EP97: 6 Simple Ways to Feel More Confident

You're listening to the Legally and Lightning Podcast to help make more life and you feel a little bit lighter and brighter. I'm Lisa Freiley, an attorney, holistic health and life coach, speaker and best-selling author, sharing bite-sized legal tips so you can feel safe, secure, confident and empowered as you grow with grace in business and life. Welcome to the Legally and Lightning Podcast Episode 97, six simple ways to feel more confident. If you're like a lot of my clients, you doubt yourself all the time. When you enter a new stage of your business, everything feels terrifying. Confident is the last thing you feel when you're setting up your business, stepping out of your comfort zone or trying new things. When it comes to confidence, we don't always feel that we have it, but we all desperately need it and want it. In this episode, you'll learn six simple techniques to help you feel more confident during those times when you're not feeling so confident. As we dive in, I do want to share this little loving disclaimer. Please know that this information is educational and tended to support you by making legal steps easy to understand, but it's not business financial or legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship between us. You always want to work with an attorney who understands your business situation to take the right steps for you. My goal is to help you go from feeling stuck and scared of the law to confident and empowered, knowing about legal steps that hold and support your business in a loving way so that you can have the life and business you really want. Now more often than not, if you're a high-achieving, motivated business owner, you probably second-guess everything you're doing. You're e-newsletter, you're logo, you're branding, your website design, you're free opt-in-gift, your sales page, your webinar formats, your home office setup, your course purchases, your course offerings, the list goes on and on. You question a doubt whether you're doing what is right or what is enough, and it's easy to waste countless hours on Facebook, or Instagram, or other people's websites seeing what they're doing, and feeling crappy about yourself because you aren't doing the exact same thing they're doing, or even anything that they're doing. So you can beat yourself up. Maybe you're telling yourself you don't feel very smart or radiant or confident like ever. Well, I want to reassure you that you are not the first to torture yourself with feeling less than or not enough, and you won't be the last. The fraud factor is real for sure, and it's common to feel like you should give up and go back to your painful 9-5 job rather than stay in this crazy online world. Listen to what some of my clients have told me. They've said, "I've put so much work into this new website, but I'm really scared to press publish because everyone will see it. What if they don't like it or no one goes to it, I'll feel like I've totally failed. I'm hanging out my shingles a new business coach, and I'm my first discovery call to enroll a client. But don't I need to register my business or do something official? I'm not really feeling like I'm formal enough to be a business owner. I had professional photos taken for the first time. It was such an up-leveled experience to work with the stylist, get my hair and makeup done, take photos in a real studio, and have that professional photographer make me look and feel beautiful. But now I'm scared to show people these pictures because it feels so vulnerable, and I feel really exposed. Oh, wait, that one wasn't a client. That was me about eight years ago. Any of that sound familiar? Insecurity shows up all over the place, and let me reassure you that it's totally expected and natural to feel this way. In fact, as I wrote about in chapter three of my book, Easy Legal Steps, Becoming an Entrepreneur and Leaving the Safety and Security, the Study Pay Check that comes with a nine to five job, even a job you don't love, is one of the scariest things most entrepreneurs have ever done. I know what was for me. It's a huge stretch to leave your day job and secure that income. Everything that you've ever known in the work world to leave that and create something on your own at your kitchen table, or your extra bedroom, or your coffee house while drinking lattes. Now that takes a lot of courage. For me, building a business from the ground up using a laptop, a cell phone, and a prayer is one of the most challenging ventures I've ever undertaken, which kind of says a lot considering I've done other things that most people will consider difficult, like pass the bar exam, travel to Europe by myself, run three marathons, get a job in the White House that I turned down to go to law school, and dress up for a fancy dinner at Le Cirque in Las Vegas and order a table for one. We all have so many sleep depriving fears and worries. You're not alone. There's so many fears and worries that keep us up at night. Like, what if I don't make any money? What if a client thinks I don't really know what I'm talking about? What if I don't do it right? What if I shouldn't have quit my day job? What if I become too big? I don't have time for my kids. What if I become too successful and then somehow it all goes away? What if I set up my business wrong and I have to shut it down and go back to work? These are the worries and doubts that keep us playing small and holding ourselves back. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It is scary to take the leap into entrepreneurship and trust that the net will catch you. Building a business requires that you dig deep and draw on your inner confidence, power and strength to help you move forward one day at a time, taking baby step after baby step to build the business of your dreams. Have you ever noticed that when you start showing up more confidently and professionally in your work, other people show up more for you? It's amazing how that works. It's like how when I talk about when you use legal documents in your business and show up in alignment with your values, you begin to attract more ideal clients and more opportunities to showcase your work. And your increased professionalism raises your business frequency because you're operating an integrity with yourself and with the law. In fact, they did a whole podcast episode about how to make a list of your top 10 values and then how to align your business policies with your values and you can have a listen to it if you haven't heard it yet at episode 78 called do your business policies align with your core values. Now, you can stop feeling paralyzed by fear and start taking action when you feel confident and capable and when you get legally covered on the business front, you show up, play bigger and attract opportunities that lead you to the next level of your business, which is exactly what you want. Now energetically, the third chakra, the solar plexus chakra is aligned with feeling empowered and confident as a business owner. The solar plexus is located at the core in the center of your body. It's the center of our willpower self esteem and self confidence and the anchor for identity power confidence and ego. It's really the seat of our sense of self and this is a chakra where we harness our internal strength and use our personal power to move forward and take action in our life and business. And it's not by chance that our inner core is aligned with the third chakra right the core gives ballast and energetic stability when you have a strong core and your energy is centered in your body, you may notice that you feel more balanced and centered. When you stand tall and hold your head high, you don't lean too far forward to over give which is excessive masculine energy or lean back too far to over receive which is excessive feminine energy. We might be thinking well Lisa that is all very helpful and interesting, but what can I actually do to feel more confident in my business? How do you feel more confident when you don't feel so confident? Well, this topic is a biggie. I've realized lately that it's important for me not only to share legal tips to support you in your business, but also to share tools for how to feel confident and radiant as a business owner when you're feeling stuck or small or shy because it's all connected. Even if you don't feel very empowered or secure, let me assure you that you already have a vast reserve of confidence inside of you which you can rely on. Even if you think it's vanished or you can't seem to find it. So the next time you're feeling scared or worries or doubting your incredible talent and abilities, don't worry. I'm sharing with you right now six simple techniques that can help you gain your confidence again and have it return to you just like a sunrise. And as you hear each technique, keep an open mind. Set the intention that you want to uncover the confidence that's already deep within you and try one or more of these techniques with most resonate with you. So here are six simple techniques to feel more confident right now. Number one, stop beating yourself up. Okay, let's just stop what you're doing and take a deep breath. Put your hand on your heart and breathe in and then breathe out. Now take deep breaths. Three deep breaths. Next, make a little packed with yourself that as of this moment, you'll stop beating yourself up so much. You'll stop telling yourself that you aren't good enough or smart enough or important enough or anything enough. You'll be open to getting out of your head and bringing yourself back into this present moment through your breath. You're committing to put your inner critic on pause and stop the internal rant that's driving you nuts. Believe me when I tell you this, no one feels like they are enough. Not one person on this planet feels enough, thinks they are enough or feels like they have enough. Really no one. Trust me when I say that exactly where you are right now, you are enough. Breathe that in. In this moment, you're right where you're supposed to be and you have so much offer to the world right now, exactly as you are. However much you know or don't know, however many certifications you have or don't have, please. Please stop beating yourself up and remind you that you are enough right now because where you are right now makes you perfectly poised to take your next step. I will guarantee that you already know enough to take a tiny baby step to move forward in your business and help other people improve their lives or it's easy for you to find out how. Step number one is stop beating yourself up. Step number two is one of my favorites. Remember who you are. Now on those days when I feel down or I don't feel like I'm enough because believe me, I'm hard of myself too. My dear friend and creative marketing director and lead coach Heather Drunigan always says to me, Lisa, let me remind you of who you are. Now I love that concept and every time she does it, I remember and I smile and my confidence returns. When we're shoulder deep in our own fears, tears and worries, it can be easy to be short sighted and we aren't able to see our own strengths and abilities. So during those times when Heather and I get on the phone, she reminds me of my positive attributes and accomplishments that reflect the core of who I am. So for example, she'll say something like this. Lisa, one of the things that I admire about you is that you come from such a heartfelt place when you work with your clients. Like most lawyers, you love up your clients from an emotional place first and support them with the care of a coach and then give them the tools of a lawyer. You make the law easy, approachable, light and fun and your clients can feel how much you really care about them. They tell you all the time and they never expect this from a lawyer and that's why they adore you and keep coming back to you for more. See how could you not feel good about yourself when someone tells you such nice things about yourself? So when I'm bummed out that my list is too small or my income isn't a bazillion million dollars or whatever might be bothering me, Heather's kind words remind me of who I am at my core and she reminds me of what I value and how I approach my work with love, which shifts my thinking and energy from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance and gratitude and my whole demeanor shifts. Using this technique of remembering who you are can instantly up level your mindset to bring your attention back to the core of who you are so you can feel more confident and connect to that part of you again. So that's number two is remember who you are. Number three is celebrate your wins. Now just take a moment to celebrate any recent big wins that you've had and your teeny tiny forward steps in your business and allow yourself to fully honor what you've accomplished lately. When you're in a space of doubt and insecurity and you take a moment to celebrate what you've done that felt really scary in the past, you can feel proud of yourself. You can own your wins big and small and remind yourself of what you've already accomplished. Because in this fast pace, 24 hour new cycle and one second attention span universe we live in today, we rarely take the time to let ourselves sit and bask in the glory of our work after we accomplish a goal. We're so quick to dismiss our win, check it off the list and move on to the next big task that we forget to appreciate how much we've achieved. So celebrate the fact you've launched a new website spoken on stage or just sent your very first e-news letter or landed your first client. Raise a glass of wine or kombucha or lemon water to yourself and lean into your pride and say, "I did this." Feeling and celebrating how far we've come keeps us moving in the right direction. So step number three is celebrate your wins. Make a list. Number four is resource your feeling by borrowing them from the past. Now, resourcing involves borrowing memories and feelings that you felt in the past, bringing those memories and physical feelings into the present and then embodying them now to shift your mindset and emotional state. And essence, you're simply reminding your mind of what those sensations and feelings were and letting yourself feel them again. Now, resourcing is a concept that I learned from my private coaches, Carrie Peter and Stacey Morgan Stern of HealthCoach Institute, which was formally called Holistic MBA. They incorporate NLP principles into the work, neuro-linguistic programming. Now this technique I'm sharing is my favorite of the six techniques to help you feel more confident. I use this technique all the time in my own business, especially when launching a new course or stepping outside my comfort zone. Here's the coolest part about resourcing that utterly fascinates me. The mind cannot tell the difference between the past and the present. Now, not to get too metaphysical, but to our mind, there is only the present. It's not fascinating. In our mind, the past is solely what we remember about events that have transpired to date, and the future has not yet been experienced. So to our mind, all it knows is what we're thinking and feeling right now, right this second. The past is behind us, and the future is not here yet. All we truly have is the present moment right now. And while that might be mind-boggling on the one hand and utterly obvious, on the other hand, this is great news for regaining your confidence because the confidence that you want to feel is already within you. Because you've probably already felt confident previously in your life, and that feeling still resides in your mind, your memory, and your body. You know exactly what it feels like to feel confident because you've felt it in the past at some point. So let's take a moment to think about something you accomplished when you felt proud of yourself. It doesn't even matter what it was. What matters is the feeling of confidence that you had. So maybe you got good grades in school, or maybe you marked a milestone like a special graduation or anniversary. Maybe you loved that you're the social butterfly in life of the party. Maybe you take pride that you went an academic athletic or artistic award. Maybe you volunteered or did random acts of kindness for other people. Maybe you got promoted quickly at your day job. Maybe you ran a marathon or went from the couch to a 5K or even just around the block. How confidence expressed in the body can feel different in each person, but many people feel tall, strong, centered, grounded, and relaxed. They stand with their shoulders back and straight, and they have a tall posture. Their breathing is relaxed, and they feel a sense of ease. Well, no matter how confident it shows up for you, the goal is to raise your awareness and embody that feeling right now. Amazingly, if you can open your heart and mind and create space for confidence to emerge as it has in the past, your brain and your body will respond with the same feelings right now as when they originally happened. So take a second and close your eyes and think back to a time when you felt really confident. Let yourself feel those feelings again right now as if that was happening to you right now. Flood yourself with those emotions. Turn up the volume and let yourself sit in that sense of confidence. Notice what your body is doing. Notice your posture. Notice your heart rate. Notice your breathing. How are you feeling? Are you relaxed? Joyful? Tense? Excited? How does it feel to feel confident in your body? And then let yourself stay in that energetic state and shift to start working on whatever you're doing in your business. Allow yourself to borrow that confidence you already had and apply it to what you're doing now that feels a little scary in your business. Isn't resourcing fantastic? I just love it. Okay, number five is fake it till you make it. Now if you aren't feeling confident, it's funny how even pretending that you do feel confident helps your mind move into that mindset. There's a reason that we've all been taught our whole lives to fake it till we make it. Because when you pretend that you're confident, you express characteristics that other people might recognize as tall or strong or powerful even if it's the last thing you're feeling. It's a lot like acting. And even when you're acting something shifts internally and the next thing you know, you believe it yourself and you seamlessly slip into a confidence state of being. Now it's not dishonest or manipulative to call in your confidence by acting confident right now. You're simply drawing on your imagination to envision yourself in a confident position instead of a fearful one. Hollywood actors do this all the time to be effective in their roles. Think of it as just trying out your future confidence self on for size. Step into the shoes of your future self by saying and feeling and doing what your most confident version of yourself would do and see how it feels. Pretty cool, isn't it? What's so great about pretending to be your confident future self is that once again your mind doesn't know the difference between the future and the present. You're tricking your mind into thinking your confident now because you're acting that way now. It doesn't know that the future is not happening yet and quite frankly it doesn't care. Your mind simply responds to how you're feeling in the moment and your mindset shifts to feel fantastic right now. So that's number five, fake it till you make it. And then finally number six, practice taking small steps right out of your comfort zone. Now like many other things, you get better at feeling more confident the more you practice feeling confident. The more we give ourselves permission to feel confident, even if we're feeling a little shaky, the more I are tired and mean or changes. Your energy changes. You hold yourself out to the world in a different way and the world responds accordingly. So practice flexing your courage muscle, trying new things, taking baby steps. and give yourself permission to feel confident as you do it. Take small steps right out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself in new ways by holding your first webinar or posting your first podcast episode or having your first photo shoot, even if it isn't perfect. Remember, when it comes to business, taking baby steps matters, done is always better than perfect. Taking steps matters not being perfect. And as entrepreneurs, we need to take risks and experiment and experience our own discomfort early and often. By taking new actions and honoring your accomplishments, you're actually creating a pattern of action and pride so that you quickly associate taking new actions with feeling pride. And it can feel wildly uncomfortable, but you can do it again and again and again because you recall that you've done so many things in the past with success and pride, even if they were tiny steps, and you now know you can keep taking those new steps in the future. And of course, don't forget that you ever do take a baby step or a big step forward in your business and it doesn't go as well as you wanted and it momentarily shook your confidence, do not worry. You can quickly remedy the situation. You can change things easily and at any time when you work for yourself. For example, you can always change your text on your website, revise your talking points for enrolling clients, alter the investment rate for your signature program, send an apology by email to someone that you feel you've heard or needs an apology. Try a beta launch next time. Do it differently in the future. They say that there's no such thing as failure in business only feedback. There are only opportunities to tweak what you're doing or saying for the next time, the next client, the next E-Newsletter, or the next talk on stage and keep improving as you go. I really hope that you're feeling inspired now that you know six simple techniques that I use myself to help you know that if you find yourself temporarily misplacing your confidence, you can quickly find it again. Any of these techniques will shift your mindset and keep you moving forward to have the business and the life that you so deeply desire and are working towards. Remember, feeling confident on the inside is key to showing confidence on the outside and your inner confidence is always there. Sometimes it just needs to be reminded so you can clear the cobwebs and shine your light once again. As always, I believe you're set free to do your best work and create anything that you want when you get legally covered in a loving way. Thank you so much for joining me and being part of the Legal Love Tribe. I can't wait to be with you for the next episode with more legal life and business tips to support you, your business, and your brand. If you like this episode and you wanna hear more episodes like this, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher and join my tribe at leaseafraile.com to get emails delivered right to your inbox when a new episode airs. And don't forget to share the legally enlightened podcast with your biz buddy and your tribe and on social media so they can subscribe to and get free legal tips. Here's to getting legally enlightened. (upbeat music) One more legal life and business tips delivered right to your inbox and easy to use legal templates. Just click on leaseafraile.com. And while you're there, you'll find the show notes, resources, and links mentioned in today's episode at leaseafraile.com/podcast. Thanks so much for joining me and here's to getting legally enlightened. (upbeat music)