Evening all… I can’t … Total mental blank it all just went …
Okay so I wanted to talk about maintaining your confidence in times when it all goes to shit, like it is at the moment, because it’s not easy. I’m seeing a lot of posts from people and a lot of stuff in the media about how terrible everyone is feeling, which is completely understandable, but we don’t need to let all the stuff that’s going on actually impact our confidence. We can actually protect ourselves from doing that because what we don’t want to happen, is to be going through all of this and come out of the other side, and be like those deflated little balloons, and not be able to do the stuff that we’re here to do because that’s impacted us so greatly. So I just wanted to share a couple of tips with you about things I’ve noticed over the last couple of days, especially in myself, that is helping me keep going and maintain a little bit of confidence I guess. Actually, maintain a fair amount of confidence. Some of it’s depleting, but I’m working on that.
So my number one tip is actually, switch off. I found for a couple of days, I was just refreshing screens and reading the news on lots of different sites and I really got caught up in everything that was going on. And it was literally making me feel like, “What’s the point?” I was literally starting to go, “Well there’s no point, I’m not confident in anything I do anymore because there’s no point.” It was really debilitating. So switch off. Now, I understand you want to stay abreast of what is going on and it’s really important that we keep abreast of all the stuff that’s going on, especially with the guidelines and the rules that are changing in terms of isolation and who’s essential, who’s not essential, who can work, who can work, who can’t work, all that kind of stuff.
A bit like, you know the rules for checking your email a couple of times a day, or checking social media a couple of times a day? Go back to those rules, maybe check the news at nine o’clock. Maybe check it again at one o’clock. Pick a couple of times to actually get updated on things rather than having it there and refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh, because I never used to do that and I’ve started to do it again recently with this. And I was like, “Ah no Samantha don’t do it.” It’s crippling, so don’t do it.
Another one is, call a friend. So I know I say for confidence, you need to have conversations with strangers and take chances and things like that, but in times like this, call a friend, like having those beautiful heartfelt conversations with friends will do so much for your confidence and for helping you maintain that buffer, that beautiful marshmallow buffer around how you feel about yourself, okay? So pick up the phone, call a friend, FaceTime them. Most of us are at home doing crazy things so FaceTime a friend, set up a Zoom chat with a few friends, even more fun. But don’t do what the other lady on the Zoom thing that’s going around at the moment, where she went to the bathroom, oopsie.
Okay my number three tip is stay in your lane. So when you’re in your own business or your own, you could be a performer, you can be a speaker, you could be a business owner you could be a coach, whatever it is. You’ve got a lane that you’re in. Now, if in times like this, you have been impacted financially, you’ve lost your job, you’ve lost contracts, you’ve lost any of that kind of stuff. Yes you may need to, instead of going this way, jump over here to actually stay economically safe, I get that, a hundred percent support for you. You have to do what you have to do. However, if you’re in this lane and you’re going, “Oh okay well, I’m seeing all these people pivot their businesses because of COVID-19, so I’m going to pivot and go this way and do this because I can now talk to so-and-so about this and make them believe this.” And it’s like, you’ve become a bit kind of … Don’t do it.
I talked about this at a couple of lives ago, but I’m going to reiterate it because I think it’s really important for your confidence. If you can talk about everything that’s going on, absolutely, but don’t change what you do to suit this crisis because this will be over eventually. And by the time you come out of it, you’ll be like, “Oh God, what do I do now? Who am I? Oh, I used to talk about this, but now I talk about this, and now I don’t know what I’m doing?” Your confidence will have plummeted. Okay, 99.9% sure your confidence will have plummeted, unless of course you pivoted into something really outrageous. And made great success of it, in which case it might go up, but that’s going to be the rare occasion. Okay?
Just saying, just stay in your lane as much as you can. And before self-care, more important than ever in this kind of time, not just for health reasons, but for your confidence, your mental stability for being able to show up, okay. Your self-care is really, really important. So take a little bit of extra time. If you’re not committing to work, you’ve probably got a little bit extra time for a little bit more self-care okay. Blow dry your hair. I did this morning, not a very good job, but hair is not my A game.
And then number five I wanted to talk about to help you maintain your confidence in this time, is maintaining the habits and retains that you’ve previously set up to help with your confidence. So there might be things like … I know you’re going to find it hard to believe what I’m going to pick up, what am I going to pick up? Journal, maintaining your journaling practices, your meditation practices, your exercise routine, Chris Hemsworth has just said, everyone can have his Centr, I think that’s how you say it, app for free for [inaudible 00:06:30]. There’s Les Mills workout. There’s lots of things you can do online. So maintaining that is really good. Maintaining good eating habits. As much as you can with what you’re able to go out and get, et cetera, your sleep routine really, really important. Even if you’re working from home now and you think, “Ah, just add a bit later, watching Netflix.” And your body rhythms. You wake up in the morning [inaudible 00:06:56]. Don’t do it.
Maintain those habits because anytime those habits fall down, you then start to feel bad about yourself, “Oh I didn’t do enough steps today, oh God, I ate too much chocolate, I didn’t get enough sleep.” And then you’re picking away at your confidence. It’s like your confidence muscle atrophying … Oh my golly. Gosh, that’s embarrassing. Not being able to say that properly. Atrophy? Your muscles atro… Oh, I’m going to have to google it. Whoops. Someone correct me, I’ve totally forgotten the word.
You muscles going … Okay. So you don’t want that to happen. And that self-talk is part of it. So don’t let yourself down with all those habits, maintain them, maintain them, maintain them. I wasn’t so good at those for a couple of days. I’m getting better at it now, back in my fling today, and I do feel better for doing it. So there’re my tips for maintaining your confidence at the moment. There’s so much more I could go into, but there’s probably 50 tips I could give you. But I think those five, if you can keep on top of those five, I think you’ll really see the benefit as the days and the weeks, hopefully not months go on with all if this. So for now, from me to you, stay safe, stay well, and stay at home, if you can. Bye. I just waved at myself.