95: How to Build Self-Confidence and Reclaim Your Power

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re confident enough to make a career pivot and start over, this episode is for you. Today, we're redefining what it means to be confident—no perfection required.

You’ll learn:

 ✅ A powerful new definition of confidence that sets you free from self-doubt
 ✅ How to reclaim your power by shifting your mindset and trusting yourself
 ✅ The truth about being “too confident” (and why most women have nothing to worry about)
✅ 4 strategies to boost your confidence fast—without waiting to feel "ready"

Whether you're dreaming of becoming a coach, launching a consulting business, or stepping into the spotlight as a paid speaker, this episode gives you the mindset and tools to lead with self-belief and step boldly into your next chapter.

Confidence isn’t something you’re born with—it’s a muscle you build. And with the right tools and support, you can strengthen it and finally reinvent your career.

If you're looking for additional support through coaching, visit my website to learn more about working together and my signature program EDIT Your Life™: www.karinfreeland.com/life-coaching

Book a call now!

Not ready for coaching? Join my Facebook Group community here.

Transcript

Karin Freeland: 0:00

Welcome to Rock Your Reinvention, where I help high-achieving career women like you get unstuck, make your corporate exit strategy, and successfully transition to your next chapter. Hi, I'm your host, Karin Freeland, a certified life coach and corporate exit strategist. Whether you want to start a business, become a speaker, or something else, I'm here to give you the tools and strategies to shift your mindset, build your confidence, and take bold actions so you can rock your reinvention. Ready? Let's go. Today, we're talking about self-confidence. I recently did a presentation on the keys to executive presence for a local nonprofit that I'm part of. And after the meeting, a young woman came up to me and asked a few questions. She said, how do you portray confidence without being seen as cocky or overconfident? How did you become so confident? Were you always this confident? And I thought it would be really valuable if we spent some time talking about confidence today, because this is one of the most valuable muscles to build when you are reinventing your life, making career moves or going through a transition of any sort. And it is a muscle, it is a skill that you can build and get better and better at. Why is this so important? Because you're undoubtedly stepping out of your comfort zone if you are going through a transition. And that takes guts. That takes confidence. Going after your dreams is a way of reclaiming your power, reclaiming who you are. Now, if you've read my book, Grab Life by the Dreams, you know I give you a new definition for confidence in Chapter 8. But I want to make sure I share it again so that you've got it fresh in your mind. This is how we define confidence at Karin Freeland Life Coaching. Confidence is a deep trust in your own capabilities and a desire to try something new or different. Understanding that even if things don't work out as intended, you'll have learned something in the process. And what I love about this definition, it takes a lot of the pressure you may have felt off the table, right? And that's just a false idea that confidence goes hand in hand with perfection or that you have to know all the answers to be confident or you have to have a certain amount of experience before you can feel confident in a specific area. And it's just not true. In fact, with this new definition, you can actually embrace failure with grace because you know that even if things don't go exactly how you hoped, you've learned something along the way. This is empowering. It's freeing. So now that we have our new definition, we can start addressing the questions that this young woman posed. And for starters, I love that she asked about seeing as cocky or overconfident. That certainly isn't how anyone wants to be portrayed. And I hear this from so many women. They don't want to sing their own praises because they fear being seen as arrogant, as braggadocious. And I told her that she was at zero risk of this happening simply because she was concerned about it. cocky people don't worry about being seen as cocky. So the fact that she had the wherewithal to not want to be seen that way gave me the assurance cockiness was not in her nature and it should give you the same assurance as well. Now, if you're still worried about seeming cocky, I would invite you to look at your intentions. For example, If you were to speak up in a meeting to share a personal story, and it's coming from a place of genuinely wanting to communicate a helpful point, that would most likely come across as confidence. But if you spoke up from a place of showing off or trying to one-up a colleague, then it might translate as cocky. Intention has a lot to do with how you're perceived. Same thing with going live on social media. I hear this all the time from my clients who are in business. They're like, oh, I don't want people to think I'm bragging or I'm always talking about my book or my podcast or whatever it is that they're trying to promote in their business. And I have to remind them, what is your intention? Yeah, if you're going out there to brag on yourself, that probably doesn't feel good. If you're going out there to serve your clients and make sure that they get this valuable information that they need, then it's going to come across as, Confident, right? You're going to be seen as supportive, caring, all those good things. So generally speaking, most women, not all, but a good portion of us have little to fear when it comes to being overconfident. And you know what? Given my choice, I would rather have to reel you in than push you to be more confident. Now let's go ahead and look at her second question. Were you always this confident? confident. And I had to laugh, not at her, of course, but at myself when she said this, because just two nights earlier, I was practicing the workshop that I had just delivered in my home office. I kept flubbing my words, forgetting the points I wanted to hit on the slides, forgetting how my stories tied back to that specific key to improving executive presence that I was supposed to be describing. And I came downstairs and completely deflated. And my husband of course could sense it. So he asked me what's wrong. And I went into that full inner critic beast mode. It sucks. The presentation sucks. I suck. It's too much info, not enough meat. I don't know why I do this to myself. I need to stop signing up for speaking gigs. This is going to be a disaster. And of course he looked at me like I had 10 heads. He's like, Karin, I'm sure it's not that bad. You've been a paid speaker for five years now. You're always your worst critic. Besides, you got two days to go. You'll be fine. You always are. And I wanted to believe him, but there was still a part of me that was certain this was going to tarnish my brand as a paid speaker forever. Sound familiar? Has your inner critic gotten a little too big for her britches? Now, about this time, the woman that I'm telling the story to lets out an audible gasp. And she goes, what? Are you kidding me? We all love this presentation. It was so good. And of course it was good, right? Because I am a good speaker. I practice the crap out of it, right? There were so many reasons why this would be good. And that's not being cocky again, right? That's being confident. That's trusting in ourselves. That's believing that we can do the things that we set out to do. So she said, well, what did you do? Wow. Did you have the confidence to come out here and deliver this tonight if that's how you were feeling two days ago? And it was a great question, but it took me a minute to answer because I forget that sometimes what comes so easy to me, correcting my mindset, does not come easy to others. And so here's what I would have said if I'd had more time to formulate a thorough answer. For starters, I went back to my definition on confidence. I could confidently show up and deliver that presentation because deep down I knew that I wouldn't let myself down. I trusted myself. I also knew I'd rally for two days until I knew every story, every line, every bullet by heart. I also knew that I'd inevitably screw up something because, well, I'm human, but that I would learn in the process. Therefore, it's all a worthwhile experience. And that's why committing this definition to memory or putting it in your phone as a reminder, having it written in your journal, somewhere that you can go back to is so important. And you can always come back to this when you need a confidence boost. But then I turned to some more tangible tactics. I went and I read all of my reviews and testimonials from past speaking gigs. The ones with the five stars, the ones that talked about my energy and how I made the audience feel, the reviews that commented on my knowledge and expertise, just doing that one little activity boosted my confidence by 80%. To get the last 20% of the way there, I prepped, and prepped during my remaining time. I even showed up early on the day of the presentation to do a dry run in the actual meeting space before anyone else got there. I made sure I got dressed in my most confident outfit with a pair of snakeskin heels that made me feel like a badass. Not actual snakeskin, just a print. No animals were harmed while boosting my confidence. And I sat my inner critic down for a little heart to heart and reminded her that I'd done a lot of research and worked on this presentation for over a month. It was solid and she needed to get on board with me. And you can use these strategies to help you boost your confidence too. One of the benefits of being a coaching client of mine is that you have access to me via Voxer, which is a free app in the app store, that allows us to go back and forth in real time between sessions. And my clients love that they can reach out to me for a pep talk and help boosting their confidence when they need it. But if you're not coaching with me, you can always get a confidence mentor. This is just someone who can be that mirror for you and shine a light on your talents and abilities, kind of how my husband did when I was having my meltdown. They can point out when your doubts are unfounded and encourage you to take that leap of faith when you need an extra push. Don't be afraid to ask a friend, a colleague, a spouse, anyone who might be interested in supporting you to be your confidence mentor. And it's so easy. I'm sure even if you don't have formal reviews or testimonials, I'm sure you have some glowing performance appraisals or some emails that have been sent about what a great job you did at your work or something, right, that you can go back to in those moments when you're feeling a little low that will boost up your confidence. All right, now let's go back to her other question, which was how did you become so confident? And that's why you're really listening to this episode, isn't it? Because you want to get the tips and the strategies that you can employ today to boost your confidence and reclaim your power. Before I share them, I want you to remember that this is years in the making, okay? There is no silver bullet. There's no overnight fix for confidence. But if you follow these tips, you can and you will improve your confidence. The first piece is positive self-talk. And I know that this is not the first time I've ever mentioned this on the show, but there's no other way around it, right? You have to stop speaking so negatively to yourself. If you have a negative thought, you need to catch yourself. You need to shut it down and then feed your brain something nice. Oh, Karin, you can't leave corporate and run a business. You don't know the first thing about running a business. Hey, it wasn't nice to talk to me like that. I didn't know how to work in corporate once upon a time either, and I learned how to do that pretty well. I know I could learn to run a business and succeed. Bam, shut down, just like that. And if you're an advanced student, you'll create a list of confidence-boosting positive affirmations, and you will repeat them daily. Yes, daily for at least 30 days. It's gonna take that long. You've got a lot of conditioning and a lot of rewiring to do, right? If you are prone to that negative talk, it's gonna take some time to get into that new rhythm. So be aware, catch yourself as soon as you see what you're doing, shut it down, replace it with a positive thought and have those daily affirmations. And I'm telling you, the more positive talk you can give yourself, you become your biggest cheerleader. The second thing you can do is to act as if. Now I talk about this in my book, Grab Life by the Dreams, as fake it till you make it. And essentially what this means is that you're going to ask yourself the question, what would the most confident, successful version of me do in this situation? And then you go do that thing. The most confident, successful version of me would start that podcast and stop worrying about the tech or stop worrying about if anybody's going to listen or stop worrying about if I'll have enough to say, right? The most confident, successful version of me would just press record and start getting those episodes done. The most successful, confident version of me would quit my six figure job and figure out how to lead that business and how to replace my corporate income. The most confident, successful version of me would write that book that's been on my heart for 10 years and put pen to paper and hire an editor and invest in myself right i cannot tell you how many times this one simple little question has gotten me unstuck and moving forward and when you believe in you others will believe in you that's why confidence is so powerful it's also very magnetizing you know when you see someone who is confident you are just drawn to them and I know that you want to have that same effect in your life as well. Okay the next tip I want to run by you is own it and you might be like what do you mean by own it you have to stop dwelling on what you don't possess The skills, the title, the money, the possessions, whatever it is you're harping on that you think you don't have and need, let it go. Shift your focus to what you do have. The skills you possess, the material goods you do own, the money that you do have in your bank account, the title that you do currently have. Own who you are. and where you are in your journey. And the sooner you start doing that, the sooner you're gonna display self-confidence. Because when you are in a place where you are just constantly like, well, I don't have this, I'm not good enough, you just can never feel like you're good enough. So I really wanna challenge you. If you were gonna stake a claim today on who you are, what are all the amazing qualities and talents and abilities that you have? Make a list of that, own it, focus on those, leverage those to get where you want to go. And the next thing you can do that's gonna really boost your confidence is celebrate your accomplishments. I tell you, as women, we usually do a really bad job at this. We achieve something and then we just move on to the next thing with little more than a quick like, oh yeah, we got that done, okay, next. but that's the quickest way to forget how amazing you are. You know, the other night after my presentation, I celebrated my accomplishment. It was nothing crazy. I treated myself to a beer on my couch and I don't really drink very often. So it was a huge treat. It was a hot, hot summer night and a German Pilsner just sounded so delicious. I had one that was it, but it was just like the perfect way to unwind and be like, you did it. You got through this and you could do it again. I really wanted to make sure that my brain had something to connect to my success and to be aware of that and to remind my inner critic, remember you were freaking out about nothing. When you do this, it helps you claim your power and boost your confidence. So is there something recently in your life that you have forgotten to celebrate? Go ahead and celebrate it now. It's not too late. Do a little something. It doesn't have to cost much money. It doesn't have to be anything extravagant, but just a little something to tell your brain and connect that amazing success with the reward. So I hope this helps you see that confidence is a skill. It is a muscle that can be built and strengthened. You're not alone if you don't feel as confident as you want to. Most women don't, but we just keep putting one foot in front of the other and pressing forward. forward. As you heard, I was not always this self-confident. I still struggle with it from time to time. But now you have some tools and strategies to help you build your confidence and pull it back up when you feel like you're in a slump. And of course, if you're asking the question, how do you portray confidence without being seen as cocky or overconfident, you're probably at zero risk of doing that. So you can keep calm and be confident. Thanks for listening and keep flexing your confidence muscle. Thanks for tuning in.

Karin Freeland: 18:41

I hope you're inspired to take action by committing to one of the tips or strategies we talked about in today's episode. If you want more accountability and support, I've got your back. Book a complimentary empowered exit strategy call today. Visit karinfreeland.com to learn more and book your 45-minute session. Until next time, stay fabulous.