Welcome back. Welcome back.  So today we are going to be talking about confidence, confidence, confidence, confidence. Confidence is something that everybody wants, but not a lot of people have. And I am going to teach you three hacks that are going to improve your confidence. I don't want to waste your time, let's get right fucking into it. Okay. So the first thing I want to talk about is called the personality wish list and call me a little pioneer, but I fucking coined this shit myself, I just made this up. But this is what I did. And this is what has worked for me. So I want you to figure out exactly who you want to be. I want you to take some time for yourself to just sit down and think about the type of person you want to be. When I started my self confidence journey, I had no idea who I was, I had no idea what I liked, what I wanted in life, or even how I felt most of the time. And this is a very scary and confusing place to exist from this uncertainty and confusion about who I was, or even who I wanted to be, was what kept me stuck in a low vibrational energy of insecurity and self doubt. Stop thinking about your personality as if it's set in stone, because it's not. And as we know, and as we constantly reiterate, on this podcast, your thoughts and beliefs create your reality. If you believe that you cannot change and that who you are, is set in stone and unchangeable, you will never change. However, if you give yourself the freedom to dream and envision, you will open up a whole new world of possibilities. So here is exactly what I did. I went to my laptop, I opened a little Google Doc. Okay, I fucking love Google Doc, because I'm too fucking cheap to pay for Microsoft Word, bitch. No, we're not doing that. So I opened the Google Doc, I made a list of qualities that I like and other people. I want you to do this. I like to call this exercise a personality wish list. If you could become anyone you wanted and embody any trait without effort, who would you want to be? What traits would you want to have? I asked myself, What do I admire and other people, I challenged myself to think about exceptional people I've met my life, or someone that has really stood out to me. What traits did they have? I made a list of traits. So for me, personally, I've always loved really charismatic people, I've always felt really drawn to them. And this realization that I've always gravitated towards really charismatic people. And that's a trait or a personality quality that I've always really respected, admired, and liked, and other people. And so this began my journey of diving really deep into what exactly makes someone charismatic. And this is something I'll definitely be doing a video or a podcast on in the future. But the qualities I love being around someone who is light hearted, fun down to earth, I love people who are confident and self assured. So those are some examples of things that I put in my list. But it can be anything for you, like, I love people who make me feel welcome and comfortable, have a bright energy and who are warm. These are the qualities that I love and other people. So I list all those qualities. And then underneath that, I want you to make another list. And this list is going to be all the qualities and strengths that you currently have. This is what I did. I tried to think of some things that I love about myself. What do you love about your personality currently? Are you kind are you adventurous? Whatever it may be, write it down. Try not to overthink it too much. What are your strengths? Is there a specific trait that people have told you you have? Maybe something that keeps coming up over and over again? I really want you to dig deep here. If you're having trouble coming up with some positive traits about yourself, that's okay. That's the point of the personality wish list. Also, I want you to take a moment to see what you notice. Are there any traits on the personality wish list that overlap with your current traits. Lastly, I want you to make a third list. This list will be all the negative qualities about yourself that you dislike. Are you impatient? Do you lack confidence? I want you to take a really brutally honest look at yourself and your personality. Don't get me wrong, this process is not meant for you to shit on yourself. But rather this process is to become aware of who you want to be and who you do not want to be. So now that you have those three lists, you have a pretty general idea of the ideal you. So the ideal you or your Higher Self exists within you right now you have all you need right within you. So now I want you to go back to your personality wish list. I want you to look at the traits on the list. And I want you to allow yourself to let your imagination take over. Pick one quality on the list and focus on it. How would you feel if you had that trait? Let's say the trait is confidence. How would you act? If you were a confident person? How does a confident person act? How do you know if someone is confident? What would confidence look like to you? I want you to look at your list and think of some actionable things you can do to embody the personality trait that you wish you had. If you want to be someone more authentic, how can you show up as an authentic person? I want you to find a role model. Think about someone who embodies the trait that you want, analyze them, study them. What about them gives off authenticity. It's not a process of merely copying other people more so it's figuring out what makes them have that trait. Okay, now, this brings me to confidence Hack number two, which is mirror work, mirror work has probably been the biggest game changer for me and my self confidence journey. So, this may seem extremely weird and maybe even a little uncomfortable for some people. But it's important that you do it. I want you to sit in front of a mirror and stare at yourself. I want you to look deeply into your own eyes. I want you to practice displaying different emotions. I want you to look at yourself and embody these emotions. If it helps, you can pretend you're looking at someone else. Look at yourself lovingly. Try to embody the emotion of love on your face. Soften your gaze and focus on your eyes. Pretend that you are looking at someone you love and care about deeply. Think about them while you do this. Watch how your perception of yourself changes. Makes a lot of sense. If you think about it, you have never actually seen yourself. You have only ever seen yourself in reflections. You have never actually met yourself. You have never had a conversation with yourself. You have never seen your eyes light up as you talk about something you love. You have never seen a smile slowly creep across your face. You have never seen yourself with your head thrown back and laughter experiencing complete joy. Imagine how beautiful and different you must look to other people. No wonder you don't see yourself the way other people see you. You're missing the human component of emotion. It's a side of yourself you've never seen. You see yourself as a stoic and cold face looking back in the mirror at you. You see yourself in the mirror and you notice the pimples on your face. You see yourself and you only see your insecurities. But in this exercise, what I want you to do is to zoom out, zoom out and give yourself the freedom to let go of self judgment. Stop shitting on yourself. You wouldn't talk to anyone else negatively. So why do you allow yourself to speak that way to you? There's so much more to you than what you see in the mirror looking back at you. This is why I find this exercise so powerful. While you're gazing at yourself in the mirror. I want you to practice every emotion you can think of anger fear, shame, sadness, guilt, happiness, joy, excitement, flirtation, I want you to look at yourself deep in the eyes while feeling the feeling of love. Even if you have to pretend you're looking at someone else or talking to someone. I want you to really embody the feeling of love and I want you to watch how you're feeling Just changes as you take on this emotion, look into your eyes and see how genuinely beautiful you are. I want you to repeat this process with all the emotions you can think of challenge yourself to be an observer, become curious about yourself and how other people see you. For me personally, something I found is that for someone who was always so worried about how I looked, and if I look good, I was scared to do this exercise, and I was scared to see what I look like taking on these different emotions. I worried that I would look ugly or hurt my own feelings by doing this exercise, but I found it was the opposite. Once I became comfortable with seeing myself in the mirror and gazing at myself, beyond the normal facial expressions I usually see of myself I, I realized that I was scared of nothing. That's a really big takeaway from my self help journey in general to is that I was so scared to look at different aspects of myself, I was scared of what I might find. It says if I thought there was a demon inside me or something like I was this horrible person, just waiting to be uncovered and waiting to be found out. But the more freedom and the more space I gave myself to genuinely become curious about who I am. Rather than coming from a place of judgment, the more I realized that the fear disappeared. And what I found, when I looked within myself, it wasn't scary. I found the opposite. I've, I found a sweet girl, who became so obsessed with how she looked all the time, and how other people perceived her that she started to neglect herself. I found a traumatized girl who had learned to live for other people and who had become exactly who other people wanted her to be. And in becoming who I wanted other people to be, I found that I had lost myself. And something I found with this exercise is that it was extremely helpful to connect back with myself and see myself in a different light, to see myself in a more authentic way that other people see me. I'm not just an ugly face, looking back at myself in the mirror, you know, and neither are you. You have emotions, you have a story, you have important things to tell the world you have important things to share. You are valuable. You have a purpose on this earth. You were not born for no reason. It was not an accident. Even just talking with my friends, I found that that is something that is common. I thought that was something specific to me, but it's really not. I feel like a lot of girls, we've grown up in trauma. And we've grown up being exactly who we thought other people wanted us to be to the point where we lost ourselves, we lost ourselves in that process. And we didn't mean to, we didn't mean to be living for other people. And it's not our fault. We did what we could to survive with within the environment that was around us. But now, the power and the gift I want to give you is the biggest gift I can give you is the reminder that you are in control. You are not a kid anymore. And you control your reality. If you have toxic family members and you need to cut them off and they are not bettering your life, they are not helping you. They're not there for you in the way you need them to be. You have the power to cut them off. You have the power to put you first and you deserve. You deserve to put yourself first. You've spent your whole life putting other people first and now it's your turn. It's your turn to give that love that other people should have given you back to yourself. And I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that. I'm going to teach you how to love yourself, how to become the person you've always wanted to be, how to become someone that you can love, how to become someone that you respect, how to become someone that you admire. So a concept related to this that really blew my mind is the concept of the looking glass self. So when I was doing my undergrad and I was doing my bachelor in psychology I learned about this and it really intrigued me and it really blew my mind So I want to share it with you. So this theory basically says that everyone has a different perception and idea of you. So the way I like to think about it is, if everyone you've ever met in your entire life, had to write an essay about you. Okay, first of all my narcissistic as would love that I'd be eating national, yum, delicious. No, I would love that I would love that single person you've ever met in your life has a completely different idea of you. They've had completely different experiences with you, and they think of you an entirely different way. So to some people, you may be the best person they've ever met, they absolutely adore you, they love you, you've had the best experiences with them. They see you as someone who's maybe they met you on an outgoing Day, a day where you were feeling really good about yourself, and they think that's how you always are. On the other hand, other people simply will not like you, maybe you met them on a bad day, maybe you had a bad first impression. Maybe you had anxiety, it doesn't matter. Because other people don't care. Other people see you exactly as you show up, and they take it at face value. Think about anyone you've ever met, whether in passing or someone that means a lot to you. Let's say you meet someone on the bus, and they're rude to you. Do you assume, Oh, they're just having a bad day? Or do you assume no, they're a shitty person, they suck. They were mean to me, because they suck. And if you're taking a really honest and brutal look at yourself, you will realize that it's often the latter, that you're thinking that they were mean to you, because of you, you internalize it. But at the end of the day, people who aren't going to like you simply aren't gonna like you. And it has very little, very little to do with you. So this theory reminds us of two things. One, you can be whoever you want to be. If you want to be that asshole on the bus, you can you have the power to show up as who ever the fuck you want. And guess what? People aren't going to question it. They're not. This reminds me to try and think of life as more of an experiment than a definitive journey. The possibilities of who you can become are absolutely endless. So this first exercise here has helped you develop an idea of who you want to be. Right now. The exciting part about that is that when we think of it, the theory of the looking glass self and that everyone you've ever met has a different idea of you. And the fact that you are nothing more than a side character in their story. And initially, this may seem like something sad or negative. But it's completely the opposite. This realization brings a lot of freedom. If you allow your insecurities to hold you back from embracing confidence, and being yourself, you are only hurting yourself. Because the truth is, you are a side character in most people's story. Whether you are a side character who is confident and happy, or insecure and sad, that's up to you. And the truth is, it makes no fucking difference to other people, whatsoever. But I think there's freedom in that I think there's freedom and realizing that other people don't think about you as much as you think they do, if at all, because everyone is the main character of their own story, just as you are the main character of your own story. And as the main character. You deserve to give yourself the freedom and acceptance to create a life you love, and become a person you love. That's the secret. The secret is that you can become anyone you want in this life. So if you're struggling right now with self love, and you feel like you don't love yourself right now. Why not? Why not become someone you would love? If you have trouble accepting yourself, then don't. Don't accept the things you dislike about yourself, change them. Of course, I'm talking about personality. When it comes to lux. My advice would be to accept and learn to love the things you can't change. Accept and learn to love things you can change about yourself, but change the things you can. So the second lesson from the Looking Glass theory is that there is no real you only, you know, the real you. So according to the Looking Glass theory, everyone you've ever met in your life has a different experience and perception of you, your traits and qualities. So if that's true, then who are you, the thing is, everyone is going to see you and interpret you differently and have a different idea of who you are in their mind. So the thing is, it doesn't really matter who you are to them. The most important thing is being somebody that you can love being somebody that you can respect. Fuck the other people. Other people believe what you believe about yourself. Other people are literally just a reflection of you. When you show up in the world, as someone who is confident and sure of themselves, other people believe you when you believe that you are someone that is confident and capable and worthy. Other people will believe that two people will not question you. How can you expect others to like you, if you don't even like yourself? How can you expect other people to respect you? If you don't even respect yourself? Become someone that you like, become someone that you respect? That is the answer. And that is the secret. Look at those traits you listed in the personality wish list and make a plan of how you can embody those traits and what it would look like if you did. If you speak as though you have something important to say. Other people will listen. If you feel confident within yourself. Other people will believe that you are confident. I want you to think about that. Think about someone you've met that is extremely confident. Have you ever doubted their self confidence? Have you ever doubted their self worth? No. And why? Because we believe in people who believe in themselves. If you want confidence and want to believe in yourself, practice this mirror work. Personally, I don't really believe in the fake it till you make it method of confidence. Other people's perception of you begins with you. The science behind that is that no matter what you say, you can't completely fake confidence. Whether people are aware of it or not, they're picking up in your body language they are picking up on your subtle cues, is something I'm gonna teach in my podcasts. So stay tuned for that. But I believe that the only true way to embody confidence and to become confident is to practice it. Practice confidence. This is where the mirror work comes in. I challenge you to stand in front of a mirror and talk to yourself. Talk to yourself with no script, no preconceived idea of what you're going to say. Talk to yourself with no judgment of how cringy you think you sound or look doing it. Don't even worry about that. It's just you looking back at yourself in the mirror. There is nothing to be scared of, and nothing holding you back from trying this exercise. I want you to watch yourself speak and become genuinely curious. I want you to approach this exercise from a place of curiosity, rather than a place of judgment. And you will be amazed at what you see. I want you to practice walking into a room while watching yourself in the mirror. How would you walk if you were completely confident and self assured? How would you hold yourself? I want you to get specific here. What would your body language look like? Where your hands? Are they hidden in your pockets? How would you speak? What is the tone of your voice? How fast are you speaking? Take all of these factors into consideration. I want you to pinpoint the feeling in your body of confidence and how it feels when you allow yourself to walk in the room like you own it. I want you to memorize that feeling. That is the feeling of confidence and freedom. And you gave that feeling to yourself. Nobody on this planet could give that feeling to you. People can compliment you all fucking day long. But that feeling comes from within you. I want you to try this exercise and remember that everything starts with you, you have all the power within you right now, at this very moment to become a confident person. If you want other people to see you as confident, you must believe that you are confident first. Okay, so the third hack of confidence is a very interesting one. So, I want you to set up your phone, and I want you to record a video of yourself. Oh, my God, I know I can feel you checking out already. Come on, stay with me, stay with me. This is important. And it's a really cool exercise you can do to build your confidence and genuinely learn more about yourself. So once the camera is set up, I want you to just talk similar to the mirror work, I want you to just let your self talk. No pre planning what you're going to say just talk, just talk out loud to the camera as if you were talking to a friend. That is the most important part here, I want you to really try to forget that you're even recording just completely pretend that you're talking to a friend. Just whatever you need to do to make it feel very natural and free flowing. So I want you to record a video for about five to 10 minutes. Then the next step, I want you to simply listen to the audio of your recording. So play the video back. But don't watch it. I noticed on saying we'll get there, we'll get there one step at a time. Just listen to the audio of it. So simply listen to yourself talk and it might be cringy. At first, it might feel a little tricky. But we'll get used to it. And this will help your confidence tremendously. So I want you to grab a pen and paper and I want you to take some notes. What is your pitch? Like? What do you sound like when you're excited? Or talking about something interesting? Do you find yourself interesting to listen to? Do you naturally talk fast or slow? So while you play this audio, I really want you to set aside your judgment and try and observe yourself from a place of curiosity, rather than judgment. Once you're finished listening to the audio, I want you to review your notes. What did you notice about the way you sounded? What did you like? What did you dislike? I want you to focus more on the sound of your voice and how the message of what you were saying was conveyed. I don't want you to focus too much on the actual words you're saying. Next, I want you to watch the recording again. This time with the sound off. I want you to analyze your body language. Where are your hands? Are they in your pockets? Or are you making lots of gestures? Do you engage in any self soothing behaviors such as playing with your hair, rubbing your arms in a comforting way or touching your face a lot? While you watch this video, I want you to disconnect from the idea that you are watching yourself. I want you to pretend that you're watching someone else. And I want you to ask yourself, what vibe do they give off? Are they confident? Are they insecure? Now, you should have two separate lists analyzing your own behavior. This is how other people see you and perceive you. This is how you show up in the world. If big if if you felt like you were able to be comfortable and natural during the recording. Do you like what you saw? What did you like? I want you to write down things you liked about yourself the things that stood out to you. Then I want you to analyze the things you didn't like. Again, be careful, don't be shitting on yourself in this process. This is not what this is about. Don't be nitpicking every small thing. I want you to notice patterns, I want you to notice the way your body moves when you say things. I want you to notice your facial expressions, the emotion in your face. When you're analyzing the things that you didn't like, I want you to think focus less on the way you look and your insecurities. And I want you to focus more on your body language and the vocal patterns you're using. And the beauty of this experiment is the self awareness and self discovery it brings. So now that you have a better idea of the person you currently are, you can take steps and make plans that change therefore forming yourself into someone that you can love and respect. Because at the end of the day, it really does not matter at all what other people think about you and how they perceive you. The only thing that matters is how you see yourself. So I really appreciate you listening to their podcast. And I really hope that these three confidence hacks were helpful for you helped you in some way. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions and I will address them in a further podcast. But that's all for now. And thank you so much for listening and I can't wait to talk to you guys again soon. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai