To the confident woman, authenticity is paramount. She knows that in order to trust herself fully, she has to know herself and show acceptance toward herself every day. Your identity is the combination of factors that make you you, and when fully embraced, create the confidence to show up every day from a place of worth, ease and freedom.
Your confidence is connected to embracing your whole identity – but you can’t embrace who you don’t know…
One of the most difficult questions I think for people to answer is “Who are you?”
When asked this question we usually reference our jobs, hobbies, and our relationships to the people in our families. But none of those things have to do with who we are at our core, the truth of our identities.
When you know and accept yourself, it becomes much easier to be yourself around others, OWN your strengths and shadows, and cultivate relationships that support you. Identity is the key to unlocking it all, but we’ve been taught to attach our identities to external roles, obligations and associations.
In her book Believe Bigger, Marshawn Evans Daniels says, “We can miss who we’re called to be because we’re attached to who we’ve decided to be.”
Ouch.
In this vintage live broadcast I talked about the external “validators” that we’ve been conditioned to attach our identities to, which Marshawn writes about in the book. You can watch the video below:
When I’m coaching clients one-on-one, regardless of the challenges that bring them to working with me, we start with identifying the “rules” that have been driving their lives. Think about the things you were praised for so much that you decided to keep doing, or the times you were told that your curiosity/sense of adventure was “wrong” so you learned to be small to keep the peace.
Experiences like these told you who to be, so you forgot to keep evolving and discovering yourself.
Moving through your confidence growth journey will require you to be uncomfortable – to start asking yourself the questions that you’ve been afraid to ask, and to admit that you’ve been accepting a life that isn’t what you want.
Questions like:
- What do I really want? What’s stopping me from believing I deserve it?
- What would I do if I wasn’t afraid of people judging me?
- What am I gaining from staying in a place where I don’t want to be?
This connection between identity and confidence is something that can be cultivated through thoughtful self-reflection followed by intentional actions, but there will be emotional moments. Fear and self-doubt may show up to convince you to leave “well enough” alone. People may react negatively to your new boundaries.
It’s during these times that you’ll be able to remind yourself why you matter – your authentic, multifaceted self is worth the effort….but you won’t be able to trust what you know if you’re unsure of who you are.
When you’re operating your entire life from a place of self-security & trust, you’ll create an environment where confidence flourishes naturally.
If you recognize that you need support to begin your identity self-discovery journey, I created this product to help you get started. The ‘Confidently Me’ Digital Self-Discovery card deck contains questions, thought prompts and exercises that are all designed to guide you through the journey of getting to know yourself.
Confidence evolves as we learn to embrace all facets of our identity, don’t be afraid to get to know you betters you can love you more.
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