Karleigh Lynne

In part one, we discussed what confidence is and how to start cultivating that skill. So there’s a lot of really good juicy stuff in there. So do not skip it, go back and listen to part one. If you haven’t already, last week, we discussed that confidence is believing in your ability to figure it out, whatever it may be, it is knowing that you can figure it out because you believe in your ability. We also talked about how to pull, debate that skill and starting that skill with positive self-talk and affirmations.

The four affirmations:

I am strong.

I am capable.

I am intelligent.

I am worthy.

Those four affirmations are a great base to start your own talk journey and start rewiring that brain this week, we’re going to start talking about the other forms of self talk. So things like thinking small, this is a big one that I hear a lot of people doing a lot of the time. And now that I study this on a daily basis, I have become hyper aware of it.

And it is probably the thing that I think starts to damage that confidence muscle. The most it is thinking small. So what does that mean? Thinking small is either putting yourself down to make yourself smaller or making yourself out to be too small for a situation.

An example of that is, Oh, it’s, you know, it was nothing it’s it’s just a side hustle or, Oh no, that’s no big deal. I could have done X, Y, and Z better or, Oh no. I’m, you know, I’m just a mom. I don’t do much. Sure. Oh, it’s just a temporary job. That’s nothing. Or, Oh, it’s just a blog, but it comes down to when you add the word joy to something that is as a sign that you are making yourself small, because with G yes. Oh, it’s just a side hustle. I’m just a mom. It was just a walk. You know, it was just five pounds, whatever it is.

When you say the word ‘just’ you have small thinking.

Tthis is really important to recognize because as we learn more about self-talk and you become more aware of this, you’re going to be able to change the conversation. And as we learned last week, start rewiring the brain and creating a new script for your brain to create its reality. On another form of this is justification.

I have been truly guilty of this on more than one occasion, and I’ve become more aware of it in recent months. What do I mean by that? It’s instead of saying, Oh, this is what I want to do. Do you say, Oh, this, this is what I want to do. And even though I was probably not going to go well, but I kind of want to try it anyway, and I’m probably not qualified, but I want to try it because X, Y, and Z, and you don’t need to add all the explanation at the end.

If you find yourself doing this, it’s another example of thinking small.

Because you do not believe in your capability of doing it. And you are not confident in your ability to follow through with it. This is truly important because every time you justify it, you’re telling your brain that for everything you want to do, it must be justified.

You have to justify it, not to the people who believe in you, but to all those people who don’t, this is a sign that you struggle with your self worth, because the more you justify what you do, it gives you more and more reasons. And it tells your brain all the reasons why it probably just won’t work again, incredibly important to recognize.

Now, the last one I’m going to talk about is the one that has impacted me probably the most.

Apologizing for everything.

It is apologizing for simply existing. I used to do this all the time, and I still find myself doing it in areas where I am still learning or unsure. This is a symptom usually that you have either been abused in the past, or you have been with someone who is extremely narcissistic and put you down a lot, whether that was a parent, whether that was a partner, whether that was a boss, because you learned somewhere down the line, that if you didn’t apologize, and if you didn’t try to apologize that it would affect you negatively somehow.

So if you find yourself saying, sorry for everything, this is a sign that it’s time to start your journey. What’s an example of this. If someone else bumps into you and you apologize, this is a big one, that’s pretty, pretty blatant, right? If someone else bumps into you and you apologize for that, why did you apologize? You apologize for standing in the place someone else wanted to be, and they didn’t pay attention. And somehow that’s your fault.

Apologizing for going after your goals.

So this is one that I see quite often, especially in families where one of the adults is trying to make a change and get healthier. And the other one, and the other adult is resisting because it comes down to they’re upset because maybe you didn’t get dinner made on time, or maybe they do just, don’t like the fact that you’re eating healthier.

And so they don’t like the new dinners. Maybe, maybe you’ve actually made progress and someone else noticed, and that made them uncomfortable. And so you apologized for that every time you apologize for going after your dreams and your goals, you are then telling your brain that you are someone that you have to apologize for, that you constantly have to be on high alert to apologize for everything that you do, because you shouldn’t even exist. If you apologize for all of that, you are making yourself so small to the point that you feel that you are telling your brain that you shouldn’t even exist, right?

You’re so small that you just wish you could be invisible.

So you were apologizing for your very existence. I got called out on this a few years ago by one of the first guys that I had gone out on a date with after I became single. He straight up said to me, “you say, sorry a lot. And I don’t really know how to respond to it anymore.”

It had only been a couple of months and only been a couple of months. And yet he is already like, I don’t know how to respond to you saying, sorry. So I scrolled back through, through all of our text messages, not even including the times we’re hanging out. I had said, sorry, probably every other message. And we had texted daily for those two months.

I was like, Oh my goodness, I cannot believe I said sorry so much. And then of course your gut instinct is to apologize for apologizing. And then it’s just like, did you not get it the first time? If you’ve been in that situation where you’re apologizing for apologizing, it’s time. It is time for you to take your confidence learning seriously and start working towards breaking that habit.

Stop talking down to yourself.

This one is a lot easier said than done. And so it is simple, but it is not easy. It is simple because all you have to do is catch yourself for when you want to either think small, whether you want to justify with you, catch yourself apologizing or whether even if it’s down to those things, we’ve talked about last week, where you’re just really negative about yourself in your mind, catch yourself, pay attention to just how often you put yourself down, pay attention to how many times in a day you apologize, start paying attention to how often you’re justifying yourself and who you’re justifying yourself to.

The more you become aware and catch yourself in the act, the more aware your brain’s going to become. And then it’s going to see that this is not normal, and this is not the reality that it wants to perceive. When you begin to catch yourself, it’s not going to be comfortable. Your brain’s going to give some kickback because this has been it’s normal for, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years, sometimes even longer.

You need to be patient and have grace with yourself.

And with your mind, as it begins to adjust, we are quite literally, and I say it all the time, rewiring your brain. That’s not always comfortable, right? Just like when you’re at the gym and you’re working out, it’s not always comfortable, but you know that it’s worth it. So you keep doing it. It’s exact same concept with self-talk and moving towards becoming more confident. It’s not going to be comfortable, but you need to keep doing it.

When you talk small, you’re reinforcing that.

What you’re saying is true when your brain believes that this is reality, when your brain believes that thinking small is the way you’re supposed to think it’s going to self sabotage. This. One’s a big one. Because when you self sabotage, you’re going to limit yourself. Whether it comes down to getting healthier, you’re going to do well for a few days. And then all of a sudden, you’re going to find yourself, bingeing. You’re going to find yourself skipping workouts. And you honestly cannot really figure out why you don’t get it because you were so motivated 10 minutes ago.

And now you honestly don’t want to move. You can’t seem to get your mind wrapped around the fact that it needs to go do something because your brain is sabotaging to create the reality that you’ve taught it. If it comes down to starting a new business, you’re going to give yourself, you’re going to start. You’re going to make a few steps forward. And then your brain is going to start telling you all the reasons why you shouldn’t.

And then all of a sudden, you’re going to wonder why you even wanted to start to begin with when you are stuck in small thinking, it is quite literally like your standing in quicksand, because the more you try to get yourself out without addressing the talking small, the faster you’re going to sink, this is an almost deadly cycle to be in because the more you move forward and the more you self sabotage, the more your confidence takes a hit.

The more your self worth takes a hit.

And so the lower you get the lower you get. When someone asks you what you like to do, what you love, what you like to read, what you like to watch, eat, whatever. Don’t look at the floor and start it with it may sound stupid, but I know it’s not that big of a deal, but Oh my goodness, this one’s a big one. So I am aside from being a coach, I’m a fitness influencer, and I’ve been sharing my journey, my weight loss and bodybuilding journey over the last eight or nine years now.

And so I follow a lot of people who are on similar journeys. So many people start their posts out with it may not be a big deal, but it may sound stupid to you, but it may be small, but this is more of that small thinking, because instead of just saying, Hey world, look at the fricking cool thing that I did. We say it’s probably stupid. And it’s not that big of a deal. And there’s no way that anybody could ever actually think that this was a cool thing. So I’m going to make sure that I sound small and I sound stupid. So no one could think it already think about it for a second. 

Think about how your brain is going to react to you saying it’s no big deal.

But if you say it’s no big deal, but enough times, which you probably have over the years, your brain says, okay, it’s not a big deal. So why are we excited about it to begin with? It’s not a big deal. So it’s nothing we’re celebrating. It’s not a big deal. So why are we even talking about it?

This one gets me fired up because whatever your accomplishment is, whatever it is that you move you closer to success, whatever your step forward was, it was not small. It’s not dumb. It’s not stupid. It is a massive step in the right direction. And you need to own that. It is time for us to stop small talking ourselves out of our success. It is time for us to start telling our brains just how freaking awesome we are.

I used to do it all the time.

Every step forward, I thought wasn’t good enough. Every move in the right direction, I thought was stupid because I had convinced myself already that I would never get there. So the small step wasn’t even important because I knew I was going to ruin it. Anyway. That is no way to live your life. It is time for you to take back your vocabulary and it is time to take back your life.

It is time to start moving towards your most confident self.

Because when you stop talking small, you are not even going to believe the world that opens up to you. All of a sudden, you’re going to see brand new colors, brand new opportunities. You’re going to talk different, think different, look different. People are going to notice.

Maybe that’s why.

Your job is to start catching yourself in the act. Your job is to start noticing.

Maybe it’s a person, an activity, a certain topic. Whatever it is, start paying attention. Now, when you first start doing this, you’re probably going to catch yourself doing this a lot. And what I don’t want you to do is use this as another excuse to beat yourself up.

So I know when I first started on my journey, I’d go, okay. Self-talk is important. So I’m not, I’m never going to say anything bad about myself ever again, which is pretty dumb to say, right? Because we’re human. I would start talking to myself, I’d say something negative and I’d go, Oh my gosh, Carla, you’re so stupid. Don’t talk negative about yourself. And then I’d realize, Oh, that’s probably pretty counterintuitive.

And so then I start beating myself up for not noticing that I was beating myself up. That is no way to go. So this is, I mean, then I want you to have a lot of grace with yourself. I want you to pay attention, but I also want you to start learning how to be patient with and give yourself grace. I want you to learn how to start not beating yourself up. This one is probably the hardest step. And that’s why I’m starting with self-talk first. Because so often we are our own worst critics. And we create this terrifying reality in our brains where we constantly feel like we have to make up for existing.

We punish ourselves for existing and we beat ourselves up for everything.

That’s not what I want you to do here. The more you do this, the easier it will get, just focus one or two main triggers. So you say, Hey, maybe it’s your mom. Maybe talking to your mom, kind of does something to you. Maybe focus on that one first, maybe sit down, pull out a journal and start thinking of the different ways that talking to your mom triggers you in a negative thinking. If you do this for the very first time, one of two things is gonna happen.

One, you’re gonna be able to think of a lot of things and it’s going to come pretty easily or too. You’re not gonna be able to think. You’re not going to be able to think of anything because you just weren’t paying attention to how often you’re doing it. So in that case, you’re going to have to wait to sit down and talk with your mom again, and just really start becoming disciplined as to paying attention to the chatter inside your brain.

And then you’re going to be able to catch the different things that come up, because once you become aware of it, it’s just like the moment you start talking or thinking about a yellow car, yellow cars are everywhere. It’s the same thing. Once you start paying attention to negative thoughts, you’re going to notice them much more clearly. And so the other part of this is how do you accept compliments?

Do you even accept compliments?

When someone says, Oh my gosh, you look so good.

Do you say, Oh, Hey, thank you. Or do you say, Oh, well, I still have this pocket of fat here. And this shirt is kind of tied and my role stake out. But thank you. Thank you. You hear the talking small there. Now, how many of you are guilty of doing that? My hand is raised. Okay. I am right here with you. All right. I get it. But here’s the deal or it let’s say let’s flip the script for a second. When you give someone a compliment and they respond that way, how does that feel? It isn’t very comfortable. Is it?

We kind of expect it because we live in a culture where we don’t usually just accept a compliment. We usually have to put ourselves down first, but it’s never fun to watch someone self deprecate right in front of you. It’s like, Oh crap. What do I do? What’s that exact same thing. And the other person feels that way. When you reject compliments or you don’t receive them with grace. And I know for me, it is so much easier to do something for someone else than it is for myself.

So when it comes to compliments, think about the other person first.

If you are like me and it is easier for you to do something for someone else versus yourself, focus on that. Now a lot of people may be thinking that that’s the wrong way to go, but it’s more of the right thing for the wrong reasons. Right now we’ll get to the right reasons. But if you are motivated and it helps you to think about how the other person feels when it comes to something like accepting a compliment for yourself, that’s okay, because here’s the deal.

The moment you go from, Oh, well, the fat’s just hanging out in this shirts a little bit too tight. And I got this role here. And my faith is so bloated. When you go from that to, Oh, thank you so much. Your brain’s going to be on high alert. It’s going to be like, Whoa, yo, she, she didn’t call herself fat. She, she didn’t argue. She didn’t argue, what do we do? What do we do? And your brain is going to begin to notice.

The more you start compliments without fighting back, your brain is going to notice.

Your brain is going to notice and go, Oh, okay, okay. This is a little weird. She didn’t fight back. So let’s see what happens. All right. Let’s, let’s see where this goes. And the more you accept a compliment without fighting back, the easier it’s going to become. And the more that it’s going to solidify, those affirmations that you’re already telling yourself.

So if you struggle with accepting compliments, here’s a tip.

The very first time that I heard this, I believe I was listening to the Chalene show by Chalene Johnson. And she said, and someone had complimented her. She was like, Oh, you know what? I receive that. Thank you. And honestly, I thought it was super weird. I was like, why, why, why would you say I receive that? And then I heard it on the Jasmine star show. She was interviewing somebody and they were complimenting her. 

And she said, Oh, you know what, thank you. I receive that. And so the fact that two powerful women in my life, I have not met them personally, although I’m praying that that will change someday soon. But if those women that I looked up to in my life, sort of saying it, I began to wonder why. So I did some digging. When you say to someone, Oh, I received that. You are quite literally accepting a gift and putting it in your lap. So a compliment is like someone giving you a gift.

If you don’t come up, if you don’t come off with the intention of, I received that, the opposite of that is I reject that. Now imagine giving someone a gift that you got out of the kindness of your heart, and you were so excited to give it to them. Then they literally smacked it out of your hands on the floor. Like this walked up to you and went bam and smacked it on the floor. That would probably piss you off, right. It probably make you kind of mad. It would make me mad. I mean, straight up, I’d probably, I’d probably get pretty upset. That’s exactly what you do. When you reject a compliment.

When you don’t accept a compliment, you are taking away the other person’s ability to give you a gift and feel good about it.

Because if you inject it, it may leaves them wondering. Well, dang, I was only trying to be nice. What did I do wrong? That’s not okay. Either. When you say thank you, I receive that. That gives your brain time to process what happened. And the first few times you say it, you’re going to feel weird. And the first few times you think it’s going to be uncomfortable, but every single time you do it, you are telling your brain, Oh, we’re taking it this time.

If she receives that, it must be true. Oh, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. She’s been telling us that she’s beautiful every morning. And this person just said, she looked good in her outfit. So maybe, maybe, maybe we are beautiful. Maybe we do look good. Every time you receive a compliment, you are telling your brain that that is the truth. And that is reality. That is why it is so important to start paying attention to how you talk to yourself, how you talk about yourself and how you accept compliments that are said to you.

The process in and of itself is not difficult, but it doesn’t come easy and it’s going to be uncomfortable.

And I’m not trying to discourage you at all from starting your journey, the opposite, actually. But I want to make sure you are aware of the struggles because one, I don’t want you to beat yourself up. When those struggles come, I don’t want you to be hard on yourself because you have those struggles. But when you are struggling with limiting self-talk and you are struggling with confidence, the moment something becomes difficult.

You tend to tell yourself that, you know, you’re not good enough and you can’t do it. And you quit. I’m not about to let you quit. So I’m telling you that it’s going to get hard so you can brace yourself and get up and do it anyway. Even when you want to quit a suggestion that I give to my clients, when this is a struggle for them is to get on a journal and write down the negative thoughts that come up the most. Literally, maybe you keep a little journal with you. Maybe it’s a voicemail on your phone.

Just write down and pay attention to the ones that come up more than once or twice.

Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to get another piece of paper, or maybe on the other side of this paper, and you’re going to write the opposite and you’re going to write the truth. So maybe you say I’m stupid a lot, right? But the reality is if you were stupid, if you weren’t intelligent, if you didn’t have any intelligence in you at all, you wouldn’t have made it to where you are.

Then you’re going to start receiving your compliments. You’re going to start saying thank you. I receive that. Even if you don’t believe that you’re going to say that you receive it and accept that for the exact same reasons that you’re going to see that you continue to do your affirmations. Even though you may not believe them. This is about rewiring your brain. This is about changing the script. So you have to be consistent. You can’t go to the gym once and expect to have a six pack. That takes time. It takes a whole lot more time than you would ever want to admit sadly enough. 

And it’s the same thing with your brain rewiring.

Your brain takes time, but it also takes consistency.

The more you get up and work towards that goal, the closer you’re going to get to it. Every time you stop, it’s just going to take longer. That doesn’t mean you can’t get up and get back on the horse, but I don’t want you to abandon the horse completely. All right. Y’all I really hope that that hit home for you.

And I really hope that you’re going to take all that information and you’re going to apply it to your life this week. I fully believe in the power of self-talk and this can quite truly change your life. If you can master self-talk, there is nothing you can’t do.