Boosting your confidence with gut instinct

I've been studying confidence for years, specifically what confidence looks and sounds like in women. No matter what work I've been doing, time and again I see a lack of confidence as one of the biggest issues that hold women back. Not only clients but co-workers, friends, bosses, etc. Today most of the work that I do in my workshops and with individual clients centers on finding simple, practical solutions to everyday problems. A lack of confidence is no different. So today I want to focus on one easy, painless way to get more confident: using your gut instinct.

Kids listen more easily than we do.

Kids listen more easily than we do.

But what is gut instinct exactly? 13th century Persian poet Rumi said, "There's a voice that doesn't use words. Listen". That voice is gut instinct. Some people say "intuition" or "gut feelings"; it's all the same. Gut instinct is the voiceless voice that lives inside your soul. It often comes to us unexpectedly. It's not something that you can tease out. You don't wait for gut instinct to show up; the judgment or assessment that is behind the feeling is either there or it isn't. Gut instinct is reliable but we're not always paying attention.

But we should! Here are three ways using gut instinct can boost confidence:

  1. It helps you know when to push back, let go or get the heck out. Gut instinct is the magic that warns you, "danger, danger" when you're in an unfamiliar place and something is off. My clients who use gut instinct are better able to correctly assess situations, opportunities, potential relationships as they arise.

  2. It builds trust in yourself. Trusting yourself more means less second-guessing, back-pedaling and waffling. Gut instinct is what propelled me to get on a plane to see my mom one last time. If I hadn't listened to gut instinct (and both of my sisters' gut instincts), I might not have gone. And if I hadn't, I would have regretted that decision for the rest of my life.

  3. It helps you be the best version of yourself you can be. If you're like most women I talk to, you'd love to bring more "you" into your daily life. Well, when you listen to yourself by paying attention to gut instinct, you become more confident with being that first rate version of yourself. 

There's a lot of power in using gut instinct as a way to be more confident in the small and large moments of your days. Test it out, let me know how it goes.

How to Create a Life

A few days ago, a male Facebook friend posted that he had done "the impossible". What feat of nature did he accomplish, you might ask a bit breathless with anticipation? Well, I'll tell you. He is now weighs over 200 pounds. There was no goal met. Friends reactions ranged from laughter to confusion. But what I didn't hear was what really stood out: any shaming.

Can you imagine if you posted something like that on your page? Likely you wouldn't even do it as a dare. As women we know our weight is no laughing matter. And likely even your kids know that if women are talking about their weight, they're likely talking about gain not with an aura of jocular accomplishment but in tones of embarrassment or self-loathing. Women are well aware that they are defined in no small part by their body image.

Even if it might be pretty, it's still a box.

Even if it might be pretty, it's still a box.

Everywhere we choose to look, we see the double standard that exists for us as women. (That double standard usually becomes even more impossible when race is factored in.) It's okay for Chad to use Facebook as an ass-backwards way of bragging about his weight gain but not okay if you or I do it. Your husband's company loyalty is much less likely to be questioned when he takes paternity leave than yours is. Women still make about 76 cents for $1 a man makes. 

What those double standards look like in real life are boxes. And not the cool ones that contain keys to a new car. Women are placed in little, neat boxes in our society, sometimes as a way to understand us, yes, but more often than not as a way to keep us small, contained, managed. The worst kind of boxes are abusive ones where women are threatened or stalked as female gamer Brianna Wu has been. Wu, founder of Giant SpaceKat, an iOS gaming studio spoke out against the online trolls that attacked her female gaming friends. Then the trolls turned on her...with horrible, graphic death threats. Dr. Danielle Citron explains in a recent INC magazine article about Wu, "the whole point of this abuse is to put someone in a box that is destructive, to call into question their integrity, to demean them...and fundamentally distort who she is." Most of our boxes aren't quite so violent but they can still distort who we are. 

How do we get out of this?

One step at a time.

The first step might be an awakening realization on exactly how problematic and impossible it is to feel happiness and success when confined to a box you didn't design yourself. Those of you who work full-time because your family needs your salary when you'd rather work a schedule that allows you more flexibility might be in this spot. Your life feels cramped, your time and energy are short. You feel guilty and nowhere close to successful.

Another first step might be exploring outside the (body image, mom, employee, wife, sister) box. Deciding to step down to part-time, working with a coach to build confidence to make a change and doing some research on starting your own gig are all examples of exploring outside the box. Those in explorer mode may be unsure but are usually excited at the prospective of change. 

No house is a home unless it is lived in, loved and feels safe. No box is a life unless it's one you've designed yourself. And those double standards? They'll likely still exist even when you step out of your box. But what is gone is the power of the double standard to make you feel less than. When we get out of the boxes we're placed in (as much as we can because we can't escape every double standard, only the ones we take part in) we step into freedom. When we use our voice, we allow others to do the same. We step into a chance to make a difference by claiming our own power. 

What box feels stifling to you right now? What double standard makes you cringe? Leave me a  comment below. Thank you for reading!

Going Bigger in #2015

 I think moms need to go bigger in 2015Let's get louder about the things that are important to us. The things that get in our way on a daily basis from being the best we can be, including our most productive! Even if they aren't socially acceptable to talk about or make people feel uncomfortable.

Read more

Ending pregnancy services

In my continued attempt to walk my talk, I wanted to announce that I am shifting the focus of Outside The Mom Box completely to new moms. This means that I will no longer be offering childbirth education programming or my free support group for pregnant women.

There are a few reasons for this but perhaps the biggest is that there are many amazing Durham women who work exclusively with pregnant women, most of whom have more complimentary skills (birth doula, massage therapists, health coach, etc) for this population than I do. It's also tough and stressful work competing for people's attention on a regular basis. So I've decided to leave the work for pregnant women to others in our community. This change will allow me to focus on the toddler group that I want to start and get (drop off) Supper Clubs for New Moms off the ground.

I feel like every once in a while we need to check in with ourselves and see what is, is not working. I sat with this decision for a week before I finalized it. In addition to feeling less stressed, I also noticed that I lost sight of the fact that my business isn't "supposed" to be my 40+ week job! That's not why I'm doing this work. That realization, too, helped me understand that this was a good move for me.

Thank you so much for being here, for reading this and for your continued support. It means the world to me. There wouldn't be any of this, if it wasn't for you. I'm grateful.