Talent without self-belief is useless

When gunning for a promotion, going after your dream partner, pursuing your dreams, applying for jobs or even simply navigating through life; too many of us assume that we need to have talent in order to move forward.

Sure, if you want to play professional sports, you’ll need a certain level of talent in order to even get a look in but even if you have all the talent in the world and you don’t believe in yourself, you will never reach the kind of heights that you are capable of.

Self-belief will trump talent in the long run. Those with self-belief will push harder, do what it takes and will always get back up when they’re knocked down. Plus, they get knocked down many more times than those who lack self-belief because they are constantly putting themselves out there.

The difference between the “self-believers” and the “non- believers” is pretty simply. Those that believe, think that they are already capable or they will always find a way to figure it out. Those that don’t will always find an excuse as to why it’s too hard and there are too many obstacles in place.

Self- believers see obstacles as a sign that they are getting closer, the more obstacles that are thrown their way, the more compelled they get to keep pushing forward.

As a reformed non- believer myself, I used to see obstacles as finish lines; they were there to “warn” me to turn back and to remain safe. If I ever did put myself out there and inevitably got knocked down, I took it to mean that the world is harsh and scary and I ought to get back into my little hole.

“The problem with our safe little holes is that we only attract more darkness when we are there. The hole will inevitably get smaller as our fear and doubt increase. We become locked in our own minds and feel stuck without a way out.”

Eventually something external happens, if you’re lucky it will be something small like a mild illness. If you’ve been ignoring all the alarm bells then you’re more likely to get a bigger wakeup call; death of a loved one, serious illness, eviction, divorce etc.

Life keeps teaching us the same lessons until we learn from it. The self-believers know this. They know that with each “failure” comes a valuable lesson and that if they learn from it, they will be even more resilient, powerful and their confidence will deepen.

Don’t let your own innate talent die inside of you. We all have talent; talent that is unique to each of us. No one speaks like you do, they can’t dance the way you do or parent the way you can. Yes, every one of us is unique just like everyone else and that’s what makes self-belief so critical.

Your light is waiting for you. Start to recognise that without self-belief you will forever be stuck, learn what you need to in order to change it and make a difference in your world.

Live the best version of you and become a self-believer!

Happy self-loving

Katie Nicole

Confessions from a recovered mean girl

I used to be a bitch. Straight out- I was a mean girl. My insecurities and lack of self-worth resulted in me transferring my own self judgement onto others.

I grew up surrounded by men and patriarchal misogynistic men at that. Women were less than men, they were objects and their bodies were open for opinion. I learnt quickly that to survive in this world that I would need to see the world the same way that they do or become a victim of it.

I’ve been that woman who puts down other women. I used to pride myself on not being like “typical” women. I would shame women to men about being needy, controlling or emotional. I would criticise what they were wearing, if their behaviour was appropriate or not and if I thought they were “easy” or a “prick tease”.

Last week I  was reminded of who I used to be as I attended an ice hockey game between Canada and the USA. Apart from me having a hell of a time yelling and screaming in a way that is only really socially appropriate at sporting games, I happened to sit next to two well presented women and out of sheer proximity I was privy to their conversations.

Mostly, I tuned them out as I was more interested in the game and the company that I was with, however during one of the breaks, I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. It went a little something like this:

Person 1: Have you seen her lately?

Person 2: Yeah, I saw her last week. She was wearing those shorts again-ergh!

P1: Really? Yuck, she really shouldn’t wear them. She has huge thighs and tonnes of cellulite

P2: I know! She just swans around in them as if she thinks no one notices. She’s really got to stop

P1: I mean, I’m all in for body positivity but she takes it too far- it’s disgusting.

At this point I tuned out, I had to. In order to not cause an outright riot and fly off the handle , I kept my thoughts to myself. I was hurt, upset and disgusted.

I was upset for their “friend” who clearly wouldn’t know what was being said behind her back. I was saddened for these two women who felt the need to speak so venomously about someone that they care about. Most of all, I felt for us as women.

All the old feelings of inadequacy came rushing back. Right here next to me was proof that people do judge and more often than not they are the people that we call friends. I recall having similar conversations about my friends in years gone by and how desperate I was to feel like I belonged- oh the irony.

I put down others to make myself feel better- the ultimate bully has insufferable low esteem. As someone who now loves themselves, has great self esteem and works hard to see all people as whole and complete, the conversation I overheard was heart breaking.

We have had to fight for every right we have, our bodies are compared against a computer program and we are still treated like ornaments by many people around the world.

Yet here we are, fighting each other. Putting ourselves down and shaming our own. Haven’t we been through enough? Don’t we get enough shaming from the media without us throwing in some more of our own?

I know why they felt the need to say what they did. I understand the feelings of being threatened and therefore climbing on top of others to bring themselves back up but it still makes me sad.

I set a challenged for you. I challenge you to stop the bitching, stop the judging and stop the shaming. We have all done this and like these women, you may not even be aware that you do it. If you have time to judge then you don’t have time to love.

Self-love starts from within, there is no doubt about it. If you are judging others and putting them down ( even in your head) then you are walking down a very slippery slope.

Every time you judge someone else, you are judging yourself. Choose your thoughts and words wisely.

Let’s lift each other up and show ourselves how magnificent we truly are.

Love Katie Nicole

x

Believing in yourself is a game changer

When you really think about it, the term “self-belief” seems a little odd. When we are asked if we believe in god we are talking about faith, whether we believe in aliens or ghosts we are talking about opinions,  neither of which (at the time of writing) can be unequivocally proven true or untrue. When we ask these questions we are asking if these things actually exist.

Without getting too woo woo about it, it’s pretty easy to assume that we as people, do in fact exist. We have bodies that age, grow and deteriorate. We have minds that create and can interact with others. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that we do actually exist.

Yet for many of us we struggle to believe in ourselves. Is it that we question our very existence? Or when it comes to humanity are we actually questioning whether or not we believe in our ability to achieve?

We’ve all asked ourselves that question “who am I?” at some point in time. Perhaps you were lucky enough to leave that in your adolescence, but for a vast majority of first world humanity we are left with a void and at times an existential crisis of identity. How can we honestly expect to believe in our ability to achieve when we don’t even know who we are?

Self- belief comes when we know who we are and are confident that we can navigate our lives according to our dreams and hearts desires and that despite setbacks, we are able to pick ourselves up and continue on.

We question alien existence because we have no “proof”. Things are generally accepted by the world once sufficient evidence is provided. Imaging telling the average person in 1850 that in the future you will be able to connect to the entire world using invisible waves of current, you’ll be able to have an instant face to face conversation with someone on the other side of the planet and you can get in a huge chunk of steel with hundreds of other people and fly over oceans. You would be labelled insane and probably locked up.

Yet here we are. We do the same thing for ourselves. Without reference points of success we fail to have “proof” that we are worthy/ can achieve the thing we set out to do, so without proof we lose faith. We think that simply because we can’t see it, then it must not be true. We even have a tried and tested saying for this “I’ll believe it when I see it”.

Oh how wrong we are. We actually wait for the self-belief to show up before we take any action. We fail to realise that self-belief is created by doing the very thing that we think we can’t. Our brain needs reference points of success or in other words, it needs proof. There are some lucky souls out there who have been taught to believe in themselves from day dot, but it’s unlikely that they’re reading this article.

For the rest of us, we need proof. We need to see it before we believe it.

Sometimes that’s a matter of shifting our perspective so that we can see the evidence that already exists. We have all been successful at something at some time in our lives but often we down play it because our automatic response is to put ourselves down.

At other times we need to create new reference points of success. We need to go out there and attack our world, fail a lot and break through to success; then we have created proof that we can and our self-belief grows.

When you learn to believe in yourself, you become unstoppable. You will try things that seem impossible; you will go after things in your life that you previously had never dreamed of having or doing. People will believe in you more as a result of your own self-belief and you will get better jobs, more money, better relationships and have a better life.

Create new reference points for yourself by taking action irrelevant of your self-belief and start to notice where you have already had success in the past. Gather all the proof you can and the self- belief with improve.

Doing this on your own can be tough so if you want to learn how to believe in yourself again but have struggled a bit on your own then take advantage of your

 Free discovery call coaching session valued at $197.

Get clear on what’s been holding you back and make way for the real you to shine.

Click here to secure your place today.

Happy self loving

Katie Nicole

moreconfidence.com.au

The truth about confidence that you probably don't want to hear

In the personal development world the term “backing yourself” gets throw around a lot. People are referring to the need to believe in yourself, to have confidence and to bet on your own success.

It’s seems an easy enough thing to talk about, all you need to do is believe in yourself; the gurus make it seem so simple. When you go to apply for your new job, start out dating again or decide it’s time for you, why don’t you just take a deep breath and believe in yourself?

Like many things, it’s easier said than done. When we have been conditioned to think poorly of ourselves and had reinforcement to back up those beliefs, it can be extremely challenging to step up to the plate.

You’ve been running the story over and over in your head about why you can’t, why someone else will probably get the job and how nothing you do is ever enough.

Perhaps you’ve read self-help books, done some courses in assertiveness and tried your best to build yourself up but it is short lived, you feel pumped up for a little while only to find yourself crashing back down again; perhaps this time even lower than you were before. Like yo-yo dieting for your self-worth.

You feel depleted and lost, unsure of where to next because you’ve failed to believe in yourself; AGAIN!

When you’re trapped in this cycle, all the positive things that happen in your life are put down to luck and all the negative things are your fault. As if there is some inherent gap deep within you that means that you are to blame. When you blame yourself, you are giving your power to the circumstances, to your past and to the result.

You’re disempowered and here’s what you’re not being told.

 You think you’re busy taking so much responsibility for all the troubles in your life by beating yourself up and blaming yourself but the truth is, you’re obedient. You are pleasing everyone else around you and playing by their rules, not your own and you’re not taking any true responsibility for your life, you’re avoiding it and keeping yourself small.

You’re giving away your power by allowing others to take credit for your success and bearing the burden of all your troubles. It’s time to grow up- yeah, I just said that. GROW UP.

If the problems in your life are your “fault” then so is your success. It’s time to suck it up and own all of your results in life.  Even the little voice inside your head that’s whingeing right now says “but how?”- own that.

True responsibility is about owning your life. No one is making you stay in that shitty job. No one is forcing you to live a mediocre life. In the same vein, no one else is creating the opportunities that are appearing- that’s you.  

It’s time that we stopped acting like children and decide to take responsibility for our lives; for the wins and the lessons. It’s all yours.

Believing in yourself, backing yourself and  having great confidence begins when you decide to stop lying to yourself and own the fact that this is your life. Whether you like it or not, you got yourself here and it’s up to you to change it if it’s not working for you.

Get help, take ownership and start living life by your rules. Screw obedience, take responsibility.

Much love and happy self -loving

Katie Nicole
P.S Get your  FREE 5 Secrets to Bulletproof Confidence e-book here

Yeah Yeah, I'll do it later....

How many times have you said this? How many times has "I'll do it tomorrow" turned into " wow, I said I was gonna do that"? Have you ever looked back and remembered something you were going to do years ago that you kept saying tomorrow to and now a decade later, you realised that it still hasn't happened?

Procrastination.....the mean and ever persistent procrastination and its best friend self sabotage are commonly some of the most complaints that people have in life.

They know they want to learn that instrument, clean the house, lose weight, take up that sport, ask out that special someone or get that promotion yet they put it off time and time again. Even if they do get started they end up self sabotaging and the courage it took to get started dissipates and all that's left is disappointment in self- NOT VERY FUN!

So why on earth would we put off doing something that we know we want to do or is important to do? Most of the time, once it's done it seemed so easy and you wonder why you didn't take Nike's advice and JUST DO IT in the first place.

Well many people will say that you just need to do it- get off your arse and go do whatever you say you want to do; it's not always as easy as that.

Procrastination sets in for various different reasons and often leaves people feeling lazy, unmotivated and like crap about themselves and then of course the cycle continues; who's motivated when they feel like that?!

Here are some of the common reasons why we procrastinate:

1.) We are stretching our comfort zone
     - Back in the cave man day our lives were threatened almost daily. We had to run from predators, stay nourished and warm as well as fight for our place among our own species. So our brains developed to help us defend against threats. Whenever our safe zone was impended at all, our ego (or our MINI ME as I like to call it) would step and "save" us. It would tell us to run away, fight or hide in order to survive in the face of impending death.

That worked great for us in those days, now in a modern world, we here in lucky countries face 1st World problems that no longer threaten our lives on a daily basis. BUT, the mini me has not seemed to catch onto this. It still feels the need to protect us and keep us safe- and it does. It stops us from walking down a dark alley alone or walking in front of a bus, very useful things indeed.

However, these things don't happen very often so the mini me has found a way to keep its job- by making sure you never leave your safe zone. Whenever you are stretching your comfort zone, your mini me will pipe up and protect you, normally by telling you that it wont work or its not worth it, so you should just stay in your cave.

So procrastination sets in because you are having an internal battle with yourself and normally for most people, mini me wins! All you need to do is acknowledge it, treat it like a 5 yr old child. If you ignore a 5 year old, what does it do? It gets louder, and when you acknowlege it, it quitens down, for a little while at least. Thje more you do this, the more it will become your best friend. All you do is say thank you and carry on anyway, choosing to stretch that comfort zone.

2.) Not a big enough WHY
      - Its been said that if you have a big enough "why" the "how" will take care of itself. Have you ever been in a busy shopping centre or stuck in traffic and have been busting to use the bathroom? I bet that somehow you found a way to use a bathroom, no matter how far you had to go or to what lengths, you found a way to relieve yourself.

The why was HUGE! You found a way, the how didn't matter anymore because the why outweighed the details. For all you ladies out there, have you ever been busting and you know that you can probably only hold it for a couple more minutes and you finally find a way to the loo only to find that there is a line of 10 other ladies in front of you? Let me guess, you managed to hold it in until you hit that seat? Interesting....all of a sudden the why changed, the why became about not wetting your pants or having to find another loo. Your why became about holding on instead of going and somehow, you managed to do it.

So get a big enough why, if you are cleaning your house just because you have to then its less likey to happen. Where as if you are looking at why you are doing it, then you are more likely to do it. If you stay focussed on the detail and the how you will get tired before you even begin. Think about the end result and how you will feel afterwards.

3.) Not enough practice of action taking

     - Most people take little action on a daily basis. Sure they go to work and get their everyday stuff done, but how many people take massive action towards what they want to achieve each and every day? Not many.

SO get practising and start small if you need to. As soon as you think of doing something get up in that very moment and do something about it OR write it down and set a reminder if it's not possible in  that very moment. Take action on the thought immediatley- Maybe its a matter of going for a 3 minute walk or doing 10 pushups, but do it then and there when the thought comes to mind.

This takes practice so get moving on it.


Procrastination no longer needs to rule your life and if you are looking for some more insights please feel welcome to follow us on Facebook.

We are also running a competition at the moment so take some action NOW and message us on Facebook with 25 words or less about your procrastination and you could win a Clarity Hour (valued at over $300) to help get clear on your procrastination and bust through it for good!!


http://www.facebook.com/moreconfidence4u

Have a great week every body!

Confidence and the top 5 mistakes people make when trying to get it.

So what is confidence?

Over the last week, I have challenged members of the Facebook public on their views surrounding the confidence of celebrities, namely Lady Gaga.

What I have discovered is that many people feel strongly about what it takes to just be yourself and weather or not the likes of Lady Gaga is truly her or a front to overcome her years of torment and bullying through school. People have stated that it doesn't matter what you do to feel confident as long as you love yourself. Others have disagreed, stating that "over confidence" is simply to mask the underlying fear of not knowing who you are or not feeling exactly comfortable with that.

Many people use masks, true. We don't always feel amazing every day when we show up to work or an event, yet we act as if everything is fine. Someone might ask us how we are and we will reply with "fine" or even "good thanks". Our everyday society allows for this, we don't really want to know how people are feeling most of the time, because often we are wearing a mask ourselves. People who lack in confidence do this as well, so is it a confidence mask or simply a polite mask?

So when does the mask of confidence become a lie? Is faking it till you make a sustainable way of survival?

My short answer is no. I once believed that faking it until you made it was  a great way to become confident and self assured. Unfortunately after years of faking it, no strategies or development was done in order to convert that falsity into actual confidence. If you were to fake being a pilot for 5 years and knew exactly what you were meant to say and do to appear like a pilot, would you then be able to fly a plane? No. The knowledge, practice and systems have not been taught, leaving you feeling like a fraud and in fact you would be.

To be a truly confident individual we must work the muscle. We all have confidence within us, it is there and we can access it, most of us simply don't know how to. Ever done a workout or taken part of an obscure activity causing you to use different muscles? Afterwards you swear that you have hurt in places that you never knew existed? That's right, we all have "muscles" that we don't know exist and it's not until we work them that it becomes apparent that we have them.

So if everyone already has confidence within them then why do so many people sit at home on the weekend eating popcorn and wishing that somehow they were different? Here are the top 5 mistakes people make when trying to build confidence.

1.) Giving up to easily
           Just like those new muscles being worked, when you first start it can be uncomfortable, overwhelming or even frightneing. Many people see these as "signs" that maybe they aren't good enough or they shouldn't go for it and they give up. Persistence in the face of fear will get you past it and beyond it. You do not know what you are truly made of until you are pushed. Push Yourself!!

2.) Faking it for too long
         Using "dutch" courage or other methods to fake your confidence can work and does work for a lot of people. It is not sustainable. If you use alcohol to feel good about yourself , then aren't you really telling yourself that you need to be someone else to be liked by not only everyone else but more importantly yourself? That who you are without it isn't good enough? Imagine how quiet a nightclub would be if no one was drinking? Imagine how many people would love to be up on that dance floor but feel as though they can't until they have an excuse? Being the one who throws their inhibition out the window without the alcohol and gets dancing will liberate others to do the same. Be the change you wish to see.

3.) Relying on others
        Many people base their self esteem and worth on what other people think of them. They rely soley on their feedback from others and because it's impossible to satisfy everyone, they constantly change who they are to accomodate whoever they are with. We all put on different hats in different situations, as every part of us is not always appropriate. Telling your boss your most intimate sexual desires may not be what he needs to know. It does not mean that you are hiding it, it simply means that you choose which parts of you, you wish to share. Ladies with low self esteem often fall into the trap of seeking male attention to boost their confidence, only to wake up the next day feeling worse. Respect yourself and others will too.

4.) Going overboard
        People see confidence in others and try to model it and that's a great method. Where they go wrong is going over board. They become so in your face that every body knows it a mask and the person becomes disliked by those around them, then staying true to mistake no. 3, they rely on others and end up feeling awful about themselves even more. They can be seen as super arrogant, up themselves or a real bitch.

5.) Assumption
      I often get asked why some people were born with confidence whilst others weren't. As if it was genetically decided that way, like why do some people have green eyes and other blue. Confidence comes with practice. It's not given to you one day and all of a sudden you are confident. It takes willingness to learn and stretch your comfort zone, persistence and most of all a huge "why". Why do you want confidence? Is it because you know you have so much potential inside you and you just wish you could get it out? You know how much you have to give, but your shyness keeps you stuck. Once you have a big enough why, the how will look after itself.

You don't all of a sudden "get" confidence. You build it through giving it a shot, by putting yourself out there and challenging what you already know.

Be sure to get involved in my Facebook conversations and check out my website too.

I'll be back next week with " You are the master- 7 ways to build confidence"

moreconfidence.com.au