The Biggest Mistake You're Making When Trying to Build Self Confidence

[MUSIC PLAYING] Did you know that you can have unshakable self-confidence? I'm Sherry Brasier. I'm an advanced certified style coach, personal wardrobe stylist, and seasoned hairstylist. I'm on a mission to teach women everywhere to see their true value and create self-confidence on the inside and then help you dress that way on the outside. Women, just like you, are creating strategies to dress your body shape stylishly. Tools you can use to help you love yourself and process disappointment and overwhelm, all while still looking put together when you leave the house. If you're ready to figure out your personal style and learn the tools to help you build and create more self-confidence, then you are in the right place. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast this week, my friends. I'm so glad that you're here. Today is going to be a fun episode because I am going to tell you the biggest mistake that you're making when you're trying to build your self-confidence. It's going to be great. So how many of you have heard-- and I've said it-- I have said this. And you've probably-- you could have heard it here on this podcast. How many of you have heard you need to change your thoughts about yourself in order to increase your self-confidence? Or you need to change your thoughts so that you'll feel better. You need to change your thoughts about yourself so that you can feel better about yourself, right? And while this is true, we do need to change our thinking the way that we think about ourselves if we do want to increase our self-confidence. But the way that we think we are supposed to be doing this is we think that we're supposed to change the actual thoughts that are in our head. So my clients will come to me and they know that our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive our actions. And our actions create the results that we have in our life. So all of our power lies with our thoughts and choosing to think what we want to think, choosing to up-level the way that we think, choosing to grow our mindset in the way that we think about things. Those are all things that we need to do in order to have a stronger mindset and also a better self-esteem, a better self-image. Because what we think about ourselves is what creates our whole entire life. It creates our happiness. It creates how successful we are. And it creates all of our relationships. What you think about yourself is your self-image. And what you think about yourself is how you behave because our thoughts create our actions. And then how we behave in the world gets us the results that we have because our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive our actions. What I want to talk to you guys about today is trying to change the thoughts that are in your head already is the hardest way to go about it. If you want to feel like yourself confidence is increasing, changing the thoughts that are already in your head is going to be hard to do. But that's-- and that's what we think the goal is is to change the thoughts that are in our head, right? We want positive thoughts in our head about ourselves. And we think that the way to do that is to take the thoughts that are already there and change them. And if you are in this dilemma of having lots of negative thoughts about yourself running around in your mind, like a toddler on a sugar high, you're not alone. I personally relate to that. I have had thoughts in my head that it seems like it's a toddler running around on a sugar high, for sure. And my clients also deeply resonate with this as well. Trying to change the negative thoughts is the most difficult task to tackle. And the success rate of doing that is sadly very low. So does this mean that we're all just out of luck? We're just destined to fight for self-confidence all of our lives? No. But this is the biggest mistake that most women make. When you feel like you have to constantly fight for something that feels unattainable, you end up getting tired, and you just give up. Sound familiar? The way that you'll get the most traction and the fastest success in building your self-confidence is to add new thoughts that are uplifting and encouraging. So I'm going to pause right here, and I'm going to break this down. What I did when I first started this was I tried to change the thoughts that I had about myself to more useful, nicer thoughts about myself. So for instance, one of the thoughts that I used to think about myself is that I was never going to be able to lose weight. I was just destined to be fat. Well, that's a thought. That is actually not true. No one is destined to be fat. There are ways to lose weight, just a zillion of ways to lose weight, right? But the thought that I had was that I would never be able to attain that. And I was just always going to be fat. And my brain was having the hardest time, and honestly, it just couldn't change that thought. I tried and tried and tried to change that thought. So when that thought came up, what I would do is I would tell myself, oh, no, no, no, you've got to change it. You've got to change that. Well, what that created was a whole bunch of resistance, because that was what my brain was offering me, because that's the evidence that I had at the time, was that I was never going to be able to lose weight, and that I was just destined to be fat. That was the evidence that I had created, and so that was the thoughts that came to my mind. So I'm going to tell you that I did not have success changing that thought, taking that thought and changing it. That was not successful for me. What was successful was finding new thoughts that felt good about myself, not related to weight. That's where I started. I started bringing in new thoughts that I actually believed about myself that had nothing to do with weight. I just could easily believe them about myself. And when those the thoughts came, that I'm always going to be fat, and I'm destined to be fat, and I'm never going to lose this weight, you know, whatever, then I would redirect my brain and my thoughts to the thoughts that I did believe about myself that were nicer. And I intentionally remembered those thoughts and started thinking those thoughts. Okay. So what I want to encourage you to do is I want you to spend some time looking for uplifting positive things about yourself rather than trying to change the unwanted ones that are already there. So I want you to take some time and think of some things that you can think about yourself that you already believe. Okay. For instance, for me, I love people. I just do. I just love people. People are interesting to me. I love to get to know different people and find out their stories. And just get to know them. I just really enjoy that. And so I would tell myself, I love people because I do. That is something about me that I actually believe that I actually do love people. And so that was one of the first things that I started telling myself was, you know what, Sherry, you love people. It's easy for you to love people. And there's a lot of people out there that have a hard time loving people. I coach them. They have a hard time loving people. Now, I don't have a hard time loving people. People bothered me for sure. Like there's people in the world that would road rage and in the grocery store and you know, whatever. And they might annoy me or they might bother me or whatever. But just in general, I don't have a hard time loving people. I had a practice in the beginning of when I was trying to raise myself confidence. I would tell myself three things every day that I liked about myself. And one of them was, you love people. And I like that about you. I think that's cool about you that you like people. The other thing was, is that I'm happy. Just my demeanor is happy. My demeanor is just happy. And so I would tell myself, you are just a happy person. I like that you're happy. And then I would, then I, the third thing that I started with was that I was doing the very best that I could to be a good mom. Now, I didn't tell myself I was a good mom because at the time I didn't think I was. And I thought that there was some things I could work on in that department. So I didn't tell myself, you're a good mom. I would tell myself that I liked the fact that I was trying to be a good mom. And that I wanted to be a good mom because I did want that. I was looking for ways that I could be a good mom. What does a good mom do? What do I think a good mom is? I was spending some time there trying to really get my head wrapped around what a good mom is to me. And what kind of a mom I wanted to be. That doesn't mean I gave myself all the accolades that I am a good mom. I just was grateful for the fact that I wanted to be a good mom. And that I was doing things to try to be a good mom. So the three things I told myself was that I love people. And I think that's a good thing. I like that about myself. I want to be a good mom. I spend a lot of time thinking about being a good mom and trying to be a good mom. And that I am happy most of the time. That I choose to be happy most of the time. And I think that's pretty cool. That I actively try to be happy. And I would just tell myself that every day. That was easy for me to believe about myself. And so I just decided I would say that to myself every day. And I did it in different ways. I would put sticky notes by my bedside. I just put right those three things down and put it by my bed so that I could read it before I went to bed. I would put them on note cards and put it on my mirror in the morning so that I could read it in the morning when I would wake up. I would put a note in my phone and put an alarm that would go off at certain times the day that would remind me of the things that I liked about myself. And those three things were not hard for me to believe because they were things I actually did think about myself. And what happened was in about two weeks time, I started to have more confidence in myself. I started to feel better just in general about myself. Let me tell you the reasons why it's hard for us to change the thoughts that we already have into better positive thoughts. We seek that if we tell ourselves the problems and the things that are wrong with us that will change those things. So I would tell myself all the time that I was overweight and that I was destined to be fat and I was never going to be able to lose weight and blah blah. And I would tell myself those things because I was trying to not eat the foods that I wanted to eat. And I was trying to move my body more and exercise more. And by telling myself that I was fat or that I was never going to lose weight or whatever, it was shaming to myself like I was shaming myself thinking that if I didn't like it, then I would change it. Right. How many of us do that? But if you haven't noticed, this doesn't work. When we focus on the problems or the things about us that are wrong, that feels really bad. It doesn't inspire us to make lasting change. It's only when we practice complementing ourselves and intentionally acknowledging the positive things that we do, that we will build the self confidence that we're wanting. Because I'm sure that if you're a mom, you have heard the parenting advice, reinforce good behavior. When your child does something good, reinforce that good behavior. Tell them the things you're proud of them for. Tell them the things that they did well. When they bring their home or home and they have a picture that they've drawn. Tell them that you are really proud of them for drawing the picture and then pick something out that you really like about the picture. And be honest, I like the way that you drew the head on the monster or whatever that is, right. Bring out the good things and reinforce the good. So when my kids are doing their chores. What I try to do is, for instance, this just is just happening, like as we speak, my youngest son is in charge of cleaning his bathroom and he's 14 and he's a boy. So there's some things that we could work on, right. I'm sure you guys can imagine. Well, if I go into the bathroom and look for the things he did wrong and point those out very first, that isn't going to help. What I'm doing is going in and looking for the things that he did right. He emptied the garbage. I did ask him to empty the garbage and pick up all the garbage that was on the floor next to the garbage can that missed and he did do all of that. Well, that is something that I'm going to say, thank you for emptying the garbage. You picked up all the stuff around the toilet and around the garbage and you put it all on the garbage and you emptied it. Thank you so much. I see that you cleaned the mirror and you cleaned the faucet and you wiped off the counter. Thank you for doing that. I see that you picked up the towels and you hung them on the teller ex. I also see that you forgot to wipe around the bottom of the shower like I had asked him to do. So after I reinforce some of the things that he did that I asked him to do that he did correctly. I bring his attention to the thing that he forgot to do or that he didn't want to do or that he thought was gross, whatever it is. So after I've reinforced the good I want to then ask him to do the thing that he forgot to do, which was wiped around the bottom of the shower. So how do we do this with our self steam is I say those three things to myself every day and then I say to myself we're going to have a salad today for lunch. There's one on the fridge. I already bought it. It's already there. That's what we're going to do. So I've reinforced good good behavior and good thoughts. And then I changed so to speak in quotes a thought about food that maybe I might have had some drama around by getting my headspace in the place that is positive where I've just found some things that I like about myself. And then I've made a plan to do something good for myself in an area that maybe I'm not so great at the chances are higher of me being successful eating a salad that day because I have already told myself the things that I like about myself. So I want you to do something for me today. I want you to think of three things that you like about yourself that you like about your personality that you like about the things that that you try to do on a daily basis. Maybe you're really trying to be a good mom, maybe you're trying to be a good wife, maybe you're trying to practice the piano and learn a new skill, maybe you're trying to redecorate your house, maybe you're trying to build a business, whatever that is, it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't have to already be done and be perfect. You can appreciate the process that you're going through and maybe you just enjoy those things. Maybe you don't necessarily think you're the best at it or that you're even even any good at it, but you kind of think it's cool that you like to do it. I like people. I'm probably not the best person on the planet and I probably don't love people the best way, but I kind of like it that I like people. I kind of like it that I think people are interesting. That is one thing about my personality that I really do enjoy. So come up with three things that you like about yourself and put it into practice that you can say those things to yourself each day. Maybe it's things that you accomplished the day before. Maybe it's that you're always on time. I don't know. Just whatever it is about you and about your personality that you like. It doesn't have to be anything real super great. And your brain's going to want to come in with, yeah, but you do this not very good and you do that wrong and you do this wrong and you do that aren't you've got to practice quieting that part of your brain. And focusing more on the part of your thoughts that are in alignment with growing your self esteem and yourself confidence stop trying to change the negative self. talk that's already in your head and focus on adding positive self-talk more regularly and I promise you'll be blown away. How much faster you will actually accomplish the thing that you want the most. Confidence in yourself. So I would love to hear how this goes for you. Will you do it for me? Will you start adding positive self-talk on a regular basis and then just stop trying to change all of the things that are there already. Just try to bring in the positive so that it can just weed it out. Just weed out the negative just organically on its own by adding more and more and more positive self-talk. It's going to be a stretch. It's a different mindset. It's probably something different than you've ever even heard before but it works. I've done it myself and I'm helping my clients do it too and it's working. So that's what I have for you guys today. That's how you build self-confidence. Start adding in positive things about yourself that you actually do believe that you can believe right now and put it into practice on a regular basis and that will grow yourself confidence faster than anything else. Alright you guys have a great week and I will talk to you next time. Hey there. Do you want help right now creating your own personal style? I've got you. Go to my website right now at SherryBrasier.com and grab the style basics every woman should have in her closet guide. It's right on the front page of my website. Just put your name and your email address right there and I will send you a document that's a checklist of the basics that every woman needs in her closet. This will help you get started creating your own personal style now. It will give you the ideas of what you need to look for in your own closet and then if you don't have those things I'll tell you what to look for when you go shopping. So go to my website SherryBrasier.com and grab that guide now.