117. Becoming more confident in a time of change

Yesterday as we celebrated International Women’s Day, I was just thinking about how far we’ve come.

More than ever, women have more opportunities to shine, but at the same time, we may have more expectations of ourselves to accomplish, and re-defining what is “good enough” or even a new standard of being perfect.

The inner critic becomes louder and we keep pushing harder to succeed. Now, somewhere along the way, we will hit a bump, or say the COVID or now the floods. When things don’t go as planned, we may feel like losing control or dropping our confidence about who we are and what we do.

This episode is to explore how do we nurture self-acceptance, build self-confidence and break the cycle of “never-ending-self-improvement” so that we can create sustainable success, have clarity of what actually matters and enjoy being who we are.

Highlights

How to create a balance between pushing forward and pulling back

Why self-acceptance matters and how it relates to confidence

Confidence can be learned and built

Lean in, have confidence in the universe

If you have been pushing hard, yet not getting the results you want, or you just got burnout and frustrated, you may want to change your approach and lean into your feminine wisdom instead. You can now schedule a complimentary 30 mins discovery call to see if I can help you move forward or scale back in order to succeed! Feeling curious? Just click this link to book it in!

Transcript

(00:23):

Welcome to my new episode of podcast of Sze Wing Vetault. It has been crazy a few months and as you all know about it, that, you know, has been crazy a few years. In fact, we had the bushfire, we have the pandemic and now all the floods and rain in New South Wales and Queensland Australia. So it hasn’t been easy for many people and but I’m back doing episodes of my podcast. And I really picked this special occasion today to record this for you because yesterday we celebrated the international women’s day and my friends at Soul Advisor is talking about confidence this month. And I am really feel drawn to share what I have experienced, as well as working with my clients these days related to women’s success and confidence. So I think one of the things that really struck me for the last few years, more and more so is that we are often on this wheel of achieving more, becoming more, creating more, especially with women that, well, look now we have given opportunities.

(01:34):

We have lot more different ways to express ourselves. So there is this urge as well as opportunity to perform and to shine, which is fantastic. But sometimes when we are really working and pursuing that dream, the downside will be it. You just never stop ending. We constantly trying to achieve and improve. And this can turn into a game of never ending self improvement, where, you know, not only you want a successful career, meaningful relationships that you need to eat well and use eco-friendly products and meditate and exercise, like, you know, there’s quite a lot to be a perfect human being. And these days there’s, it seems like that goal post also keep moving forward and forward and forward. And then sometimes we, we are just too tired and busy and sometimes just things don’t turn out our way. We felt like I wasn’t good enough.

(02:34):

You see that contrast of we are given opportunity, but the same time the pursuing becomes such a big drive, but at times we may not get what we want. Maybe not now, maybe not two months, maybe it’s not the right thing, so many reasons, but so often we take it upon ourselves saying that I need to try harder. So you become more exhausted or, you know, to keep pushing. It becomes something that could actually have detrimental effect on our health, on our emotional, physical health. But one thing, I also think that it will also hurt our self-belief, but whether we are good enough, whether we can do it and also the confidence piece. And that’s where I wanna come in today and talk about that because as I help and coach women, what I find more and more is that there is this spiraling, as I said, we want to accomplish more and more and more.

(03:24):

And yet when we don’t have the tools or the reminders or the coach, or just the mindset of knowing, you know, look, there is time that you push and there’s a time you pull back. There’s ying and yang. It’s a sacred union. Sometimes we work like Athena in the boardroom, but sometimes we need to be Aphrodite at home. We don’t use the same energy in everything, right? So that’s always in my coaching in my teaching, but how I related the confidence piece is that that is a lot to do with the self believe that you can allow yourself to push. You can allow yourself to pull back. And I think what comes with it is actually a few other pieces to have like strong confidence. Or when you look at a woman, you think, oh, she’s really confident that there not just like, you know, it’s something that you’re born with or because you have certain success so that you can say, you can feel confident that’s to it.

(04:20):

So obviously there is this piece where you know, say public speaking, if you have the talent, you have a lot of practice. So you may be very confident doing something. So there is this specific skills related capabilities where you, you can be confident in something or not, but then it’s also universal where it is just how you come up cross or how you view yourself. And that it’s not to do with what I call related to the self acceptance piece. Because if you keep on the never ending self improvement regime, and there will come a time where you will see, oh, I’m not doing as well as I wanted to. Whether it’s your business, whether is you in art. So whatever that you are doing, there will come a time where you don’t think you are as good as you think you are, or you were now that hurts.

(05:12):

And that will put a dent on your confidence because that type of confidence is built on evidence that you, you think you can do certain things that yard stick fell down. Then universally, how you view yourself, your self-belief started to erode, and that happens more and more is because we, we have all these mirrors around us, whether we are doing as well as we want to, because, you know, in the old days you gotta master degree or university, university degree. You are Bravo amazing first in a generation. But now we are asking for more from ourselves, we expect more. So you can imagine, where do the rest come from? Like, so we only have 24 hours a day. And, you know, we have certain capacities, certain things just doesn’t change. We are humans, right? We need sleep. We need healthy food.

(06:06):

Doesn’t matter you have 100 years of technological advancement. You still need those things. Yet. We are asking for more output for ourselves. Technology helps. It’s still, it takes a toll. And when that happens, which happens all the time is because all these goals and dreams that we know we could achieve. Now, now that if we are not careful, when we are not meeting our self expectation, then bam, we’re probably not good enough for this. Probably. I think I’m more than this, but I’m not like, you know, things like that. And that is going to affect our self confidence. And that’s not necessarily on a specific thing become one thing that turns up in our life triggers a lot of other things. And the overall cell view of who we are such change. And when it happens for a while, then it’s oh, wow. I have more collecting more evidence that why I’m not good enough that it’s eventually it’s going to put a significant amount of pressure on ourself.

(07:13):

There’s no wonder why we are exhausted. No wonder why we’re so tired. Right? So I think this is a piece I really want to point out to my listeners that we need to keep, we take, need to take stock. We need to be aware of this. Never, never stop your yard stick where always more and more and more and more in terms of achievement in terms of you, can you fit in meditation and yoga five times a week, and well as eating organic foods and taking all your supplements. And I mean, I’m not saying those things are bad. I do those things, but there’s times that we put a lot more on our plate and more complications because of this never ending self- improvement. And it’s important to, if you have an idea area that you, you feel you need to change or improve, certainly, but there’s this tendency of a lot of us is just keep pushing the gas on everything.

(08:07):

Whether it’s your business, your career, your health, your, your appearance, your, your youth and your, your, you know, you gotta see your friends. There’s just a lot going on at the same time. So sometimes we just have to, you know, slow down in some areas. So right now, if you know, the floods or pandemic really affect you mentally, maybe you just stop pushing the gas on work, your business. You may have to, you have to pull back a little bit. So you have more reserve, or you need to give this time and attention to someone else or to your health on your body. So it’s not always is you know, putting a hundred percent on every area, but this go, go, go, let’s make it happen. Energy. It’s a hundred percent in every area because you are such a brilliant person and that it’s it.

(08:52):

Eventually it’s going to hurt us. And that’s not how a, I would say, wondrous woman, or what I called goddess before that tend to notice and therefore know where to pull back, how to optimize your productive. It’s not about maximize, it’s about optimize and, and that’s true. It’s not always more, it’s not always at. So I think that’s really important. I really want to, you know, share that piece with other people. And this is why I scale back on a lot of my work, because sometimes you need to give more attention to people around you or your body. And that’s just what it is. And the self-accepting piece is to know, it’s okay to know that you, you can do more in two months, you don’t have to push everything right now to give yourself the permission. It comes from self acceptance. And with that practice, then your confidence will improve because you are confident that one, you can do it, and you’re confident that you don’t have to do it now.

(09:54):

And and, and that’s a really important piece to learn about. And second thing about confidence is that you can learn it as in even a specific skill, of course, through practice. We all know that, but even to what we, I talk about before is that the universal piece of it, that you can also learn to how to become a more confident, but that comes from that self acceptance piece. That piece where, you know, you can pull back, you know, you can push, you can pull back and that’s okay. This is the hard one, because sometimes we are so hard on ourselves and, and that is not easy pill to take. So that’s why I find coaching very useful or learning from other people, listening to different stories. You know, I guess that’s why I read and write self-help books or do these type of podcasts.

(10:45):

And I listen to this podcast myself, because we all need to be a reminder. You may know how to do something two weeks ago, but sometimes you forget and it’s like the muscles again. Right? Many people talk about this as an analogy that you go to the gym to train, oh, now you look good. You got the great biceps, but you kind of stop there. And you, you expect your bicep would say the same way for the rest of your life. No, it’s a practice. It’s a consistent, continuous practice. And sometimes we forget and that’s okay, so the same with spirituality or practice like mindfulness practice or this kind of self-awareness will come about the self-acceptance or confidence piece it’s practice that you need to be reminded. And you’re like, oh yeah. Like I realized that what happened the other day? I didn’t speak up it’s because I don’t know where I can do it anymore.

(11:37):

It’s because last few months I haven’t been producing this and this and that. So how do I know I can’t, you know, this spiral thinking, so we need to be reminded and therefore we keep practicing this self-awareness and eventually it becomes something that we are very comfortable with or something that we become more confident with now. So I think this is the second point where confidence can be learned, but last but not the least, it’s about trusting the universe and trusting things that around us have this place. And we don’t have to control everything. And giving that general manager title in a universe is gonna be useful because their time we just can’t fix everything. And that has nothing to do with our ability, nothing to do with our confidence, but we need to have confidence in the universe that it’s gonna be okay. And maybe this is the way how it’s supposed to be.

(12:32):

It’s about giving up or passing out, or, or what I call passive surrendering. Like, ah, it’s not gonna work. I’m just gonna let it go. But this, let it go. It’s not the same as in the active surrendering, that, that, let it go where you trust that universe has a plan. It may not be the same as yours, but every thing has its place. So maybe, you know, or maybe not right now, and the less lean towards the idea of why is not happening for me, the better we get in terms of the clarity, but also understanding what could be our next best step. So I think having confidence in the universe is having faith in yourself as well as in the universe. And sometimes it’s just what it is. Like I have been talking to my husband about the rain. It just doesn’t stop.

(13:22):

We have a small leak in our house, which is nothing to compare to some other people. We don’t have knee deep water in the basement, but this just keep dripping. And I just want to fix it, but I can’t. And I have to trust the universe that it’s got gonna be okay. It may bring different awareness. It may bring different measures. We may in fact, we’re gonna reinforce the house in different way. We’re gonna change the windows. So we don’t have this happening again next time, or, you know, but it, you know, it changes things. It make us aware about what we need to, to strengthen in our house where it’s weak. See, there is a point to it, but if I focus on why is not doing what I want to, if I don’t shift that energy, if I don’t shift that, then I don’t see it.

(14:07):

I don’t see clearly that there’s something else I could do and to improve it. So that’s, again, not rocket science. You probably have heard it, or you may even and said it yourself some time ago, but things happen. We forget, we got dwell into something that is bothering us, and we start to spin and spiral in a certain way when we forget. And that’s why, you know, keeping yourself in a community that is supportive and like, sort of like you hang out out with healthy friends where they eat healthy food. Chances are, you are going to eat healthy food, too. Right? So if you hang out in a community like supervisor or a lot of practitioners I work with, or if you listen to this podcast, you may listen to similar podcasts where you’re feeding yourself inspirational or positive messages. The chances are, you’ll be reminded one one of these days.

(15:00):

And you know what? The universe also have a very unique way to do your playlist. So you may come across someone on a radio or a podcast or, or a email that it just give you the right information at the right time. And that’s, it’s the universe doing it, right? You cannot predict when you’re gonna turn on the radio, what show is gonna come on? It’s not that you’re following a table. So having the, the confidence in yourself and the universe, you’re just gonna help you to navigate real tough times or strange times or challenging times. So it’s about navigating this uncharted water. And sometimes we just have to believe that we can do this. We don’t have to do it now. And that’s gonna be a plan. That’s gonna be a next step. When we come to it, you know, one of our teachers to say, you’re gonna cross the bridge when you get to it.

(15:52):

So stop worrying about whether the bridge is gonna be there. Is it gonna be solid? Is it gonna be easy to kind stop it, just do what you do handle what is showing up in your life. Stop worrying about the future too much. You do what is sensible and take a deep breath and go along with it. And I think step by step, that’s how you build your resilience, your confidence, your ability to discern, where you need to push, where you need to pull back where self acceptance is needed, where, you know, maybe taking a rid of a risk is needed, but is that clarity to define and discern that it’s going to help you so much more in a world? So this is an unexpected episode in a way I didn’t expect it. I will just, you know, do this in this format. But you know, it’s usually, I often do interviews and to touch on my topic, but today it’s just purely, I wanna share what I’ve learned, what I’ve experienced, what I have gathered, and I hope it’s gonna be useful for you. So we are gonna talk again next time. And I, I have a lot of interview that I’m going to drop very soon. So I hope you enjoy, enjoy this episode and stay dry and healthy and take care until I talk to you next time.