#539: Stop Trying to Prove Yourself – You’re Good Enough Already (2024)

Transcript

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You're listening to the confidence podcast, your favorite coaching podcast oozing with motivation, inspiration, and confidence to help you boldly take action on your dreams. I'm your host, Trish Blackwell, internationally recognized Confidence Coach, Best Selling Author and founder of the College of Confidence, the most encouraging place on the internet. I teach go getters in life, how to take your thoughts captive, how to step out of the shadows of self doubt, and how to courageously step into their purpose. With competence. It's time to pump our competence muscles and train our thoughts, y'all. Let's get started. Hey, there, it's Trish Blackwell, and you're listening to the confidence podcast. This is episode 539. We're talking today about stopping the madness How to Stop trying to prove yourself and how to believe that you are good enough already. I really really love this topic. Because it's one that evaded me for years one that I struggled with one that with my type, a driven personality I like was the definition of somebody who put pressure on herself. In fact, so much so that I had a full scholarship Division One collegiate level, I had my coaches say, alright, girl, here's the thing. We just need you to stop trying so hard, like, try to stop trying. And it was just like incomprehensible to me. I didn't know how to not put that pressure on myself. And so as my life continued, or my personal development became a priority my life, there was so much I discovered that was available to me, then I just didn't have the tools for so my hope. And my prayer is that in today's episode, you find relief, you feel joy, you feel hope about how life can be easier than you think how you're making it too hard for yourself unnecessarily. And we're going to be talking about overworking over commitment and working xiety we're gonna be covering the undue pressure that you're putting on yourself. I'm going to share with you a new concept I've got about work ethic versus life ethic, how to not pride yourself solely on your work ethic and your drive, but also, at the same time to value your life ethic. And we're going to define what life ethic means how to, it's been a game changing concept for me and a lot of my clients, and then how to trust yourself to be good enough to be good enough and yet also want to be better. There's a duality, a cognitive dissonance that happens. And it's not either or I want you to know and invite you into believing that it's both and you're both good enough right now and becoming better. So I want to welcome you if you're new I'm Trish I help women who put too much pressure on themselves. Learn how to stop self sabotaging, stop overthinking, stop comparing, and stop thinking with limited language. I teach my clients how to rewire their brains, how to change the language of their minds, so that they can believe in themselves with more joy, more ease more confidence, and show up to create the impact that God created them to make. So I'm delighted that you're here. Whether you were referred here by a friend, you found me in a search on your podcast app, or you've been listening for years. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for spending time with me today. So hey, we always like to shout out to our review of the week. This one is from a t i or t 11. And they said grateful for this podcast, I've been listening to Trish his podcast for a year and so blessed. The skills I've learned are so valuable. It's been truly life changing. Thank you Trish, I love your podcast. Well I love you t 11 for taking the time to just write me that love note. It means the world to me. It's so encouraging. There is a reason guys that I started the episodes I improves my flow and my coaching when I read something good. So thank you to those of you who've written review recently, if you haven't yet, I would love for you do it helps us grow the show helps us reach more people and create more change in the world. So thank you in advance to those of you who might do that this week. Let's talk let's go in let's dive in to this, this conversation about the need to prove yourself. You know as I say that before I get ahead of myself if you want to increase the amount of happiness in your life, I want to remind you I mentioned it on last week's podcast. We have a happiness challenge a seven day happiness challenge happening right now in the college confidence it's not too late to join to get in on it. If you want to be a happier person you need to be in the College of confidence this week just point blank so it's also risk free if you aren't absolutely mind blown by the resources and the the support that you receive and having a coat In a community that's that positive, and that encouraging and that effective, then just let us know in the first 14 days of your membership, and we will happily refund your money, no questions asked. It's that simple. And I believe in it that much. But if you want to be happier, come join us happiness challenge is happening now go to culture competence.com/join To get started, so, all right, proving yourself, putting pressure on yourself, just doesn't work. It's so unnecessary. And I, you know, that said, I respect the drive. I love the drive to be excellent. So there's a difference between a drive to prove yourself so that you earn the admiration of others. And then there's the versus the drive to prove yourself, so that you make the most of your life. For many of my years, I fell into the first category. I now I've still driven it's in my blood. And the good news is, I think that when you are wired, if you and I are wired at all, similarly, then, when you take the pressure off yourself, you're not going to stop caring, you're just going to have a healthier expression of your dry. The unhealthy expression of drive is rooted in fear. And in desperation, it's there's the driving emotions of that, that striving that hustle, or anxiety and insecurity because you're you're anxious, you're you're you're not sure if you're good enough. And so as a result, you take more action, out of desperation. And then it creates and perpetuates the thoughts like I think I'm doing enough, I hope that they're impressed. I hope that they like this. And it perpetuates that thought cycle. And then also, the unhealthy expression of it is focusing on people's thoughts about you as the result of your effort. And now, I hate that I have to admit that I really bought into that for a long time, I wanted people to be proud of me, I wanted people to like me, I wanted people to think I was talented. I wanted people to think I was smart, I wanted my coaches to think I was great. I pushed myself and I put pressure on myself to sort of do it all and be it all, at the cost of my own happiness at the cost of my own stress. And at the cost of increasing my anxiety and with the sort of mismanaged and Miss prioritize goal of end, let's be honest, foolish goal of thinking that I could change what people thought about me, my goal was so that people would be impressed. And I needed that, because I needed them to tell me that I was good or good enough. So I was basing a lot of my confidence on the opinions and the accolades of others. And it exhausted me it was a rat race. Now let me tell you what a healthy expression of your drive looks like. The Healthy expression of your drive is less of a fixed mindset. And is it is a growth mindset oriented. It's rooted in the desire to see what you're capable of. It allows your driving emotions, our curiosity, and excitement or even commitment commitment to say, God has put this in me, I want to steward it and grow it to the fullest. And then the focus rather than your focus being on people's thoughts about you. Your focus, when it's a healthy expression of drive, are your thoughts about yourself. As a result, your thoughts being able to be proud of yourself for how you show up is the results not in what somebody may or may not think about you because you realize that you can't control what they think anyways, it would be foolish to pursue that as your primary thing. Now, someone who has unhealthy expression of drive, who is pursuing excellence and progression instead of perfection, also has learned how to be proud of themselves and proud of their progress along the way. They've learned that they can build themselves up without needing somebody else to do it for them. But let's start to break the in order to break the unhealthy expression, that pressure that you feel to prove yourself to to be impressive. I've got a couple of things that you can do to break free of this cycle of constantly feeling like you've got to perform.

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Because when you break the cycle, you're able to cultivate a stronger sense of self worth and self confidence. So first, we've got identify the root cause. It's important to know that because why you need to feel need to prove yourself why you feel the need. What did others say when did it start? Did it is it due to a past experience something that someone said or just an overall general lack of self confidence? Because once you understand the underlying cause, you can begin to address it directly. The second thing you can do is to start practicing self acceptance instead of and self encouragement, self validation instead of C seeking validation from others focus on accepting and validating yourself for who you are including your weaknesses, not just your strengths. But one of the things we one of the core principles we teach on in the college or conferences, how to cheer yourself on how to encourage yourself the art of Self validation. We actually had an entire podcast one of our most popular podcasts that we did, oh, gosh, it's been it's been a few months ago. It's Oh, it's episodes from almost a full year ago. It's episode 483, the art of Self validation, or actually, it's titled self validation, the arts, of not needing other people to tell you good job. Please know that as I as I live and breathe, I am a person who thrives on telling people telling me good job, I am a words of affirmation person, words of affirmation, if your love language is words of affirmation, you still don't need that for validation and worth. And so even if you're a words of affirmation person that that makes you feel loved, you also still need to learn how to give yourself that love. We don't have to look to outside resources and outside sources to give us ourselves something. But we can instead learn to start practicing, being the person who was giving ourselves the words of affirmation. And you do this, it's going to feel awkward at first and clunky that's okay, clunky things become smooth over time. But definitely listen to that episode as you can access it by scrolling back in your podcast app, or just by going to Trish blackwell.com Ford slash 483. But that's key and critical to still give yourself relief from the pressure. Third thing is to set realistic expectations rather than striving for perfection, or trying to meet unrealistic expectations. I want you to set goals that are achievable, but big, but aligned with your values and your priorities. And really, I want your goal to be of excellence that you're you're pursuing excellence, you're pursuing progress, we just spent a whole hour in one of my workshops in the college competence on what that means how to define that and how to make it real in your own life. But setting goals of growth, not just goals of achievement. It's such a subtle difference, but makes a massive difference. And I'm not saying we don't set goals for big achievable things to but it's, it's who was it that I'm way more excited about who you become in order to achieve that goal, then the accomplishment of the goal itself. The fourth thing I really to help break the cycle of pressure to prove is to develop healthy coping mechanisms. When you feel the urge to prove yourself when you feel like you need to show off when you feel like you need to do better and you beat yourself up. I want you to redirect your energy towards healthy things, a healthy expression of that energy that might be just through exercise, mindfulness, walking barefoot, doing some grounding, walking barefoot in the grass, some creative expression putting putting some music on. I mean, you as I, I saw this in myself so often, when even if, let's say so, if I was swimming laps, and I saw people walk by me in the pool, I would sometimes just try to swim faster. Just the people random random passerby guys would think I'm fast. What? Right. And so in that when I felt that urge to prove myself or to quote unquote, be impressive, and it was coming from a place of insecurity and lack, right, the unhealthy expression of it and you you will know the difference. I would actually then tell myself, Trisha, I'm slow. Trish, do a drill, Trish, take a break at the wall. Let those that was person people walked by because they're not paying attention to you and my mind was all up in what could they be thinking about me. And they were not thinking about me, but I had to intentionally take myself out of that, that urge. And then number five, surround yourself with supportive people. I want you to seek out individuals who support and encourage you and distance yourself from anybody who's perpetuating feelings of inadequacy, or self doubt, who puts you down who makes fun of your goals? Here's the thing. When you start seeing growth, you start having higher standards, you start being somebody who's happy, people will try to pull you down, haters are gonna hate. People hate seeing other people be happy because it shines light on what they're not doing well themselves and what they've settled for instead. And so it's really critical who you surround yourself with. That's one of the core things. A lot of people come to the college competence for the coaching, but a lot of them stay for the community. It's really, really amazing to be surrounded by hundreds of other people who are as committed to journaling and growth and reflection and introspection and taking action and rewiring the brain as you are. And that's that's what you get when you put yourself in a community like that. Now let's talk about the the side effects of this when you are trying to prove yourself and you don't ever feel enough and it's you're trying to outrun, that thought that you're not enough, a lot of it is coming from a thought of perfectionism, from a perfectionistic belief that, that you need to need to do better and be better. And perfectionism itself is so toxic. And interestingly enough, one of my favorite quotes on perfection is from Julia Cameron, and she says this, perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit for the worst in ourselves, the part of us that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough. And when bliss says this, the pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy, the pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time. Guys, I need to take a quick break for a word from our sponsor BetterHelp. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy, a [email protected] Ford slash confidence pod and get on your way to being your best self. Because let's be honest, getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process, especially because we're always growing and changing. Therapy is all about deepening your self awareness and understanding because sometimes we don't know what we want or why we react the way we do until we talk through things better help connect you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self discovery from wherever you are. Therapy is actually massively helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. And it isn't just for those who have experienced major trauma. If you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try. It's entirely online. Designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Discover your potential with better help visit betterhelp.com/confidence pod today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help h e l p.com/competence. Pod. But what happens is when we put pressure on ourselves, and we were pursuing being the best, we end up overworking, we end up overextending ourselves over committing ourselves and then we end up with working anxiety. And all of these expressions are evidence of an unhealthy desire to prove oneself. And additionally, they express lack of trust in oneself and a misplaced priority on work as the primary source of your self worth. And if you want to work on self worth, I cannot omit telling you this. But we have an entire week five hour coaching workshop on worth is called worth week. It's available as soon as you become a member in the College of competence. So check that out college incompetence.com. But if you want to break the cycle and really stablish worthiness and enoughness you've got to do the work, you've got to wrestle. But one of the reasons we put pressure on ourselves is that we're trying to prove our worth we, we say well, I'll just do more than everyone else, I'll just overwork and I'll I'll just I'm going to people, please not ask for help. And you know what happens? It creates hustle. It generates anxiety. It makes it difficult if not nearly impossible to rest.

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It messes with your sleep. It blurs work boundaries, it exhausts it creates exhaustion and a misplaced identity value in it. It creates this this kind of mixed up spaghetti mismanaged thoughts. Because when you start overdoing all the things and and letting your boundaries be bled and overworking now you then put pressure on yourself to keep it up because now the thought is now people expect this of me. And what it does is it breaks a sense of self trust. Because you end up choosing work over things like your hobbies, you end up, you end up choosing something else over a promise that you've made to yourself but something else in your life, that that matters to you. But you've decided that you've misplaced your worth somewhere else. And you're still trying to prove yourself and it takes all the priority. So here's a how do you break the cycle? You got to know who you are. You got to know why you matter. You've got to know what you want. And you've got to know that you can change or said differently. You got to know that your future can be different. Those are our pillars of confidence. But if you really want to break the cycle of trying to prove yourself, you've track your work hours, track your time, decide what you want your life to look like down to what is a perfect day. What is a great week look like? How many hours do you work? How many hours? Do you exercise? How many hours do you spend with loved ones? How much time do you spend cooking, like really map everything out, not just the areas of your life that you're trying to prove yourself in, or that you're trying to prove to yourself that you're nothing or that you're on your way to being enough, right? You aren't a reminder, you are already enough. What else you can do is to know who you are outside of the work that you do. So many of us identify with? Well, I'm a attorney. I'm a this I'm a and you put your work in what you do, when the most pivotal things that was game changing for me was when I one of my first therapy appointments years, a decade plus ago, my therapist who was amazing said, Tell me about yourself. And I proceeded I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but I proceeded to tell her about all the things that I do not enough bragger way but in a simple like, well, here's what I do. And this is you know, she said Trish, Trish, Trish, Trish, I asked you who you are, not what you do, or what you have done. And that's interesting because I want to encourage you to know who you are outside of work to explore your self worth and your value outside of maybe things that you are you have been prioritizing in the past. And also learn to be somebody who who has things you want to do with your free time. So many of us are so driven that we forget to make time to be ourselves to to have hobbies to play, that we're not we've overvalued the quote unquote productive part of our lives, that we lose the other part of our lives that are equally important. I also think that there's there's an invitation here to pick a future that excites you, your thoughts create your future? Why don't you just open up the possibilities? Like down to like, when are you if you're over attaching to work in your career, it's time to start thinking about there'll be a time that you don't work, there's going to be a time that you are retired? What is that going to look like? What what date, what potential year could that be? What will you do with your free time, who are you and then work intentionally also on self trust, because what happens is when we put pressure on ourselves, and we're over attached the wrong things, we break promises to ourselves in other areas and we break promises to yourself, and you stop showing up for yourself in your personal life. You stopped trusting yourself in all areas of your life. Which is why what I want to propose to you today is an invitation to start thinking about your life ethic. Instead of just your work ethic. Your work ethic we know what it is we know it's a it's a character trait that that I respect tremendously. I pride myself on my work ethic. But I've over prided myself on my work ethic to the point where it created burnout and exhaustion. Marissa Mayer says this burnout is about resentment. It's about knowing what matters to you so much that if you don't get it, you're resentful. And it's crazy, the the overworking that happens. And I like this this, this anonymous quote that I found and it really summarizes it. And this this for me, helped me shift out of over attaching to my work ethic as part of my identity versus just making it a great character quality that I have. overworking is the difference between a professional and an amateur. Hmm, I don't want to be an amateur I want to be professional, which means I don't want to overwork a professional trusts their work, they trust, their focus. They trust their value. Alan Cohen says this there is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest us both an overlooked neither on a read that one again to you. There is virtue virtue in work and there is virtue in rest us both and overlook neither. There was virtue and rest. We often overwork and hustle and try to prove ourselves because of cultures over attachment and worship of work ethic as well as the highest valued character traits and yeah, work ethic matters. Yes, but life ethic matters to what is life if all you do is work and put off happiness for when you do have time. Life ethic you might go well Trish, what the heck is life ethic? Well, it's a word in a phrase I made up to counter to balance to offset over attachment to work ethic. Because I had some clients who were so attached to they didn't want to stop working and overworking and, and working for free at home when they weren't being paid. Right? Not that you would do that. devaluing their their free time by working all the time to prove themselves. And what we offer that offered in the coaching was what if we came up with standards? What are your work ethics? Well, they're your standards, your standards of excellence for how You will work. What about life? If ethic and ethos are a standards, how about I have standards for what my life will look like standards for what what I'm going to do in my life for how I interact with people for the for making time, for things that matter to me for being part of a community for being active in my church, for having time to read for having time to walk in nature everyday for always a life ethic for me is to always have time to move my body, to take care of myself to spend time with people I love to, to grow my mind daily to think on purpose everyday. That's a life ethic. But a really, if you're struggling in this area, make a list, take a piece of paper out make a list of work ethic standards, and life ethics standards. And you get to decide, here's a cool thing. You get to make the rules. And I want to close today's podcast with this concept of that being good enough believing you're good enough, because often we overworked we, over hustle, we put pressure on ourselves, because we don't believe in what we're capable of, we don't have the confidence in ourselves. And I need you to know that you're already good enough. Or maybe you're not starting on things and you're putting things off and you're stuck in a cycle of plateau and procrastination, because you want to be quote unquote, good enough, you want to be ready, you want to be more more prepared for when you start and you're just you're losing opportunity, you're wasting your potential. Because you are able to be both good enough now and also becoming better, you can be good enough as you are and be working on improving.

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I'm gonna say it again, you are good enough. And you're also on your way to becoming better. It feels like this is cognitive dissonance. But it's not. It's not either, or it's both. And too often, I think some people are afraid to believe that they're good enough for now, don't worry that they'll stop caring or lean and growth. But if you commit to a growth mindset, then you're always going to be growing the quote unquote, prove myself mindset. It's a very fixed mindset. It's a very fixed approach. But with a growth mindset, you can say, look, I believe I'm good enough to start. And I'm good enough for REM. And I'm gonna throw myself in there through immersion, right. This is the sort of, we're going to talk next week about confidence, immersion slash fake it till you make it. But I'm good enough right now, today. That's enough. And every day I show up every day, I'm brave, every day that I grow, I'm even better. So I'm both good enough. And I have a need for growth, I have a need for for improvement. But for today, I have all that I need to show up and to be open to growth, and to be a student of life and to keep progressing. It's not about pressure. It's not about proving yourself. It's about progressing, and being proud of yourself along the way. And it goes back to that quote I've already read you. It's the pursuit of excellence. And I will add the pursuit of progress is gratifying and healthy. It brings massive joy. We're gonna close out with our listener of the episode. This is a long one, but guys, it's worth reading, you will be pumping your hand in the air as you listen, and you will be inspired as well. And so I want to highlight Carolyn Goodson she says this is difficult to know where to start to put this in a nutshell, but I will try. I've struggled my entire life with confidence. I've always been scared. That said I have not let it stop me from doing hard things from doing it, quote unquote, afraid. I'm 56 years old. I'm a wife and a mom and a nurse. I've been a NICU nurse for the majority of my nursing career. I have a passion for the NICU. But I've always struggled with fear of ever wanting to harm a baby, make a wrong decision, miss something subtly that the baby is showing me or that he or she is taking a turn for the worse. You might think this would have stopped me from taking a big leap a couple of years ago and going back to graduate school to get my neonatal nurse practitioner degree. But it did not. It didn't because I know very firmly that God called me to do it. I had not written a paper in more than 30 years not since typewriters and white out. I had to totally step out of my comfort zone on every level. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I was the oldest in my class too, but I did it. I graduated last summer with honors. Carolyn, I'm just smiling ear to ear. And for those of you who are listening who are thinking, it's I'm too old. I've missed my opportunity. You haven't. It's never too late. It's never too late. She continues. I recently started my new position as an NP and it's like starting over. I feel like I was when I was a new nurse being a practitioner in the NICU is very different from being bedside nursing. Why do I preface with all this information? Well, to say that with that without your podcast, God's grace and guidance and the prayers of my dearest friends, I do not believe I could have made it to where I am today. I lived a very status quo life. I was at the same hospital for 31 years but God started to stir things up about five years ago, he was leading me to work at different NICUs taking me out of my comfort zone where I had been for so long. As I began my journey I was struggling with anxiety and confidence. My sweet, dear sister, little sister in law led me to your podcast, I would listen on to, to it on my drive to work to help me with my mindset, and affirmations to face what was ahead. As I started clinical for school, you were there, encouraging me to reach my fullest potential to appear more confident than I felt to believe in myself. And in my abilities. I had to travel for hours one way for clinicals and stay in hotels three to four nights a week for six months. And I listened to you in the car in my hotel. And as I sat in the parking garage waiting to walk in the hospital each morning, you became a good friend, my cheerleader and my coach, I am MTL tearing up. If you guys hear that change in my voice. It's because I'm trying not to cry. Trish, I cannot thank you enough. Words do not begin to express how much you have helped me. Now as a new practitioner, I am still listening to your voice in the car and my drive to work. God has used you to help me achieve great things, things I did not even know I was capable of doing. I am deeply grateful to you and your podcast. I hope you know how amazing you are and how God has used you powerfully in my life and continues to do so. I love to straighten your crown as well as so much more I can tell you about already rambling may God richly bless you, and continue to use you mightily to grow his children into bold, confident people. Living life fully fulfilling his purpose in their lives to His glory. You are awesome. Your sister in Christ Carolyn Goodson Good lord, I did not need to cry. Y'all have tears streaming down my face. Because that affirmation, that confirmation, your note your message, hearing what you've done and taking with the podcast, brings tears to my eyes, because it is the prayer of my heart, that this podcast that my coaching, that my words would resonate around the world. And that would remind you of who you are, who God made you to be, and of the great purpose you have. And we've gotten to do those things. We have to be scared. We have to be willing to not know the full answer and what it's going to look like but be willing to say I here I am. And my friend like who clearly didn't plan to cry as I read this. I haven't read this before I plan to read it. And yet I cry. I'm so proud of you. I am so proud of you. I can't wait for you to I know you mentioned you're going to join the College of comments. I cannot wait to help you take things to the next level. Wow. Way to Be faithful sister way to show up way to do the work way to say my age means nothing. I'm just getting started. God is just getting started with me. You have so many people to bless so many people influence. I'm massively proud of you. And each and every one of you. Please know, the way you show up in this world matters. It's so critical. I'm so proud of you. The fact that you are listening to this episode right now means you were made for more. And I'm here to cheer you on I will be faithful to cheer you want every single Tuesday every single week to make sure you hit subscribe. And to go even deeper. You know where to go college, your confidence.com I would love to have a personal relationship with you and help you implement. Take what we talked about on the podcast and we go even deeper while we do some deep deep stuff there. And it's life changing. Alright guys have an amazing week go. We're going to talk more next week about coffee what I'm calling confidence immersion, which if you will, is a it's more fancy term for fake it till you make it. Okay, get excited. It's a great topic. I'll see you there next week and sooner for many of you who are members in the COC go out there today. Go be more of who God created you to be. Be you. Be free. If you loved today's episode of The confidence podcast, I invite you to check out the College of Confidence at www.collegeofconfidence.com. The COC is where your next step is. In the COC we cultivate confidence create courage and spark change. It takes everything we do here on the podcast to the next level and our members get crazy life changing results. I'm so confident that you will find that the COC is the most encouraging place on the internet and that it will so wildly exceed your expectations that it comes with a money back guarantee hate joining is completely risk free you owe it to your future self to take your growth to the next level by coaching with me in the COC. Join me today at www.collegeofconfidence.com

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