Belief. Do you have the guts? Episode 22
Today is all about belief. Finding belief in you. Maybe this is a struggle for me over the last week or so because I am in the exact same process of digging deep to find belief in myself.
Now if you are living on purpose, you’re always growing. That means you might have to stop and dig up belief when you need it. Becoming someone new, or transformation, required belief. Who I am today is a completely different version of me that who I was a year ago today. I am doing new and different and uncomfortable things. I am figuring things out STILL! Even when you believe in yourself, when you grow and expand and create new things in the world, doubt tries hard to work it’s way in.
Belief negates doubt.
We need belief in ourselves to rise to the occasion, to keep going, or to hit the next level or desire.
Ah…but the doubt that creeps in when we try something new…ugh…Doubt works its way into the scene in the form of resistance. Resistance is basically ALL THE THINGS that come up in your path to prevent you from trying or continuing the new thing. Resistance can be thoughtful or it can show up in all the life happening around us like flat tires, sick kiddos, or frustrating work schedules.
Belief is resilience.
Belief in yourself keeps you putting one foot in front of another because your word is true. Sometimes we stretch belief and we begin to envision something new and better and we believe in the opportunity or the goal because we believe, in general, that we do what we say. Why wouldn’t we believe that we can accomplish that task, goal or dream?
That’s what belief in yourself can do for you. It can make your dreams come true – if you have the guts to be a person who keeps their word to themselves.
Because it is not always easy! If it is missing right now, if it is the one thing holding you back – you feel no confidence or belief…it can be found in keeping the promises you make to yourself.
Today you will see the foundations of belief in yourself…
from a new perspective and I hope to share a path forward to rebuilding belief in yourself that you’ve lost, or maybe never had. When I first began teaching my mindset course, I was also taking the course for the second time. I enjoyed going through the course as a regular adult participant, and I decided to dive deeper and get certified to teach others from this platform.
I worked from a script as I began learning the ins and outs of teaching this Stanford based curriculum! With my first client, I was teaching the class each week as I learned the ins and outs of how the process worked.
One thing that really struck me was the ‘pep talk’ for the first class. It was all about showing up and how that builds a level of trust in yourself, and it’s how you become a person of your word. We were each asked when we first participated, and I asked my first class to please commit to themselves and show up each and every week. And that is because just the act of showing up for yourself 8 weeks in a row to enrich your life and see what you can make of it - is not an easy task. Life is always coming at us and so often, we put everything and everyone else first. That one hour class or 20 minute connection call with practical strangers was so easy to skip. You can almost feel anonymous of the group is big enough…
But YOU are not anonymous.
Yes, you are not showing up for the group and that sucks. However, they will live. The person you really let down when you don’t show up for that class is you. And it sucks. It’s a little broken promise …and we will touch on broken promises to ourselves in a moment…
When I really ingested this script and thought about teaching it to someone else, I was dumbfounded because I realize I’d been showing up for myself for much longer than 8 weeks at this point. I had become a person who keeps her word to herself. And I was so completely different than I’d been just 6 months ago. The level of trust I felt in myself was astounding - I mean I was teaching others how to live a different life!!! And I trusted myself to show up and be of service - it was a feeling I’d been missing for years. Yes, I’d been showing up as a mom. Yes, I’d been showing up as a wife. But showing up for myself and keeping promises to myself around the course and beyond changed me. New beliefs will do that to a person - change them, you know.
Now that I can look back I can see beliefs and states of being that have disappeared as I’ve begun showing up consistently for myself in the gym and for clients. There were so many sneaky subconscious beliefs that I’ve released and a constant doubt that I’ve let go..by showing up.
As I’ve reflected, I think there are a few key ingredients of this experience worth sharing.
Integrity & Transformation
Integrity and transformation go hand in hand. If you are listening to this podcast, you must have some interest in transforming something in your life, or maybe your life in general. We’ve gotta have belief in several things if transformation is the goal. If we want to transform, integrity is a bit part of things.
Integrity is a direct result of keeping promises to yourself. Belief I yourself that leads to real and lasting transformation physically or mentally comes from keeping promises to yourself – big and small. It comes from integrity.
Because you’ve made and kept promises to yourself you’ve ended up believing that you will do what you say you will do.
So belief and integrity are woven together intricately. You can’t really have one without the other. Showing up for yourself consistently is the number one promise to keep to yourself to create belief.
Now, if promises kept to yourself lead to firm belief in yourself, what do broken promises lead to? Are you carrying around 20-50lbs of broken promises to yourself? Are you doing the same thing day in and out but expecting a different outcome? If you’ve broken a lot of promises to you, you might feel insane at times.
If you are consistently breaking promises to yourself, what you believe about yourself becomes a state and way of being. It becomes automatic to not believe that you will start Monday, do better tomorrow, or show up for the exercise class…and it’s background noise!
Beliefs and perceptions are subconscious states of being. They start with thoughts and feelings (derived from past experiences) that you think and feel over and over, until they ultimately become habituated or automatic – at which point they form an attitude. Attitudes strung together become beliefs, and related beliefs strung together become perceptions. Over time, this redundancy creates a view of the world and of yourself that's largely subconscious. It affects your relationships, your behaviors, and everything in your life.” – Joe Dizpenza
Broken Promises & Borrowed Belief
Broken promises of others weigh in here too. They can affect our belief in ourselves. Just like we can borrow belief from another (like a doctor or person who is cheerleading us), our belief can also be stolen or influenced.
I borrowed belief from many mentors and doctors in my life. My health coach in my 30’s helped me believe in myself by holding me accountable and helping me create a bit of emotional intelligence and awareness in my life.
My functional medicine doctor - I have had two and both were MD’s and incredible resources of knowledge and belief systems that I soaked right up and into my perception of life.
I’ve even borrowed belief from my chiropractor when he’s known I’d heal in a certain way and I wasn’t so sure…but he was right.
I borrowed belief from others when I began sharing Plexus. I had ton of belief in the products – they’d helped me beyond belief. But belief in the idea that I could help people…that was borrowed when I got started. Sometimes it’s the only way to get going and that’s ok as long as you get going!
Thinking back to when I began breaking promises to myself, when I stopped showing up, there was a time in my life when promises to me were broken left and right. And yes, that led me to live by a different belief system for a while which muted my own beliefs and my belief in myself. My integrity felt non-existent for a while. By not keeping promises to myself like ensuring I’m treated with respect, or eating healthy foods, or drinking less alcohol I left a lot of personal integrity in the dust.
When we adopt someone else’s belief system which might feel natural or easy or even dutiful, we end up focusing on their ideas and beliefs day in and day out and repeating the actions that go with their beliefs. This can be good and not so good…when the influence is for good in your life, borrowed belief(s) are a powerful tool.
So if we want to find belief in ourselves, we have to have integrity. We’ve got to make and keep promises to show ourselves we do what we say we are going to do.
Self Discipline – this is something we’d all love more of…
My second revelation is that self discipline leads to unyielding, unshakable belief in yourself.
Self discipline is not a talent. Definitely not. You are not born a disciplined or non disciplined person. It’s a skill that you can learn, hone and utilize to create extraordinary freedom in your life.
Self-discipline is a process of becoming, and it’s a bunch of tiny habits that form a routine that runs on auto-pilot that is GOOD for me! Repetition is key. James Clear teaches this. It’s not necessarily how long you’ve done it, but how many times you’ve repeated a habit that ingrains it. (visual cue story maybe)
Think about that. You have so many opportunities to keep tiny promises to yourself in a given day. Keeping the small promises leads to keeping the bigger promises you envision for yourself.
Building Self Discipline
Know Your Obstacles.
You’ve got to look at where you are starting. What are things that take away from your self discipline? What robs you of your self discipline? For me it’s…scroll hole, email vortex, really good Netflix series…tv once ruled my life. I remember in my early 30’s counting how many prime time tv shows I watched and realizing I was spending 15+ hours a week watching tvo’d shows…that’s a lot of time. Multi-tasking gets in my way big time…fear, doubt, imposter syndrome…
So I’ve thought through and made a list of self discipline stealers and I haven’t given them up, but I’ve planned where they will land in my life. No I am not perfect but even doing this 80% of the time makes a difference!
Schedule what matters to grow your focus AND keep promises to yourself.
I’ve also started scheduling things that matter. Not just appointments, but places you want to put your focus and attention. Like fun field trips and plenty of time at the beach with friends this summer. I have to schedule that stuff to make sure it happens. I’ve noticed if I don’t schedule it, we might just grind out school work. There are relationships I want to grow. Self care I implement dialy. If it isn’t scheduled, it isn’t a priority. So plan it and schedule it to keep the promise to yourself and build that new identity. Scheduling these things is a bit of a discipline but it also creates intention, and these are wonderful ways to fill your time and keep promises to yourself.
Make small promises to yourself and keep them.
Over and over. This is what I mean by small promises kept over and over.
First Example: I have an evening routine that is built of small promises I keep to myself. I set up workout clothes and pre-work out ingredients. I get my gut health & energy drink ready to be made. I make sure everything that can be prepared for me to have an easy early morning is prepared. That’s 4 promises 4 nights a week kept …
Example 2: I medidtate every morning to overcome myself. I’d rather not(though it is feeling easier by the day), but if I can sit still for 30-45 minutes while the day awaits and let go of a few hindering thoughts, and get some deep oxygenating breaths into my body at this most inconvenient time, it makes the most delicate and interesting and good difference in my every day life. This discipline actually creates so much freedom. And it’s something I’ve promised myself I’d do for ever so it feels good everytime I keep that promise to myself. A definite check for believing in myself.
Example 3: Another thing I do is drink about 16-32 oz of water first thing when I wake up. Not super enjoyable but it’s become an easy task. This helps the body in so many ways and offers me the opportunity to operate at a higher level when training and thinking throughout the day. See what I mean. Little promises kept in the form of a daily routine I said I would do.
These are routines that created a self disciplined identity. I have not always been this way, but this is who I’ve become by doing things I’ve told myself I was going to do. The more disciplined I’ve become over time, the stronger my belief in myself has become. All this belief has helped me create everything I share, this healthy body I’m walking around inside of, and sometimes extra for friends and clients to borrow.
Do you have the guts to believe in yourself again, or for the first time?
By the way, I don’t think discipline is a natural state of being. I think some peeps just get good at creating an environment that supports their choices, and they eliminate more of what gets in the way – more of the time. Then they build a little momentum that gets them moving in the right direction and that discipline becomes more appreciated and ingrained – like a new identity.
The discipline creates consistency which leads to motivation, and once you’ve got this loop going, self discipline is that ingrained, subconscious habitual behavior evolves…and before you know it, you’re believing you can do anything.
Do you have the guts to hammer down on this one thing-belief - to transform your journey in life? It leads to confidence and self discipline which both circle back to believing in yourself.
Getting Started Believing In Yourself
One way to get started is to make a promise to yourself that you can keep forever. You’ll never break it. Keep it doable and useful and it will serve you always. Make it and start keeping it daily. 16 oz of water first thing, walking in nature daily unless it’s bad weather…it can be an easy promise. Remember small hinges swing big doors.
Once you’ve got an awareness around what you believe about yourself, choose your beliefs.
Make a decision to keep promises to yourself and flood yourself with certainty on how and why you can keep the promise. Take action to set yourself up for success with routines and systems like the evening routine or drinking water first thing in the morning no matter what.
Now as we close I’d like to offer you another action taking idea.
Is gut health at the heart of the matter for you?
If you find it difficult to keep promises to yourself that revolve around sugary drinks, junk food etc, please check out the gut health system that helped me find extra self discipline with regards to food.
I had control over my cravings, but they remained intact until my gut health was in check. It is incredible how your urges and desires for sugary foods can change when you balance out the microbiome in effective ways. If you are craving food like I did, you might have an imbalance that’s causing you stress around food.
Learn more about the 3 simple steps I took to feeling amazing at 45. One drink. Two supplements. Healed my gut and changed my life forever.
Until next time friends, stay curious and keep tiny promises to yourself. At least one a day!
