks to go. It could all go wrong in December. I mean, there's a high chance. Let's see. But I didn't get there overnight. I started with tiny promises to myself. I'm going to turn my phone off at 10. I'm going to get to bed at nine. I'm not going to do this I am going to do this make a tiny little promise to yourself and stick to it do that over time and notice how your confidence your self-trust and your self-belief starts to soar because when you can keep those tiny promises you can then start to make bigger promises like that career change you've been dreaming of or starting that business or starting to exercise it gets easier but you have to start small.

9:15And now a quick word from our sponsors.

9:22All right the third step is stop comparing. Comparison is the fastest way to destroy your confidence. I struggle with this honestly more than anything especially with my job. I open my phone and I instantly see how fast another podcast is growing who someone else has collaborated with what opportunities they're getting that I'm not I struggle with this but here's what has helped me the first one is to know that it's human our brains are actually wired to compare it's not a flaw it's actually biology and the second shift which has really helped is when I find myself going into that comparison spiral I've trained myself to look at someone's success and think if she can do it then it's possible for me the third tactic is to ask someone if someone does something brilliantly a colleague in a meeting or a mum who handles a meltdown brilliantly don't compare yourself and think i'll never be able to do that she's amazing ask humility and asking questions is a super power ask a question pull that colleague to one side how did you handle that so well pull that mum to one side how did you handle that meltdown teach me tell me this is a way that we get to turn comparison actually into kind of collaboration and a way to grow ourselves at the same time.

10:38Okay, step four is to celebrate tiny wins. This is so important. We need to develop this skill of celebrating ourselves every single day, not just for the big things. This really builds your confidence. There's something called negativity bias, right? And it means that our brains are actually wired to focus on the negative. So your brain is constantly scanning for what's wrong. Okay. You have to know this because if you don't counter it with what is right, you will constantly think I can't do anything. I'm failing. Everything's going wrong. We do so many little things, right? I bet you got the kids up today.

11:16I bet you drank some water. I bet you showed up. You might've even taken a breath instead of snapping, but you wouldn't have noticed any of that okay because of negativity bias so focus on the tiny wins there's a little challenge for you today can you focus on at least five tiny little wins really lock them in and allow yourself to celebrate them okay the last one the fifth one is get comfortable with being uncomfortable when i started mother kind i used to do a lot of one-to-one coaching that's how i built the mother kind toolkit which is in my book by coaching hundreds of mothers through their matrescence i I learned what worked, what didn't work and what they really needed.

11:54And one of the things that I would say almost every client, almost every single session is change is uncomfortable. So we'd be working through something, maybe a high achiever who was dropping down to four days a week or someone going back to work for the first time or starting a new business. And they would say, Zoe, I feel so uncomfortable. I'd say, yeah, change is uncomfortable. The moment we recognize that and we stop making ourselves wrong for feeling uncomfortable. And this is growth. If you think about it, growth actually by definition has to happen outside your comfort zone. Right. Your comfort zone is how you've always done things, what you've always done, your habits.

12:32They feel really comfortable. So the moment you start to change something, you're going to feel uncomfortable. It's actually a good thing. Right. So the key is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. uncomfortable okay what does that look like practically well there's this rule of thirds which is a framework from the business world that I love and it says if you are into growth and you are into change which if you're listening to this podcast you are then you are going to feel a great about third of the time you're going to feel awful another third of the time and you're going to feel just okay another third of the time so when you are in that third of the time when you feel awful don't make yourself wrong you're not doing anything wrong just accept okay this is a season this is a day this is an hour this is a week where i don't feel good this is part of what it is to grow and to change and there is so much of that isn't there in our matrescence and in early motherhood i just wish that i'd have known about this rule of thirds when mine were little it would have really really helped me so there you have it the five steps to rebuild your confidence even when you are knackered And here's what I really want you to hear.

13:41You're doing far better than you think you are. Confidence is not something that you are born with. It's not an innate skill. It is something that you build, right? One tiny thought, one tiny promise, one tiny win at a time. And I am right here. I'm cheering you on. And I will see you next time.

14:02What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And I will see you next Monday and Thursday for more. See you next time.