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The most important relationship in your life is the one that you have with yourself. The way you treat yourself, either makes you feel really good or it makes you feel inadequate and like an imposter. In today’s episode, I’ll share what a healthy (and unhealthy) relationship with yourself looks like and discuss challenges that women face when they try to let go of self-doubt and negative self-talk.
Topics in this episode:
The spectrum of relationships women have with themselves
What a toxic relationship with yourself looks like and how to identify it
Why women struggle to let go of self-doubt
What it takes to stop all the negative self-talk
6 questions to evaluate and change your relationship with yourself:
Scale from 1 to 10 - How would you rate your relationship with yourself, currently? Why would you rate it that way?
What would being at a 10 look like?
Do you want to be at a 10? Why or why not?
If you were at a 10, what do you fear?
What is currently getting in the way of you being at a 10?
What do you need to do in order to make progress toward a 10?
Show Notes & References:
Learn how to shut down your computer and work-brain at the exact time you want when you sign up and watch my free training, The Secret To Ending Your Workday at 5:00pm. Click here to get the free training: https://www.ambitiousandbalancedcollective.com/end-work-at-5pm
If you want to create a customized plan to end your negative self-talk and have a more joy-filled relationship with yourself, I invite you to schedule a free breakthrough call. Click here to book your call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
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Transcript
Intro
The most important relationship that you have in your life is the one that you have with yourself. The way you treat yourself, the way you think about yourself, it either makes you feel really good about yourself and your life or it makes you feel like you’re failing or like you’re an imposter or like you always have to prove yourself. In today’s podcast, I’ll share with you what a healthy relationship with yourself looks like and what a not so healthy relationship looks like, and share with you some of the challenges that women face when they try to let go of all of the self-doubt and negative self-talk. You ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you’re looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home then this is the place for you. I’m your host Rebecca Olson, let’s get to it!
Hey working moms, this is the 52nd podcast episode and I am so excited and blown away by what's happened here over the last year, it’s something to celebrate. I love everything that is happening in the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Community, I love hearing from you all. This podcast has reached tens of thousands of working moms and has been downloaded thousands and thousands of times. It is just so amazing, I love it. Thank you for being a part of my community and this community. You matter, and I love all of you out there that are listening right now. So just a lil’ warm hug from me to you as we celebrate this milestone in this podcast.
I have a very important episode today and I want to jump right into it because this topic is an important one. And it's one that I speak about with pretty much every one of my clients, so I'm really excited to bring it to you and break it down in this podcast.
The way you think about yourself affects everything in your life.
I jumped off a call today with a working mom that is in my Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Collective - that’s my group coaching program where I teach 5 steps to work-life balance, and we do a weekly group coaching call. I just got off of that call and I was coaching a woman that has been struggling with negative self-talk. And this is such a common struggle for women, and it is such a big part of the coaching that I do both with my one-on-one clients and those that are inside the collective because the way you think about yourself affects everything in your life.
I tell my clients that the most important relationship they have in their life is the one they have with themselves. And I like to use the analogy of a relationship because I think it paints a really clear picture for our brain around something that otherwise could feel very intangible.
Now I’m going to take this to the extreme, and I don’t intend for this to be triggering to anyone, so I apologize in advance or just wanna give you a warning that the language here that I’m using might feel a little triggering. I want you to imagine that you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship with a partner that doesn’t believe in you, that is always pointing out the things that you’re doing wrong. That is telling you that you’re fat. They’re criticizing everything from the clothes that you wear to the way that you cook. Even when you come home from work with something that you achieved that day, they find a way to tear it down and tell you that it wasn’t good enough that you could’ve done better.
How would you feel in a relationship like this? For me I would feel very torn down, I’d lack self-confidence, my self-image would probably be questioned, I would be exhausted. I’d feel belittled, worthless…
Now I want you to imagine yourself in a relationship with someone that loves you unconditionally. That always has your best interest at heart. That believes in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. That is always thinking about how amazing you are and how lucky they are to be with you. Where they feel like they won the jackpot when they married you. It’s not as if they don’t see your flaws, it’s just that they don’t define you by them and they don’t mind them.
How would you feel in a relationship like that? I would feel really good about myself. I would feel confident and supported and loved and valued.
How would you describe your relationship with yourself?
I’m curious, how would you describe your relationship with yourself? Think about it like it’s a spectrum, where on one side there is the harsh and critical borderline abusive relationship with yourself and the other side a completely loving, accepting, supportive relationship with yourself. Where are you on the spectrum?
I know a lot of women that would describe their relationship with themself sort of like the first where it feels like they are being emotionally whipped all of the time…by themself, and most of the time, they don’t even realize it. Just like when we are in a really toxic relationship, it can be hard to realize it.
Moving out of an unhealthy relationship with yourself to a healthy one.
And our goal, whether that is right now in this podcast or if you ever work with me as one of my clients, or when you join the Collective, is to move you out of an unhealthy relationship with yourself to a healthy one.
And the reason for that - this is a really important piece to understand, because if you’re not bought into why you’re doing it and see the effects of the relationship you have on yourself… if it seems sort of like a good idea, like you sorta know that you shouldn’t be so critical of yourself, but you don’t really see how toxic it is, if you’re not bought into why you should have a more positive relationship with yourself, then you probably won’t put in the effort to change.
Again, I know this could be triggering to some to talk about toxic relationships but if you have ever been in one or had close friends that have been (2 of my closest girlfriends have had some really terrible, toxic relationships - so though I haven’t experienced it myself, I have seen it’s effects)...they can be hard to get out of because when you are in it…you don’t want to admit it and you want to downplay the toxicity for lots of reasons that we don’t need to analyze here.
But if you have a relationship with yourself that is on the unhealthy side of the spectrum…you have to WANT to get out of it. You have to WANT to change that relationship.
You always have the option to leave a toxic relationship.
I hear women say, “oh I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself, I know I should believe in myself more, I know I struggle with confidence”…but they don’t take any steps toward change. There is almost this “that’s just the way I am” sort of acceptance. But you ALWAYS have the option to get out of the toxic relationship with yourself and start moving toward something more kind, compassionate, loving and supportive.
And here is why it is important to have that kind of relationship…
There is a direct correlation between the thoughts that you have about yourself, how you feel and what you do in response to that.
Let me give you a scenario: I want you to imagine that you have a presentation coming up, and as you’re walking into that presentation your relationship with yourself is on the severely negative side. You’re telling yourself you’re not prepared, what you prepared probably isn’t good enough, you wonder if they’re gonna like you, you don’t think you look good in your outfit, you’re questioning if you’re really the right one to give this presentation in the first place, you don’t think you’re a good public speaker, you hate this part of your job.
You can’t do your best work when you’re feeling inadequate.
I want you to imagine you walking into that presentation with all of those thoughts. How do you think you would feel? Doubtful, inadequate, uncertain, lack of confidence. When you’re feeling those things how do you think your presentation is going to go? Do you think you’re going to nail it? No, of course you wouldn’t. You can’t do your best work when you’re feeling inadequate because you’re telling yourself “I’m not good at this”.
Now imagine that same presentation, but the thoughts that you have going in are: I’m so good at this, this is some of my best work, people love to hear me speak, this is one of my favorite parts of my job, and the exact right person to be doing this. How would you feel if you were thinking those thoughts? Confident, adequate, maybe even a little arrogant but in a good way. So how do you think the presentation would go? It may or may not go flawlessly, but you’re certainly setting yourself up to be super successful.
The difference isn’t in your skillset or your preparation…it’s in your thoughts. The things that you believe about yourself and your abilities. That is your self-talk.
There’s a direct correlation between what you believe about yourself, how you feel about yourself and what comes out of you.
One of the things that I find fascinating is why we, as human beings like to hold onto all of that negative self-talk and doubt. Why do we choose to stay in a toxic relationship with ourselves?
Because there’s no question that for some of us, that’s a really comfortable place to be because it’s the way that we know. What I like to ask my clients when I’m having a conversation about letting go of all the negative self-talk, I ask: what do you fear will happen if you were to drop it right now. Just let go of all of the negative thoughts, if you were to drop it right now, what do you fear? And almost every single woman I have coached through this, says, I fear that I won’t be as high achieving. I will become stagnant and stop growing.
I want you to sit with that for just a moment because maybe your brain believes this too. If you believe that you will become stagnant and less successful in life if you let go of the negative self-talk, then you will never do it. If we go back to the relationship analogy…if you believed you would be single forever if you left the toxic relationship you were in…if you believed they were as good as you could get…you’d probably stay, right? It’s the same thing here.
The image that comes to mind is a horsewhip. A jockey uses a whip to get a horse to run faster, kick it in the gear. It is through the pain and the discomfort of that whip the horse moves faster.
Negative self-talk is your whip.
For many high achieving, ambitious women, the negative self-talk is their whip. It’s what they believe they need, not consciously - most women don’t know this consciously that they’re believing this, but when we start to strip down their thoughts, they realize that the reason they struggle with their negative self-talk, and why they’re highly critical of themselves, and why they feel like an imposter, and why they lack confidence and doubt themselves - the reason they can’t break that pattern, is because deep down they really believe they need that whip to get ahead in life and that it’s been essential in getting them this far.
Now, If this is you, whether it’s just a little bit, or a lot, Here’s what I want you to think about…
A whip is one way to stay motivated and ambitious, but it’s not the only way. I also know that you feel motivated and are successful when you’re feeling really proud and good about your work and yourself, that success begets more success. Positivity begets more positivity. This is one of the reasons why positive reinforcement is such a good parenting strategy…but it doesn’t just work on kids, it works on adults too. But, for some reason as we get older, we start to think that in order to really push ourselves we have to be highly aware and critical of what we do poorly, what we do wrong, and what our weaknesses are in order to get better. And I'm not denying that is one way. It is just not the ONLY way.
You can choose to be in a different relationship with yourself where there is more love.
You for sure can keep the whip, you can build a relationship with yourself that is very harsh and even borderline abusive, and it will likely continue to push you towards your goals and successes, but I want you to know that that way is optional. You can choose to be in a different relationship with yourself where there is more love and support and belief and you can still be ambitious. But you have to decide that you want that, you have to tell your brain “hey there’s another way and I choose that.”
Here’s what I want you to do. This week, I want you to get real honest about your relationship with yourself.
Scale from 1 to 10 - How would you rate your relationship with yourself, currently? And why would you rate it that way - what are your reasons?
Then…what would being at a 10 look like? Get really specific. Paint a clear picture for your brain. Envision your everyday life at a 10 - what does that look like?
Do you want that? Why or why not?
If you were to be at a 10, what do you fear? And be honest.
What is currently getting in the way of you having it?
What do you need in order to make progress?
If you are looking for a space to work on this. If you want to learn self-compassion, self-trust, if you want to believe in yourself and end all the self-doubt. I can help. I’d love to connect on a free call where we will talk about your specific challenges and then create a customized plan for overcoming the negative self-talk and going after the things you want in life with more job, peace, and ease. You can schedule your free call by going to https://www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
You are loved and valuable.
Ladies, I do not care where you have come from, your successes or your failures, I don’t care how much money you’ve made, I don’t care if you live with your parents still, I don’t care if you’ve gone bankrupt, I don’t care if you are working at McDonald’s, I don’t care if you struggle with being angry at your kids. You are loved and valuable. You have so much to offer this world, your family, your community. You are worthy of all the goodness and positive thoughts. Believe that this week.
Let’s get to it.
Outro
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you want to learn how to shut down your computer and your work brain at the exact time you want, I invite you to sign up for my free training, The Secret to Ending Your Workday at 5pm. By the end of this class, you will learn how to stop scrolling and fully engage with your kids even at the end of a long workday, what it takes to stop working at the time you want no matter what your job is and most importantly how to calm your mind and all of the constant dues in your head. I will link to the free training in the show notes and https://www.ambitiousandbalancedcollective.com/end-work-at-5pm
