The 1 Exercise That Will Teach You How to Believe in Yourself as Hard as You Believe in Everyone Else [ep. #288]
How do you believe in yourself when you're the best in the world at believing in everyone else? Someone in your world is doubting herself right now, and you don't hesitate for one second to tell her why she's ready. But when you need to believe in yourself, suddenly you need more proof, more time, more certainty.
In today's episode I'm talking about why it is easier to believe in everyone else than yourself. We'll look at why your subconscious treats self belief as a threat while backing everyone else feels completely safe, and one tool that will help you change it all.
You already coach everyone else brilliantly, so this week I want you to become your own client and coach yourself.
Topics covered on How To Believe In Yourself:
Why does believing in everyone else feel so much easier than believing in yourself?
Why does backing a client feel safe while backing yourself feels like a threat?
What is your subconscious getting backwards about self belief?
How do you coach yourself in the moments you struggle to believe in yourself?
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Quote:
"You are already the person in someone else's story who believed in them before they believed in themselves. Now it is time to put your own name on the list." Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Someone in your world right now is doubting herself. Maybe it is a client, maybe it is your bestie, maybe it is your child, maybe it is someone in a community you are part of who posted something really quite vulnerable, and boom, you were in the comments. You were there before anyone else.
Why Is It Easier To Believe In Everyone Else Than In Yourself
[00:00:24] And when she doubted herself, you did not hesitate for 1 single second. You already knew what she needed to hear. You already knew the evidence she has, where she should not be doubting herself like this. You already knew exactly why she is more than ready, more than capable, more amazing than she thinks, more capable than she feels, more qualified, all of those things, and you gave it to her. So why is it so hard to know how to believe in yourself the same way?
[00:00:59] You give it to her immediately. You are, without question, one of the best people in the world at believing in someone else. And then it comes to you, and the moment it does, suddenly you require more proof, more evidence, more time, more of something before you can possibly give yourself the same belief you just gave her.
[00:01:37] How fast do you go and believe in someone else? And when it comes to you, what happens? In today's podcast episode I want to have a look at when. When did everyone else become easier to believe in than yourself, and how do you believe in yourself at that same speed? Welcome to The Subconscious Expert. I am your host, Bec. Are we ready?
You Show Up As A Full Cheerleader For Your Clients
[00:02:18] So to start off with, I just want you to think about how you show up for your clients. If you do not have clients, and I am presuming in some way, shape or form you do, you do have people in your world, so just think about how you show up for other people. Someone comes to you in doubt. It might be your child, it might be your friend, it might be a client. Now, let me know if you do, but I cannot imagine you are turning to them and saying, "Hmm, hang on a minute.
[00:02:47] I am just going to think about whether I believe in you. Yeah, no, I do think we need to gather some more information. I think you need to show me a bit more evidence first." I cannot imagine that is what you are doing. You go immediately. Within seconds you become the most certain person in her world, and in what she is capable of, and in what she is doing.
[00:03:21] A full blown cheerleader. You are good at it. You have probably been that way your whole life. You are extraordinarily good at seeing someone's potential, and you see it so clearly, before they can see it themselves. That is the gift.
[00:03:42] And the way you take their wins, and what they have achieved, and even the things they have tried that have not worked out, you reflect them back as learnings and evidence. The way you take their doubts and pull them apart, this is something most people spend their whole lives wishing someone could do for them.
[00:04:04] You do it for your clients every single day. And like I said at the beginning, it then comes to you, and something completely different happens. So the same brain that can map out a client's entire path forwards in 10 minutes, probably less, with a voice note, that same brain suddenly needs more proof, more time, more certainty, more of something before you allow yourself to commit.
[00:04:46] That same person is running a very different map. I am talking about you. That same you is running a very different map when it comes to believing in yourself.
Believing In Other People Carries No Personal Risk
So why? I hear you ask, "Why, Rebecca? Why is it so much easier for me to believe in everyone else?" When we look at it from the very get go, believing in other people carries no personal risk.
[00:05:18] So just have a think about it. The last person you backed, or really cheered on. When you back your client, when you tell her she is ready, and you champion her potential, and you hold the vision for her of what she is capable of, your belief and her outcome are 2 very separate things.
[00:05:40] If she goes on to smash it, you feel amazing. If she struggles, you support her. You do not take it on, but you probably do. Either way, your belief was never personally on the line. Your identity was never attached to the result. Your belief in her costs you nothing, and that makes it completely safe to give.
What Changes When You Try To Believe In Yourself
[00:06:02] So if we switch that now and look at how to believe in yourself, that is a completely different experience. Because when you back yourself, which I know you want to do, and I also know you are fucking capable of doing, when you say, "Boom, I am ready for this. I can do this. This is mine," your belief and your outcome now become the same thing.
[00:06:27] Now they are linked. So if it does not work, yes, it is disappointing, but it is also evidence against you. Evidence that the belief was wrong, evidence that you should not have backed yourself in the first place. All of that silly wiring we have. Your literal subconscious sees that, and its job, as we know, is to keep you safe, so it registers and goes, "Ugh, okay.
[00:06:57] Okay. We can believe in her, and her, and her, and her. That feels quite safe. Perfect." But when we believe in ourselves and then have to live with the outcome, fucking hell, that feels scary. That feels like a threat. That feels like exposure. So this is why you keep that belief available for everyone else, and it feels very different with you.
[00:07:25] So what your subconscious is doing is very specific and calculated. It has got it very backwards, which is why I wanted to do this podcast in the first place. What your subconscious is missing within all of this is that the cost of not believing in yourself means that version of you stays out of reach, because the belief has never fully been there in the first place.
Believing In Yourself Will Carry You Further Than Anything In Business
[00:07:55] Now, from the many, many clients I have worked with, I could not even tell you the exact number now, the one through line I truly believe, and I have done a podcast episode on this so I will link it in the show notes, is that believing in yourself will carry you further than any other thing you do in business.
[00:08:20] So for me, the reason I wanted to do this episode is because you have belief for other people, and you can do that very easily and very powerfully. A concept we have in NLP is how can we borrow what we do well in other places to help us in the area that currently is not working, or that I currently do not have.
[00:08:45] All that is happening right now, and the reasons you maybe are not believing in yourself, and there are probably quite a few reasons I would be able to dig into, is that conceptually your subconscious is protecting you. It is protecting you. And that might be my responsibility. It is protecting you from responsibility.
What Your Subconscious Is Protecting You From
[00:09:07] When you fully back yourself and believe in yourself, when you step into the version of you who is ready for the next level, who is scaling, who is going bigger, that comes with things attached, does it not? So the things I usually look at with clients are visibility. People can now really fucking see you, and you cannot unsee that.
[00:09:38] Accountability. You said you were ready, and now you have to be. There might be the possibility of disappointment, because if you backed yourself fully and it does not go the way you wanted, that lands very differently than when you did not fully back yourself and you kept 1 foot in, 1 foot out.
[00:09:58] You never really committed, so you could say, "Oh well, it did not work because I did not put my all into it." Do you know how many times clients have said that to me? So it might be the possibility of disappointment, or more than anything, success. Success, scaling, next level success, brings its own bows and whistles.
[00:10:23] That is not the phrase, Rebecca. What is the phrase? Something about whistles. But it brings more eyes. It brings more responsibility. It brings more of everything. So maybe a part of you is asking, "Can I hold that? Am I ready to hold that? Can I sustain that? Oh my God, what do I lose?" And the subconscious takes one look at all of that, the visibility, the accountability, the stakes, the pressure, and it does what it always does.
[00:10:51] It reaches for the familiar, and the familiar for most women is believing in everyone else but ourselves. Believing in your clients is safe. There is no risk on the line. Believing in your friend is safe. There is nothing to lose, maybe tears as you hold her in your arms, but believing in yourself, right now, there is something to lose.
[00:11:15] And this is the brain doing a very sophisticated, almost literal risk assessment. It is just going, "Right, okay, what happened the last time we really fucking believed in ourselves?" And good things might have happened, but it might have come with something else, or it did not go the way you wanted, and therefore there is probably something within that.
[00:11:40] There is probably something within that. So, without us going into the subconscious digging, which I am not doing in today's episode, what I want us to start to flex, like I said, in the way of borrowing from what we do so well for other people, or what we do so well in other areas, I want you to become your own client.
How To Believe In Yourself By Becoming Your Own Client
[00:12:04] This is probably the most practical thing I am going to give you today, and it is the start of how to believe in yourself in real life. What would change if you became your own client and learned to coach yourself? I am my own client, because I am really fucking good at what I do, and I love doing it for myself. What I mean, practically and behaviourally, is how would you treat yourself from this point forward?
[00:12:36] What would really change if you became your own client? Because what I notice with the women I work with is that they are so good at what they do for other people. They are so good at being a coach, a mentor, whatever you are for other people. They show up for other people, and then it comes to themselves, and they are the most difficult client they have ever taken on.
[00:13:13] They are questioning everything. They need more proof. They are not concentrating on any single win they have had. They are catastrophising every single setback, every piece of evidence against them. It is all there. So if your client came to you, and I love this, I do not use this question very often because it is a bit of a cop out.
[00:13:43] If I was doing deep subconscious work I would not be asking you this, but for the concept we are currently looking at, if your client came to you and said, "I am scared I will not be able to hold the next level," what would you do? What would you do?
[00:14:02] What would you really do? Would you not say, "Hmm, interesting. Let us wait and see if you can. Can you? Oh, it looks pretty scary to me. I do not think you should go there. What you are doing right now is more than okay"? No. No. No. I cannot imagine that is what you would be doing. You would find the evidence.
[00:14:30] You would remind her of things. Every time she doubted herself, there are so many things you would do. You would immediately become the most certain person in her world about what she is capable of, and you would send her on her way with that certainty. So the question is, why is she getting that version of you and you are not getting that version of you?
Practise How To Believe In Yourself The Way You Coach Everyone Else
[00:14:59] Now, I know you have practised backing other people for years, and that is probably very deeply grooved within your neural pathways, and learning how to believe in yourself is newer. But let me tell you, it is going to be one of the most life changing experiences if you back yourself the way you back others.
[00:15:24] And it is going to feel unfamiliar right now, and we are going to need to practise it, and it is going to feel like a bigger ask. It is going to feel harder. I know that. We are here for the uncomfortableness. You would not be listening to this podcast if you were not. We are going to need to practise it.
[00:15:40] But this is how to believe in yourself, and I want you to practise it until it becomes as automatic as everything you already do for everyone else. So this is where I want you to start. This week, and I am letting you into my world now and how I coach myself, I want you to either send a voice note or write out what you would write to a coach who would support you, to yourself.
[00:16:21] I want you to speak it out or write it out. I do this in my notes app. I literally coach myself in my notes app. A lot of the time I am coaching myself in my mind, but if it is something bigger that I need to process, I need to see it in black and white in my notes app for me to then start to ask the questions.
[00:16:40] But I want you to literally write to yourself what is currently going on. And then I want you to reply to yourself the way you would reply to a doubting client who has come to you. So in your words, I want you to reply back how you would support them, how you would support a friend, how you would support your child, how you would support your niece or nephew, whoever it is.
[00:17:22] Reply back, coach yourself, and give yourself a nice little talking to. Now, the important bit, and this is what I really want you to flex. This is not me saying do not work with coaches and other people outside of you, but I really want you to start to build this self belief for yourself.
[00:17:43] The important bit is that when you receive that voice note back from yourself, we are almost in what we call perceptual positions in NLP, where you have almost 3 positions you can move yourself to and see it in a different way. What I really want you to have a look at is letting it in the way you would want your client to let in what you are giving her.
[00:18:08] Because when we look at your next level, and where you are going, the version of you who is scaling, or going bigger, or who has stopped playing small, the version of you whose mind and beliefs and identity match the level she is moving to, you already have the proof that you can do that.
[00:18:29] You are just choosing not to let it count right now. You already have the evidence, but you are choosing not to believe it is enough to move forwards. So when you ask how you believe in yourself, this is it. You back yourself with the exact same certainty, and the same speed, and the same goddamn absolute refusal to let doubt become the final word, that you have always given to everyone around you.
Now It's Your Turn, Go Coach Yourself
[00:19:01] I want you to start treating yourself like someone worth believing in. How different would that look in your day to day? How different would you show up? How different would it feel?
[00:19:24] You are already somebody's proof that this is possible. You are already the person in someone else's story who believed in them before they believed in themselves. You have done that for more people than you probably know, and now it is time to put your own name on the list, and to start believing in yourself completely, with the same evidence and the same certainty you give everyone else.
[00:19:58] Honest to God, the next level is waiting for you to believe you already can have it, and that is what is going to change the game for you. I am very excited for you to do this little exercise. Go forth and coach yourself. And also, just from having this conversation with me, and absolutely know it is not a conversation.
[00:20:22] I am just speaking at you right now, but I am speaking with you. I know you are resonating. Let your reticular activating system now become aware of how you big people up, how you cheer them on, how you support them. And when you hear yourself say that, be like, "Hmm, I could be doing that for myself right now.
[00:20:42] Let us switch that on." Because just bringing this to awareness will shift how you see what you do for everyone else, and how you can borrow it for yourself. Ugh, I am super excited for this one. We are going to back yourself as hard as you back everyone else. Okay?
[00:21:03] We are believing in yourself on a whole new fucking level from today.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!