When you are looking around and comparing yourself to others you are slowing yourself down! You lose momentum.
Are you constantly questioning your success? Looking around and recognizing success in others but not in yourself? When you are looking around and comparing yourself to others you are slowing yourself down! You lose momentum. In this episode Paula encourages you to refocus on yourself, your goals, and the people in your life who are cheering you on with 1 quick activity! This will help you to get your creative juices flowing, recognize your power and build your momentum in the right direction!
Hi, I'm Paula Shepherd, I went to college to get a good job and make a lot of money. Back then, no one talked about doing what you love. And while I successfully climbed the corporate ladder, I felt like there was something missing. So I left the seemingly comfortable corporate world at 40 years old for the freedom of full time entrepreneurship. Today, I get to help ambitious women go from entrepreneur to competent CEO of their lives and businesses. I created this podcast to share what I've learned with you to make your journey just a little easier, and to connect you with other incredible business owners who took a chance on themselves and who they are becoming. So whether you're just getting started, are all in or just when you hear friendly voice, come on in and sit with us. Now, let's dive in.
Paula Shepherd 01:01
Hey, hey, it's Paula and I am here with another episode of The confidence session. Today, we're going to talk about second guessing yourself. This theme has been running rampant with everyone that I am coming across. And it is so normal for us to want to do this the instinct to look at what everyone else is doing. And gauge our own success or failure against what we see or what we perceive when we're watching other people. Now, social media obviously perpetuates this because you can see and you can make your own conclusions or come to your own conclusions based on what you see people posting, even if they're the most authentic people, there's always bits and pieces that you are not able to see. And then you form your own opinion and your own stories around that. So what happens when we look at other people? Well, we're going to talk about that here in a second.
Paula Shepherd 02:11
However, I want you to just take a second for me screenshot this podcast episode, and share it to your stories. Because when you do that, when you share in a text message in an email with your best friend with your business colleagues, that you're listening to this podcast, and that the guests that you're hearing, the content that you're getting, the tips that you're learning, the inspiration that you get, is helping you sharing that is the most important thing that you could do so screenshot share it in so many different ways in all the ways that you can think of and know that you are helping to elevate the voices of other amazing people that deserve to be heard and not even just deserve but needs to be heard. So, that is your assignment. That is your that is your fieldwork for this week.
Paula Shepherd 03:06
Okay, so back with what happens when we look at others what happens when we do that. So I have a really great example of this. When I was a kid, I was well for many years, not just for a few, I was on a swim team. And during swim meets the most important thing that you could do and it is you could apply this to pretty much any sport like track anything where you're kind of in a singular lane, and someone is next to you during the competition. So for this instance, because this is my experience, we're going to talk about a swim meet. During the swim meet, everyone has their individual lanes. And you're swimming in that one lane toward one goal, which is a wall. And then the next goal which is a wall. So depending on how far you are to swim, how many yards you're going to be swimming, you know how many touch points you need on that wall. So those are your goals. The wall is your goal, no matter how far you are swimming. Now it happened all the time, where you would jump in the pool, and you're racing and all of a sudden you're kind of looking over your shoulder or you're looking ahead of you and picking your head up a little further than it should be. And unfortunately, that slows you down. So I knew where my goal was, but my eyes weren't focused there. My eyes were focused on the person next to me or behind me and kind of getting an idea of my placement in that race.
Paula Shepherd 04:55
Now, I knew my strengths. I knew that I was really, really good at this one stroke. And I knew that if I just gave it my all, if I kicked in a certain way, if I move my arms in the way that I had been taught and had practice for so long, that it didn't matter what anyone was doing around me, because I was leading into that doing what felt really natural to me. And I was showing up in a way that felt really, really good to me. And I was so proud of myself in that moment, because I couldn't see other people. It wasn't paying attention to them. But the moment I picked up my head, and I looked forward or backward, slightly, I say, I immediately even if I didn't really feel it in my body was slowing my momentum.
Paula Shepherd 05:47
Now, what ways are you doing this in your own life and business? Where there's a lot of time spent on? What is this person doing over here? And how come my thing doesn't look like that over there? Every time you do that, is one more moment that you don't have that has gone forever, for you to spend focused on your own goal, right, got that wall touch point in the swimming. The other thing I want to mention and kind of going back to the whole swim meet thing here is when I was swimming, and it wasn't just me, it was everyone when I was when there was crowds around the pool. And they would be cheering and yelling and screaming and just hooting and hollering and as I got out of the pool, I remember hearing people say to me, Well, did you hear me? I was cheering for you? Could you hear me? Could you hear everybody yelling for you could I was telling you to stop looking. And I would think I didn't even hear them, they couldn't hear a word that you said.
Paula Shepherd 06:56
lesson here is there are people all around you, that you are totally unaware of, that are cheering you on, that are excited for you that have shared with you in some capacity that they are. But because you're so focused, when we get so focused on looking at others, and second guessing ourselves and where we are in our own personal experience, and goal toward our vision and success. We can't hear those people. We stopped paying attention to those people. We think that everything that we have is just a result of luck. And I know, I know 100% That if you sat down right now and you made a list of all of the things that are working in your favour, and spent even two days not looking at other people, you would start to see the shift, you would get that creative mojo back, you would start to recognise all of the amazing strengths that you have, you would see what is working for you so that you can do more of that you would no longer be slowing yourself down. I don't want you to slow down. I mean I do when you need to rest. But I don't want you to slow down because you're looking at someone else. There are so many ways for you to have a great life and a successful business all at the same time. And the first step is to stop second guessing yourself.
Paula Shepherd 08:47
Things are working for you. I know that you're convinced that you can do better. And we can all learn. But look at what it is that you're doing already. The money that you've made, the life that you're creating for yourself, the small wins that maybe you're not even celebrating. So today I want you to really think about that. Think about what you're doing well make a list. And then if you're feeling really brave, send it to me. Email me at Paula at the courage blueprint.com Send me a DM on Facebook. I will respond to you. It will be me responding to you. And I want to know I want to know what it is that you're doing really really well. So that I can acknowledge you that can cheer you on that you can hear me and know that there are others who believe in you But you have to believe in you more than anyone else does. And that's going to stop, start with swim in that race, running that race, and doing it your way and focusing on you.
Paula Shepherd 10:14
I know that sounds counterintuitive, but you've completely got this. I wanted to make this a really quick episode for you so that you had some really deep thoughts to chew on and think about. I am really looking forward to chatting with you again next week. I will see you then on another episode of the confidence session.
Paula Shepherd 10:35
Thank you for listening to this episode of The confidence sessions. I know there are hundreds of 1000s of podcasts and I'm so grateful that you chose to spend your time today with me. Head on over to the courage blueprint.com forward slash podcast to check out the show notes from today's episode, and grab links to all the amazing goodies mentioned today. If you love this episode, as much as I loved making it, make sure you don't miss out on any future ones by hitting the subscribe button right now. See you next time.
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