From self-doubt to confident (with Ana Marfil)

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What you believe about yourself, your confidence, effects everything that you do. Your level of confidence effects how you feel about your work, how you feel about yourself as a mom and your ability to make decisions. My client, Ana, experienced a high level of self-doubt when she came to me for coaching, and it was effecting both her happiness and her potential to get a new job. But over the past 4 months, Ana has completely changed her relationship with herself, and she knows who she is (and likes who she is) on a level she has never experienced before. On today’s podcast I’m interviewing Ana and how she was able to make such a dramatic shift in such a short time and how it contributed to her recently getting a new job at a fortune 500 company.

Topics in this episode:

  • The importance of speaking kindly to yourself.

  • Why putting language to your identity can make such a big shift.

  • How to manage the negative tantrums in your head.

  • Ana’s #1 tool for building up her belief in self every day.

  • You can’t always help your first thoughts, but you can always choose your second.

Show Notes:

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Transcript

Intro

What you believe about yourself, that confidence impacts everything that you do. 

It impacts how you feel about the work that you do and the impact it's making. It impacts how you feel about yourself as a mom. And if you're doing things the way you want to.

It impacts how you make decisions. You don't second guess yourself so much. It impacts your ability to get a promotion and advocate for yourself and the value that you offer your company. 

What you believe about yourself is so important, and my client, Ana, knew it before she came to me for coaching. 

Ana was plagued with self doubt and not feeling good enough from both her job and at home with her two girls. It affected her ability to think clearly about all sorts of things, particularly what she really wanted in her career and what it would look like to reach that next level. 

On today's podcast, I'm interviewing Ana. We're only two thirds of the way through our coaching together, but she has had such a dramatic shift in her confidence, which has allowed her to get a new job at the next level in a Fortune 500 company and feel like she's 100% deserving of it. 

Ana has gone through such a radical shift. I want to bring her on this podcast to share with you her process and some of the tools that she has used in coaching that has really shifted the way she sees herself. 

I can't wait for you to listen. Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms 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. 

Rebecca: All right, let's jump in. Hi, Ana. Thank you for being here on the podcast today.

Ana: Hi, Rebecca. Very, very excited to be here with you. Thank you for having me.

Rebecca: Yes, absolutely. So, Ana, we were actually just having this conversation. It's Ana, or Ana, apparently I can say it both ways, and it's all okay. So I might interchange it here on the podcast.

Ana: It's all good. 

Rebecca: Thank you. Ana and I have been working together in coaching for about four months now, and I asked her to come on the podcast, really, because she ended up being let go from her job, which, we're going to hear a little bit about this story later. 

Ana was let go from her job and it was unexpected, right. We had already started coaching together, and then she ended up finding this amazing job, which we're going to hear a little bit about that later too.

But I think what was so inspiring about this process for her, was really listening to what it really took for her to gain the confidence and the belief in self in order to land the kind of job that she landed and to go through the emotional roller coaster of a process that this has been.

What it really means to believe in yourself.

I think there's just so much that she has to share about what it really means to believe in yourself at a very different level, some of the tangible ways that she was able to do that, and then the impact of it. 

She has so many rich things to share. I wanted to bring her on the podcast as soon as I heard that she landed this job. I'm like, oh my gosh, we need to talk about this. Let's talk about this. 

So here she is. Thank you again for being here. 

Why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself so we get a sense of that. And actually, you can even dive into a little bit of the story, if you don't mind sharing about what happened with the job and what got you into coaching and give us some of the backstory.

Ana: Absolutely. So I have two little girls. That's the first thing I said in every interview, because they are my joy and pride. One is five years old, the other one is three. I have two cats as well. 

My career has been in human resources, in the talent, management and then diversity, equity and inclusion area, which is often very relevant in our world today. That's kind of a little bit of my career background. 

“I was in a really low place in my life.”

Really what got me into coaching and contacting you was, I think why I decided to contact you was because I was in a really low place in my life. 

I think I was dealing with anxiety, feeling inadequate and guilty as a mom, incapable in my job, overwhelmed by the multiple things going on in my life, because I thought that I did not have the abilities or resources to deal with them. 

And I also felt, very disconnected from myself. I guess it was because I have experienced a lot of identity shifts in a very short period of time. 

Me and my husband, we moved to the US seven years ago, and life has been a roller coaster since then. 

So we, of course, moved from a different country. And then, we come here, we are now immigrants, with everything that that means. And then I became a mom, and then we have moved everywhere. So it's been such a roller coaster. 

So I think because of all of that, the disconnection from myself and then having to deal with everything, that's where I decided to reach out to you. So that's a little bit of the beginning of the story.

Rebecca: The thing that I really latched onto, as you were just sharing that was the amount of identity shifts from moving to the United States, to being married to having kids, all within a short period of time and being in this very up and coming global conversation that we're having around diversity and inclusion and identifying in that way. 

There's just so many changes that were happening all at the same time in this idea that you were having an identity crisis on some level.

Ana: Yes. Oh, absolutely.

Feeling disconnected to who we are.

Rebecca: This disconnect to who am I and who is this person that I look in the mirror and I see every day? 

And I remember our breakthrough call, we talked a lot about that. You kept asking that question, I don't know who I am. I don't know who I am. Why do you think answering this question was so important to you?

“Having confidence comes from the fact that you know who you are.”

Ana: Well, because I know that having confidence comes from the fact that you have to know who you are in order to have that confidence in yourself. You have to know you. You have to embrace yourself. 

But then I almost felt at times that I didn't know what to embrace for myself because there was so many things going on at that time. 

And the funny thing is, I remember in our breakthrough call that I came to you in my mind, I was like, I think I need to do a career change. I felt that I needed to change something. 

But then you listened to me and then you said, I think the issue is self confidence because you could change jobs, you could change career, but the same emotions are going to keep cropping up wherever you are if you do not address the fact of the self confidence. 

I was like, yes, that's it. That's right. She gets me. So that was a very important factor for me to decide to just commit to this job.

Rebecca: It's so important, and I see it all the time. We keep trying to change something in our circumstances. We try to change our job. We try to get our spouse to help out more. We try to get our kids behavior under control. We try to change houses, try to move closer to family. We just try to do all of these things. 

Feeling happy, satisfied and content with yourself and with your life, no matter the circumstances.

Just trying to find some kind of, like, magic bullet, something that's going to magically unlock this happier, balanced life that we want. Those aren't bad things to want to change. But I would rather put in the effort for you to be able to feel happy and satisfied and content with yourself and with your life, no matter the circumstances.

Ana: Yes.

Rebecca: Rather than put your energy in trying to create some magical, perfect circumstances that is likely, one, not possible, and two, not usually very controllable.

Ana: Absolutely.

Rebecca: It's so much more powerful to feel like you have the control over yourself and your life, no matter those circumstances going on, than it ever would be the other way.

Ana: Exactly. So I think change started from that very first conversation to me. 

And I guess the other thing that I really wanted to share is that how you helped me navigate the conversation with my husband, because that's where it started too.

Rebecca: That's right. Because you were all in on the breakthrough call. You were like, I'm all in, but I don't know if my husband's going to be all in. And we had a very direct conversation around like, how are you going to approach this with your husband? What does this look like? How are you going to approach it differently than maybe you've approached other types of conversations so that you get him on board.

Ana: Yeah. So that was a very empowering moment to me when you showed me yeah, you can, of course, talk to him about this in a way that he is going to support you. And that of course I did it.

And yeah, he's like, of course, let's do this investment because it's really important for you and I, and I want you to be happy. And I was surprised. I was like, oh, wow, so this is working. So, of course, doubled my commitment to the process 100%.

Rebecca: What do you think made the big change or the difference in that conversation with your husband?

“It wasn't me asking for permission.”

Ana: I think the place where I was coming from. So it wasn't me asking for permission. It was me asking about how we can do this. It was me coming with a decision already made or taken and just say, hey, this is what I want to do. Let's talk about how we can make it work. 

So that is a totally different place. It's a more confident place. It's not about, hey, can we do this? So it's way different. So that for me, that was a very empowering moment as well.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. Because so much of our coaching is about confidence, and it was all about what you were believing in yourself. It was like, right out of the gate.

Decide what it is you want to do.

It's like, no, you're not going to ask for permission. You're not going to ask for somebody to validate your thoughts. Let's just decide what it is you want to do and figure out how to have the conversation and make it happen. It's very different and a much more powerful place to be.

Ana: You got me practicing that from the very first time.

Rebecca: Yes, right out of the gate. That's why I like to call it a breakthrough call. We want to break through right away and get into it. I love that. 

So confidence is one: belief in self, who am I? 

These identity shifts, we had kind of identified these things as being where we were going to focus our time in coaching. And I know there was this little conversation in your head about, how does my career play into this? Because you weren't necessarily satisfied in your job, right?

Ana: No I wasn't.

Rebecca: So there was still a desire for a shift there. We just wanted to make sure that the behaviors and the doubt and the lack of self confidence wasn't going to follow you into every job that you had at that point. 

But then something happened that was uncontrollable, which was the company shifted. Lots of things, lots of people were let go and you were included in that. 

So tell me what was going on at that moment. It was so unexpected. And we were only a couple of sessions in maybe three into coaching, maybe at that point.

Ana: Yeah, two or three.

Rebecca: Yeah, maybe even two.

Ana: Yeah, right at the beginning, I remember because I was starting to do the core values work, which was like after our first session, I think. Yeah, it's funny because that day that we had our session, that's when I was let go earlier in the day, I had the session with you in the afternoon.

Rebecca: That's right. I remember that.

Ana: Of course, at that moment, it was a shock to me to hear the news. But then, because I started doing the core values, I remembered that work. And of course, when I had that session with you and I told you, you even told me, okay, take a deep breath, let's talk about what you're telling to yourself about this event and then let's talk through it. And I think that's where everything started for me. 

“Finding a new way to talk to myself.”

The major takeaway of this, I mean, of course I have many, but I think the most important and the most tangible and the one that is going to help me moving on later on when we're done, is finding a new way to talk to myself. I think that's something that's coming up in many sessions that we've had. But I think that started right there and then. 

One of the things that I would…because I instantly went to the fact, oh, they let me go because it was inadequate, I was not performing well. So, like, having all those negative beliefs right away…

Rebecca: If I would have done more, then maybe they wouldn't have let me go. It was all a performance based kind of thought process and should have, would have, could have, and all of these kinds of things, for sure.

Ana: Yeah! So when I talked to you, you helped me kind of shift that perspective. And then I was able to reframe that event in a way that did not affect me and did not mess up with my core values, because at that point, that's what we were working on. 

“I began to see myself in a different light.”

And then as we continued the work, in talking about my identity and my purpose, I began to see myself in a different light. Because then I realized that no matter what happened, I had those resources, like I had those values, I had my identity. 

And I experienced my identity in very positive ways. And I was able to see, realize the impact that I've done in people close to me are not so close to me, for that matter. 

So no matter what happens, that won't change. So coming back to what we were talking about at the beginning, about no matter what the circumstances are, I have me.

Rebecca: And you like you!

Ana: Right, exactly. I like me.

Rebecca: Which is a really big piece of it. 

I remember after a lot of these very core conversations, the values, the identity, the purpose, you would tend to like, there'd be this long silence, and you'd just be like, wow. 

And you were taking it in yourself. And it was a really positive feeling. It was this energy of like, yeah, this is who I am. I know that, I know this. It feels very unshakable. It feels very clear, and it feels very likable. 

You walking away with those kinds of thoughts about yourself. It was so energizing to hear you talk about that and to feel that energy from you.

Ana: Yeah, And then when I started having interviews for those different positions that I was applying, I think that was another fantastic moment, because we did really deep work on interview prepping. 

Like, when I was telling you, okay, I don't know if I should apply to this job because he's too senior, so I don't really know if I'm senior enough. And then we started talking about, what did senior mean and what did executive presence mean? And then kind of debunking that and describing that in behaviors. And then you helped me see that I had already showed a lot of those behaviors many times before. 

So it was just a matter of me bringing it to my own attention and remembering that, bringing it back, and then just connecting with that and staying grounded. 

A major perspective shifter.

And that was crucial for me to show up in the interviews in a totally different way, because it was not a way of, hey, here I am, just please hire me. It was different now. 

It was about, hey, this is me. This is what I've done. This is what I can share. This is what I can do for your company. So it was major perspective shifter.

Rebecca: I remember even one interview that you had that you didn't move on in the interview process.

Ana: Oh, yeah.

Rebecca: And you were kind of stuck on it in your mind a little bit, and you were feeling super bad about it. And even though you had been moved on in many other processes, this one in particular right, you didn't. And I remember we came back to and it was like, doesn't sound like this is a place you want to work at anyway. 

You would self opt out of this company as it is anyway, so why does this matter? 

Like, it doesn't align with you and what it is you want. You put yourself out there and they said, no, thanks. It's like, great. They're self selecting out of me, I'm self selecting out of them. It's all okay. 

We don't have to make the interview process. And the getting an interview, moving forward in an interview, not getting the job, not moving forward in the job mean anything else except it wasn't the right fit. 

And you're wanting to be somewhere where your values are aligned with the opportunity that they're giving you. You got to be selective about that. 

Ana: Yeah, exactly. It's not about having to be perfect at every interview. And I remember listening to your podcast as well and then listening to one about the perfection mindset. 

Perfection mindset.

So it's not about scoring 100 in every interview or every interviewer should like me. It's more about, hey, let's see if this opportunity aligns for both parties, but remembering what I have to give and who I am as well. 

And I remember it was another breakthrough that I had, was that I was really having a tantrum about that situation. Like that emotional tantrum.

Rebecca: You were having a tantrum in your brain, no question. Oh, absolutely. It was very upset. 

Hold on a little side note, because I do think I talk about it like this, but I don't always share. I like to talk about our brain in the third person, right? As if it's another entity of some kind.

Ana: Oh, yeah.

Separating ourselves from our thoughts.

Rebecca: And I think that's really useful because it helps separate ourselves from our thoughts and the swirl sometimes of our thoughts. 

And so a lot of times with a lot of my clients, we talk about their tantruming self just like it was a tantruming toddler. 

All of us have kids because that's who I work with, but a lot of my clients have toddlers, and I'm like, just think about what's going on with your toddler. They're uncontrollable in these tantrums. And that's sort of what it feels like. It feels like your brain is somewhat uncontrollable. It's just taking you down this very tantrumy swirly space that you feel like you don't have much say over where it's going. 

And so learning how to interact with that moment, like that tantrum part of you in a very different way, super powerful. So it's a side note, but you were tantruming for sure over this interview that went awry over a job you wouldn't even take to begin with.

Ana: Oh, yeah. I love what you say about the brain being a separate entity, because for me, separating my brain from myself, it's like my brain is not my identity. This is not entirely who I am. It's a part of me. It's not all who I am. So for me, that was also very powerful. 

And yeah, going back to tantrum, and it was so relatable to me because I have a three year old who tantrums every single day.

Rebecca: Yes.

Ana: And then just seeing myself as my own mom, how I would talk to myself as if I was my mom, it was pretty powerful, too, because for me, it was another shifter really very important that I've been practicing from that moment on. 

I am always checking in with myself and thinking, okay, what would I say to my three year old? Is what I end up saying to myself. 

Finding a new way to talk to myself.

But just finding that new way of talking to myself has been amazing, and it's a skill that I'm practicing, and definitely when I keep doing it, even after we're done.

Rebecca: Yeah, and this comes back to you saying, if you've taken away anything so far in coaching, the most valuable thing you've taken away is learning how to talk to yourself differently. 

And again, coming back to this analogy of a toddler, I think it's so useful to us, not only because we all have toddlers or have had toddlers, but because we talk about the difference between when you're really upset and irritated at your toddler who's having a tantrum, and you are really resistant to their tantrum, and you're telling them that they shouldn't be having a tantrum or you're yelling at them or you're getting irritated, it perpetuates more tantrums from them. The emotion continues on and there's just a lot of resistance to it. 

This is what you're talking about when you're talking about stepping into the mom. Part of that doesn't work. We all know that that doesn't work. In helping to fix their tantrums, both in the immediate moment, they don't stop, and two, it actually perpetuates usually more of them down the line versus the moments that we are able to be very calm during their tantrum. 

We let them have all of their emotional meltdowny moments. Maybe we offer them a hug. Maybe we just sit with them, or we just offer to sit with them, or we just let them know that they're loved and it's okay, and maybe we even ignore it, and we just let it go on. 

But we just don't interact with it much, and we don't make it mean a whole lot, and we don't make it mean that we're a terrible mom because they're having a tantrum over something. And we don't tell ourselves the stories. 

We just let it happen until it's over, and then we interact with them, usually in a much more gentle, loving, how can we fix this? Let me understand what's going on where you can talk to me. 

Talking to yourself in a more gentle way. 

We want to get your tantrum brain all the way to that moment. You could start talking to yourself in a much more gentle way. 

But most of us, when we're interacting with that kind of negative self talk, tantruming part of us, we're usually trying to approach it like the first mom that is just arguing and telling us we shouldn't feel this way. And yelling at us and resisting us and not doing all of the helpful things we know as moms is helpful to our kids when they're in the middle of big feelings.

Ana: Yeah, and that has an impact on the confidence. Right. Because internally, if I'm just kind of reinforcing those negative thoughts and the tantruming, it's not a good place to be, because it's not helping me remember who I am. It's not helping me remember what I am capable of, and it's not helping me gain more confidence, on the contrary. 

So I think that was very important for me to understand, simulate, and then just remember that I can find a new way to talk to myself and to adopt new beliefs about myself. 

“Learning to be kinder to myself.”

Beliefs that felt good, not that felt bad, but also learning to be kinder to myself has been very important. And that's also crucial for the confidence as well. 

Remembering, it's okay if you make a mistake, it's okay. That doesn't take away who you are. That doesn't take away everything. Like, all the value that you can give, It's okay.

Rebecca: So good. We started coaching through some of these interview processes, and sometimes we had very direct conversations. Like, there was an interview later that day or the next day, and you were prepping it, and you were feeling not enough. 

You were feeling kind of this lack of confidence or whatever it is. And we would kind of dive into, where do you want to be in this interview? What's it going to take? What do you need to be believing? What do you need to be remembering? What are the examples that you need to bring to mind to help remind you that are worthy of this job, deserving of this job, can do this job. Like, can nail this interview? What do you need to be reminding? 

We were getting your mind in a very clear space about all of that. And then eventually, to be honest, this was not a very long process. I don't know if we've ever really talked about that, but you landed a job fairly quickly here. 

Tell me about this job, and tell me about how this job kind of aligns with yourself and how all of our work kind of contributed to that.

Writing down everything I want to believe about myself.

Ana: Sure. Absolutely. So we talked. I was doing all the interview prep and then showing up in the interviews in a different way. So I felt all the interviews were very easy, were such a breeze after doing that. But every day I met a discipline, and I still have it to write down in a notebook. Everything that I wanted to believe about myself in that day.

Rebecca: Oh gosh, so good. 

Ana: Because of course, we are talking about the interviews and what I wanted to achieve. But mostly believe about myself. So what's a list of things. They were different every day, but that was also really powerful. 

And then I read all of those right before the interviews that I had, and it became almost like a practice, like a mantra and exercise. And then, of course, starting the interview from that place was very powerful. 

So it was easy, it was just a quick round of interviews and then they were so happy with me. And then I got the job offer! 

I remember also telling you that when I got it, I was like, well, maybe I may have to relocate again. And then I started having a tantrum again. 

Rebecca: Yes. 

Ana: And then me being able to manage the tantrum in that new way that I was learning made me realize that, hey, it's not so bad. It's a good opportunity, it's a great location, so everything aligns. It's good, let's go, let's do it again. 

So, of course, I don't want to do it every single year, but I guess this time it's really worth it. The company is huge. It's a Fortune 500 company, and I haven't had a chance to work on that level of company before. So I'm very excited and started the job last week, and I was excited to make a difference from day one.

Coaching impact in day-to-day life.

I remember sitting with my new boss in five meetings, and usually it would be very quiet because I'm more of an introvert. So then in those meetings, the first day, I was able to contribute and ask questions that were very good, and they shifted the conversations in a very good way. 

My boss, at the end of the first day, he told me, hey, you are amazing. I'm so happy to have you in the team. You're already providing value. So I was just like, over the moon.

Rebecca: I love it. So good.

Ana: And I think it's because of everything that we work on, having that deep work of transforming those beliefs about myself and practicing, like using those opportunities to practice and to talk to myself in a different way and to really it feels different. 

I'm grounded because I know who I am now.

I know even though I have a lot of things going on, I'm grounded because I know who I am now. I know there's more things that I will discover about myself in this last part of the coaching process, and, of course, even beyond. But what I've discovered now is just amazing, and I really love who I am.

Rebecca: I love it so much. And it's not even that, you know, as if, like, you have language. Yeah, we actually parsed out language to describe you that's in the values and the identity and the purpose work. That's like your compass, as I like to call it. 

But you have examples to draw on, on how you know all of those things to be true. They can't just be words. You have to see these words and go, yes, that's me. And I can tell you, I got to rattle off a bunch of reasons on why I know that's true so your brain feels like it's unquestionable. 

And that feels really important because in the face of failure or if that day hadn't gone well, or of course you're not going to have perfect days from here on out of your job, or there's going to be pushback or there's going to be resistance, or somebody isn't going to like the way you do something. Or in those moments, your brain wants to kind of circumvent all the good that you've done and say, see, look at this. You're no good. This is no good. This isn't enough. You're not enough. 

And your ability to be able to come back and go, whoa, no. Yeah, that didn't go as planned. That wasn't what I desired. But I know this about myself, and I know that it doesn't matter. 

The failure is inevitable or the pushback or the resistance or the icky feelings, whatever it is, that's all inevitable. And that's okay. Again, we're not trying to make that never happen in life, that's just not possible. 

But you showing up still feeling good about yourself and confident in yourself, even despite that. That's what it's all about. That's where the power is.

Ana: Exactly. Like you say, it's not going away. I still feel the pull of my brain to think negatively about myself. I still feel it. It's less than before yes, but they're still there. 

“My reaction to negative situations is different now.”

Whenever something negative happens or whenever I find any obstacle, I do feel it, but then my reaction is different. Now I have this newfound voice that say, hey, remember who you are. So that was priceless.

Rebecca: This shift in relationship with yourself is, like, huge and massive and hasn't made all of the difference. 

But I'm also curious, has it changed your dynamic in your marriage or for you as a mom with your kids? What else has been the result of this shift that's within you? I know it's not just lying within you. It's totally out there, right?

“I am more present and grounded with my husband.”

Ana: Yeah, absolutely. I think with my husband, I'm definitely more present, more grounded, and I'm able to contain him better. Whereas before, I was flustered by his own emotions, but now whenever I feel that pull from my brain, they saying, hey, wait, remember who I am, and I'm able to practice my own purpose, which is being a vessel for him.

I know we talked about this word. I think that is massive, because before, I used to be more affected by his own emotions, and it was harder for me to respond. That has been very important. 

I found myself more grounded, and, of course, being able to support him better because he's going through a hard time right now, so it's easier for me. 

And then with my girls, definitely way better. Remember, one of our first conversation was that I felt that I wasn't not a good mom because I was not that affectionate to them.

Rebecca: Nurturing, I believe, was the word you used.

Ana: Yeah.

Rebecca: We had a very long conversation about how you believed, like, a good mom was nurturing, and that was just not who you are. That's not you as a mom.

Ana: Exactly. But I did see all the other ways in which I showed love them. Maybe I was not kissing them all the time or just playing with them all the time, but I was able to show love to them in so many different ways that were equally powerful. 

“I stopped wanting to be someone that I'm not.”

Like now just remembering that and just being able to show up in my interactions with them from a very safety way, because then I stopped wanting to be someone that I'm not, so instead embracing who I am. And they just are very happy. 

They realize, of course, but they're little, so they don't have the language to tell me, hey, mom, did you change?

Rebecca: Yeah, of course.

Ana: But they do. I mean, I do feel different. I think they feel happier when they talk to me and in our interactions.

Rebecca: If you're going all into your identity as a mom to what you're good at as a mom, when you know what that is and you're kind of embracing it and going all into that instead of trying to be somebody you're not and trying to be more affectionate or trying to be all these different things and you feel scattered and you feel like you're doing all of it terribly. 

Of course, when you decide to just go all into what you're good at and what you know to be true about you and what's important to you, people are going to feel that on the other side. 

When you feel really good about yourself, other people experience that energy from you.

Because always, always when you feel really good about yourself, other people experience that same kind of energy, positive energy from you, it’s hard not to.

When you feel low self esteem, low confidence, low belief in self - basically negative self talk all of the time about you, that energy is felt because it's a total visceral experience that we have on how that trickle down of our thoughts about ourself really affect us. 

And they affect us a lot as a mom when we're having really positive thoughts about ourselves as a mom and what we bring to the family and the value that we provide. And if we're spending enough time with our kids and if they're getting everything that they need from us, when we're feeling really good about that, we have completely different interactions with our kids and we're much more receptive of their requests, of their asks, of their emotions, their needs, whatever. It is so huge.

“I feel more connected to my kids now.”

Ana: Yeah, I feel definitely much more connected to them and just focus on what matters most to me as a mom and, like, what I want my legacy to be to my daughters. I feel much more connected to that.

Rebecca: To them! Oh, that's a powerful question. So you've talked about this one exercise that you do, uh, where you kind of write down, what do I want to believe about myself today? And you do that in the morning, I assume, or sometime at the beginning of the day.

Ana: Yeah, morning.

Rebecca: You kind of keep saying, just remember who I am. Just remember who I am. 

What are you actually doing in that moment? Are you stopping and remembering something in particular? Are you writing something down? How are you bringing your thoughts back to these words about yourself, these beliefs in yourself, when you find yourself spiralling or when you find them not there?

Remember who you are.

Ana: So I have that phrase when I start receiving the pull from my brain, I kind of take a deep breath and just say to myself, remember who you are. And then that phrase just gets me back to remembering my values, my identity. Like, I bring them back to my memory. 

At the beginning, I kind of had them on my phone. When I said, remember who you are or who I am, I took my phone and I read through all my notes of our conversations, and because I did it many times and then I memorized them, now it's easier for me to remember who I am.

I kind of see the list of my values and I see my identity traits. I see my purpose. So remembering that, of course, takes me out of that negative emotion immediately. And then it kind of helps me get back to face the issue, but from a totally different place.

Rebecca: I know one of the things that a lot of people worry about as we kind of go on this journey of believing in yourself in a different way, is we have a fear in some way of getting back into the negative spiral and into the tantruming self and into all of the negative self talk.

Ana: I know.

Rebecca: For me one of the things that has been quite literally life changing as I talk about interacting with myself differently is realizing that it doesn't really matter what my brain says.

I have the skill of redirecting my thoughts and redirecting them back to something I want to believe or what I want to think. And that skill is invaluable. I don't have to ever worry about what my brain is going to offer me again because of that skill. 

I'm just curious if you're starting to experience a little bit of that freedom because you have started to learn that control over your brain.

Ana: I mean, of course I'm still practicing it. Probably I spend a little bit of time listening to that pull before I remember to remember who I am and then start doing what I just described. 

You can't always choose your first thought, but you can always choose the second one.

But then I also know that you can't always choose your first thought, but you can always choose the second one. And I think you said that in one of your podcasts.

Rebecca: Yeah, it's definitely one of my mantras. You can't always choose your first thought, but you can always choose your second.

The power of choice.

Ana: So the fact that you can always choose and just feeling the power of that choice is very important. And it's crucial because in the end of the day, like we said, the pull is always going to be there. You're always going to face situations that are going to get you back to the tantrum, because that's how the brain works. That's how the brain is. 

And we had patterns of thought and reactions for so many years that it's harder to adopt new ones. It's always going to be there, but then what matters is how we decide to act upon them. 

Now with everything that I'm learning, I choose to act differently. So it's not that I don't spend that much time thinking about it. I am able to make the shift quicker every time.

Rebecca: So what do you think you're going to do moving forward? We're in week two of this job at this point, but what is your plan for yourself moving forward and how you're going to keep kind of your belief in self high and what are the tools you plan to use? Tell me some of your thoughts on that.

Ana: Well, I think I hope to continue defining some of those with you as we wrap up our process. But I think right off the bat, continue with those daily affirmations, it's going to be very important. 

And of course, part of my job is going to be about building those relationships with senior leaders. And I know we talked about this in our last session last week. It's about how do I show up in those interactions and those meetings, not from a place of trying to please them or trying to wonder about myself, if I have that presence, trying to think that I have all the answers, because then I don't. And if I don't have the answers, it's okay. 

Just, I guess, trying to find new ways to formulate those beliefs that I want to believe about myself that will help me cope in this new job. Because it's a challenge. 

Because, of course, coming into a new company with this leadership role, everybody speaks a lot. But as long as I stay grounded on myself and I know what my value is, I think I will really make a difference. Because it won't come from a place of pleasing others. It's going to come from a place of being myself.

Rebecca: I love that. What it reminds me of in this last session, you basically said, I don't have the executive presence that I need. And we started talking about, well, what does that even mean? 

We started to really dissect this concept of what does executive presence mean? And we do this all of the time in coaching is your brain kind of says, well, I don't feel confident in that. I'm like, well, what does that even mean? 

Our brain throws out these concepts. You have to stop at some point and go, well, what do I even mean by that? 

And in this case, we listed it out. And I remember I stopped and I said, Ana, this is everything I know about you. You're already this person and I remember a long pause, and you were like, these are all my qualities in myself. And I said, I know. How could you not believe this about yourself? 

And it was this moment where we stopped and questioned what your brain was offering to you. And that's so important. 

And I have a feeling that you are starting to hone that skill a little bit and starting to notice, oh, that's interesting. My brain thinks I can't do this or that I'm not confident in this, or I'm not capable of this. 

And it's going, huh, is that really true? Or what does my brain really think that that means? And let me stop for a moment and dissect it and come up with my own actual thought out opinion about it, instead of just believing it and letting it go by and taking it as truth. 

In this case, there was a whole lot of evidence to show that you are exactly who you need to be in these moments. And you get to embrace that.

Ana: Absolutely. I think, like you say, it's a skill that I still need to practice, because, of course, coming into a new job and just experiencing all of those emotions, and then the brain is telling me, okay, people expect so many things, so then I'm able to say, okay, what things do they expect? Trying to dissect that is very important.

Rebecca: So many good things here. You came into coaching thinking, I'm in the middle of identity crisis, and I need to know who I am, and yeah, I want to make a bunch of changes. 

Feeling better about YOU changes everything.

I want to change my job. I'm unhappy, and this, and this and this. But it all seems to center back to just me, if I just felt better about me. And that was your hunch going into it. And so I'm curious now what your thoughts are on that hunch.

Ana: Oh, my God. Well, I think I was right in the sense that I needed to know who I was. But what keeps me amused is that I came to you with a very different purpose, which ended up happening on it’s own.

Rebecca: Which was the changing career and things like that, and figuring out what you really want to do next and so forth.

Having support through coaching allowed Ana to face big life changes with ease.

Ana: Yeah, exactly. So I ended up changing job, but it happened on its own. But the way I faced those transitions was completely different than if I didn't have your support, of course. 

So I would have continued believing the same things about myself that were not positive, that were not taking me to a good place. I would still have had a very hard time at the interviews. 

Probably I would have gotten a job, but maybe not the one that I wanted, or maybe not this amazing opportunity. And maybe I would be very stressed trying to figure out what everybody expects from me in this first week and the following. 

But now, even though I still have those questions, I'm able to respond them and react to them in a different way. 

So I think if I make a pause and look back at the beginning of our journey together, I would say, yes, I accomplished so far what I thought I wanted and what I didn't. 

I wanted to much more like just to see that come into play in so many aspects of my life as a mom, as a wife, as a professional, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend in so many roles in my life that has had a very powerful impact as well.

We all have negative thoughts, no one is immune to it.

Rebecca: So good. Thank you for coming on this podcast and talking about this and being vulnerable to share about your process. We all have this negative self talk, this kind of low self esteem, these beliefs in our self that aren't useful to us, all of us have this part of our brain - nobody is immune to this. 

Learning how to listen to those thoughts differently and learning how to redirect them and learning how to make new, much more positive thoughts about yourself more dominant, that has just been the most powerful experience and journey for you in coaching. And I am so grateful that you came and shared some of that today. Thank you so much.

Ana: Oh, my God. Well, thank you for guiding me in that precise and energizing way and just helping me get there. I wouldn't be here and achieve this without you. So thank you so much.

Rebecca: It's been my honor. 

All right, working moms. You've heard it from Ana. Let's change some of those thoughts, start believing in yourself in a different way, and let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson