151. Confidence isn't a size - How to start showing up now

Ever felt like you need to change your body before you can start feeling confident? Maybe you’ve told yourself you’ll wear the outfit, post the video, or speak up at work... once you’ve lost weight or when you feel better in your skin. Sound familiar?

In this episode, we’re busting the myth that confidence is something you earn once you’ve reached a certain size. 

Confidence isn’t about how you look – it’s about how you show up. And you honestly don’t have to wait until you feel 100% ready to start building it.

I’ll walk you through:

• Why we’re conditioned to believe smaller = more confident
• What really builds confidence (it’s not your jeans size)
• How to stop waiting for the “right time” to take action
• 5 small, practical ways to start showing up now, just as you are

Whether you're struggling with body confidence, holding back in your business, or avoiding putting yourself forward in your job, this episode will give you the nudge and the know-how to take up space unapologetically.

You don’t need to wait to feel more confident. You can start now.

🧡 If you loved this episode...

Please hit subscribe so you never miss a chat.

Get your kitchen & pantry makeover checklist here

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health at every size. And shaking off weight stigma, diet, culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Hello, how are you? Another week, another episode. Actually, it's not another week. I will let you in on a little secret sometimes. I don't record these episodes. On the week that they're released. More often than not I do, but sometimes like today, I'm recording a couple back to back. So last week I talked to you about Luna and the trip to the vets. I don't have an update for you because we haven't been yet. It's still the same day, and when I recorded the last one, I was drinking bubble tea. Now I've had a little break. Now I'm coming to you with a glass of Tango Mango. Have you tried it? I don't think I'll get it again. It's a little bit sweet for me. I'm not that much of a fan, I don't think. It also means I don't have any listener comments to report back on because. The episode that I recorded before, this one hasn't even gone out yet, so you haven't had a chance to reply. Get where I'm going with this. Good 'ere, isn't it? Uh, so yeah, actually, I just wanted to let you know that because last episode I said to you, give me your comments, tell me what you think about this, and I'll put it in a section in the next episode. And here we are at the next episode. When I was recording that one, I didn't even think that I was doing this one straight after, so silly me. But yeah, sometimes I have to record a couple of these in advance if I've got a busy week coming up. So that's where we're at today. But listen to comments and things. We'll start next week, so keep 'em coming today. Let's talk about confidence, right? Confidence is not a size. That is easy for me to say, sitting here talking to you, recording in the comfort of my office. I am well aware that your confidence is affected by your size, so I'm not invalidating that. Your thoughts, your feelings are very valid around your body and how confidently that makes you show up. But what I wanna do is give you a little bit of a pep talk and tell you some truths about the confidence myths that we have been sold, and to help you to think about it slightly differently. You know, when you've been putting something off until you feel ready for it. Things like, I'll go to that class when I feel a bit more confident. I'll start going to this event when I've lost some weight. I'll wear that dress when I've lost some weight. That sort of stuff. That's what we're talking about today. I'm going to help you get the confidence to start doing these things regardless before you lose some weight. Now. Because life is for living, right? Life is short. Life flies by in no time at all. I was literally talking to somebody about this the other day. We were talking about where the time has gone and, and I said, yeah. I said, it's really bizarre because when I last did that, or when I was talking about that, I can't remember even what the situation was now, but I said, yeah, when I did that. I just had my second child, and now here we are 20 years later. Literally 20 years later, and it goes by in a flash. And when I look back at my life and all the things that I did or didn't do because of the way I felt about myself, missed out on so much, and it's really important. I really, really feel very passionately about this. It's really important that you start to live your life now. You let that go. Stop waiting. Stop waiting for the time to come when you feel better about yourself, because perhaps just perhaps you could feel better about yourself by doing these things regardless, right? So this is what this episode's about. Your confidence isn't about your size, but this is about how to start showing up now. I see so much of it. It's really, really sad. I am guilty of having done it myself, not anymore. This is not how I choose to live my life now, but I find it really sad when I see people who are not doing things because of the way they feel about how they look. So let's dive into this a little bit. These are the messages that we grow up with. Okay. Whether it's from parents, friends, family, people on the internet. We grow up with these messages that in order to be able to do things or to be confident or to feel a certain way, or to have X, Y, and Z in life, you have to be thinner and everything that we see. Reinforces this. So if you think about the classic before and after pictures in magazines, in Slimming Ads in, oh God, slimming ads, actually big one. In slimming magazines, in the posters for adverts, you see a photo of the person before they lost weight and a pho photo of the person after they've lost weight, the photo of them before they lost weight. Well, that's never a picture of them looking happy and having a good time and living their life to the full. Is it? It's always a photo of them probably eating, sat in their. Most rubbish clothes looking unhappy. And then the after picture is them smiling, wearing something bold, standing up tall, head up, you know, having a great life and it's drilled in. Smaller equals. Happier people are complimented more when they lose weight without a doubt. And as you lose weight, you get complimented and praised for it, and it creates this impression that thinner means more worthy, more admirable, more confident marketing and media portray this all the time. Powerful, successful, confident people are slim, especially women. And it reinforces this link all the time. The message is everywhere. When you shrink your body, you grow with confidence. And do you know what I want to lovingly call A little bit of nonsense on that idea. So this conditioning just to, you know, make you feel better about this. This conditioning is not your fault, but you do get to challenge it and you do get to change it. Right. It's time to flip a switch. It's time to turn this story around. What actually builds confidence is not that stuff. Confidence does not come from how you look. It comes from what you do, how you behave, how you put yourself out there. And the more you do put yourself right there, the more you do try and challenge these beliefs about where your confidence should come from. The more you do that, the more you are able to be confident. Be genuinely confident. You have to start proving to yourself that you can handle these situations. And in the beginning it's a little bit awkward, right? It's a little bit uncomfortable. You get the thoughts like, well, what will they think? What will they think about me? What will they think? Who's they? You know, the people. The people that are gonna be there, or the people following you on social media or you know, just people, but never yourself. You always worry about what other people are gonna think about what you are doing and how you are being confident and how you are putting yourself forward and out there. Confidence is things like being in a meeting and asking the question that you have. Even though your heart's pounding, I know that feeling all very well. I used to sit in a meeting and think, oh, I've got something to say. I need to say something. Or I need to ask something. And you can feel it rising. You can feel it churning up in your stomach. You can start to feel a little bit of adrenaline. You get a little bit shaky, you get a little bit nervous and your heart's pounding. And then you're going, right. I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna ask in a minute. Okay. It's my time. Okay. Um, I'd just like to say. Ask the question, give your opinion. Be the voice in the room. That's what confidence is. It's going to a wedding and dancing on the dance floor, even though you attempted to cancel because nothing felt flattering when you were trying it on. Don't even get me started about that word flattering, by the way. But you weren't gonna go to this wedding. You were just gonna stay at home. You were gonna make your excuses, you're feeling unwell, you must have eaten something. Um, one of the kids is Ill, whatever, whatever excuse suits you fish it out and you are gonna tell them you're not going. And what if you went, what if you went and you had a good time? What if you wore something I. That you really liked wearing, even if you were gonna wonder what other people would think about what you've chosen to wear today. What if you got on the dance floor? I keep saying this because it's a biggie. How many times have you shrunk down back in the room somewhere? Oh, I'll just sit here on my chair and I'll watch everybody else having a nice time. I'll just sit here and have a drink. Um, I'll just sit here and I'll just say, my feet are aching or something. It'll be fine. Kick off your shoes. Get up and go and enjoy the party with everybody else. Why should you not do that? The only thing that's stopping you is a lack of confidence. Confidence is hit and publish on a video that you've recorded for social media or sharing a photo on social media even though your inner critic is screaming at you. These are really good examples of where we let confidence get in the way and where if we just had that bit of confidence. We could put ourselves out there and have a really great experience. It's never about waiting until the fear disappears. It is doing the thing with the fear still there and letting confidence grow through that process. There's a famous saying, isn't there? Feel the fear. Do it anyway. I don't always agree with that. Because I think there will be some situations where that is not appropriate and not safe, but in this situation with confidence building, yeah, I'm on board with that. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Be nervous, be a little anxious. Worry a little bit, be a bit scared for what might happen or what people might say, or what people might think. But I think you'll find. When it's confidence growing like this, you are gonna get such a good response that it can only be a feel good thing. If you go to that wedding and you kick off your shoes and you dance and you've worn the dress that you really like, all people are gonna think is. Oh yeah. We had such a good time together, didn't we? Oh, it was great seeing you last night. Thanks for, you know, dancing with me. Thanks for being my drinking buddy. Thanks for, you know, whatever it is. They are just gonna remember having a really good time with you. What if you post that photo or that video on social media and the response that you get is, oh, this is such a lovely photo of you. Oh my goodness. Don't you look happy. Oh, this is such a, I don't know, um, thought provoking important, uh, what, whatever it is. I don't know. I don't know. You tell me what the comments might be, but what if all those comments. Oh, positive. What if people are like happy to see you posting yourself on social media? What if you pop up in their feed and they see this beautiful, smiling, happy face, and they look at it and think, oh, I haven't seen her for ages. Oh, I really miss her. I must get in touch with her. Oh, what a great photo. Oh my God, you're so photogenic. We never look at ourselves kindly in photos and videos. Do we remember? So why not give it a go? You might be surprised at how many people actually compliment you. What if you ask your question in that meeting or give your thoughts what could happen? What a brilliant suggestion. Oh, that is great. We haven't thought of it in that, in that way before, so, yeah. Great. We'll, we'll make some notes on that. Thank you. Or yeah, no problem. That's not, that's a great question. Let me, let me answer that for you. Nobody is gonna be at that meeting and say to you, pipe down, love, what do you know? Or hush. Don't have time for your questions right now. No one's gonna do that, are they? So what is the worst that can happen through you actually speaking up or asking the question? When you do this stuff, when you put yourself in these little kind of moments of discomfort, what you actually end up doing is empowering yourself. You find out that not that bad. You find out that the world didn't end, you didn't die, and. You don't need to live in the darkness where nobody can see you for the rest of your life. Hmm. It's confidence building. It's really, really good. And when you get a little bit of a taste for it and you realize that this is good stuff, you just keep going and you wanna do more of it, waiting for the right time never works either. This is a really important point. I think I'll feel better once I. Lose weight, get fitter, have new clothes sort out my skin color, my hair, whatever it is. It just creates this illusion that confidence is just one more achievement away. I. So many people tell me I'll be more confident when I feel better about my body. I will be more confident when I'm thinner. I'll be more confident when I look different. But guess what? I've also worked with people who have lost weight and sometimes quite a lot of weight. And actually I'll put myself in this bracket. I lost an awful lot of weight. Put it all back on more. And you know what? Myself and the clients that I work with, they still felt just as anxious, just as self-critical, just as stuck when they were in that thinner body. And that's because your body is not the problem. It's not the problem. It's the way you think about your body. It's the way that you think others will think about your body. That's the problem. And that can be changed without changing a single thing about how you look. You can change that. So how do you start showing up now? How does that work? Well, let's get practical, right? I'm gonna give you, I don't know, a handful of things that you can do today. Nobody body transformation required. Okay. First, wear the clothes. Just wear the clothes. Wear the clothes that you've been saving, the dress, the top, the skirts, the shoes, all the stuff that you've been keeping by because they're too nice to wear. Or I'll wear them when I've lost weight. Wear them now. I spoke to Samantha Harmon just a handful of of episodes ago, two, three episodes ago, and she goes deep into this stuff. So if you haven't listened to that yet, go back and listen to it. But she will tell you, I asked her explicitly what she thinks about people who get dressed up for a day at work, even if it's in their own home office. And her message is absolutely do it. Wear the clothes they make you feel good. If you've got stuff in your wardrobe and it's just that they're waiting for the day. When you feel better about your body, when are you going to wear it? Wear the clothes. Now the confidence comes from showing your brain that you can wear those clothes and you can survive those feelings and you can overcome them and feel better. You are allowed to feel good in your clothes, not weight loss from now, not in a better lighting, not in a better location. Now you are allowed to feel good in your clothes. You are allowed to wear whatever you like at whatever time of day and night, unless obviously you have a uniform or semi to wear to work, then not so much, but you know what I mean. Practice little acts of micro bravery as well. Let's call it that micro bravery. You don't have to go all in straight away. I'm not asking you to just step out into the street, open your front door, sling of the doors, open, wide, and yell into the street that I am the most confident being that ever walks of the earth, right? I'm not asking you to do this. You don't have to go all in straight away. Confidence actually comes from lots of tiny little acts of courage. So challenge yourself with something. Challenge yourself to do something very small, but something you wouldn't do. So if you walk down the street and your lack of confidence means that you are not gonna look at anybody, okay? You are not going to look up. You just walk head down. Don't make contact with anybody, just get what you need to do, done and go home. Well, maybe this time you could go out and you could walk with your head up and you could make eye contact with somebody and smile a complete stranger. Don't you love it when people do that to you when they're walking down the street and you catch their eye and then they beam this nice big smile at you and you're like, ah, they're having a really nice day. Oh, that makes me feel good. What if you did that? What if you were the person that made somebody else feel good?'cause you made eye contact and smiled, and at the same time, it makes you feel good too. What if you spoke up just once in a meeting? You don't have to have any massive, uh, groundbreaking suggestions. Maybe you just contribute a little to somebody else's suggestion. Maybe you say, I think that's a good idea because maybe you say, I don't think it's a good idea because just speak up just once and see how that feels. Maybe today you take a selfie and you post it. Now it might take you 20 attempts at that selfie, but. If you take a selfie and you post it somewhere online, that's putting yourself out there. That's doing something that takes a little bit confidence and a little bit courage. Don't use filters though. We wanna see your beautiful face as it is, not with some really weirdly skimmed over fake complexion. Okay. Just you and your beautiful smile. You could just post this selfie that says, having a lovely day. I hope you are too, and see what response you get. I bet the responses are, oh, so lovely to see your face. Oh, glad you're having a lovely day. I'm having a lovely day. Or it'll say something like, you've brightened my day up. Thank you. Or go on, give it a go. Maybe you could introduce yourself at an event. If you have to go somewhere. If you have to be somewhere, maybe you could introduce yourself to somebody instead of somebody coming to you and making an introduction on kind of from them. You know what if you tried that bravery in all these tiny little doses soon adds up and it's like building a muscle. The more you do it, the easier it gets. So like going to the gym, the more you lift the weights, the easier they get. And then you go up a level and then you know, you might struggle with a new weight for a little bit, but after a while your body goes, I got this. Not a problem. Up you go. It's the same with your courage. It's the same with your confidence. You try something little and you're like, oh, that wasn't the end of the world was it? That wasn't so bad. I'll give that a go another day, and then maybe you post another photo or maybe you talk to somebody in the street or the supermarket or you know, some random place you find yourself. But over time, all the little attempts at it soon become this big. Confident picture and it's lovely, so why not give it a go? Just tiny little, what did I call it? Micro braveries. Yeah, try that. Curate your content. Curate your social media feeds. Social media can be a real cnce sapper, but it can also be very inspiring, so you get to choose what it is for you. You get to choose whether you follow people who look like you, who show up confidently in diverse bodies, who live joyful lives without waiting to be smaller. You get to choose that, or you get to choose a feed full of people who realistically you are never gonna be like. People who are only confident because they're in teeny tiny little bodies who will never be you because you don't have that frame. Your body is not designed to be that way. Or you know, people who are singing the praises of a diet they're on, or God forbid, these new jabs that are doing the rounds at the moment, that is everywhere, isn't it? That is everywhere on social media, and I don't like it. I, it is showing up in my feeds all the time, and I don't like it, but you get to choose. I get to hit block on those people when they show up in my accounts. I quite clearly tell the algorithms that is not what I wanna see. If your feed is full of what I eat in a day type videos. How to get a flat stomach reels. You are not doing your brain any favors. All you are doing is reinforcing the idea that that's what you need to do. That's who you need to be. So change it. Make your feed full of the good stuff. The people that you want to be like, the people you wanna be like because of their confidence, because of what they give to the world, because of how they speak, not because of their body type. There are loads of these people out there. Go find them. They make your social media a much nicer place to be. And watch your inner voice, that little voice in your head. Is it cheering you on or is it tearing you down? Start paying attention to that and then try replacing harsh thoughts with neutral thoughts or kind thoughts. Even just noticing these thoughts is a really powerful place to start. If you know that you are criticizing yourself all the time, that you're talking down about your body, that you're telling yourself you look terrible, that you're telling yourself you can't achieve this, that and the other because of your body size or shape, that is all having an impact. Your brain. It does not really know the difference between you saying it to yourself and somebody else saying it to you. All it does is hears it and reinforces it, and it embeds it more and more and more. Turn it around, make those thoughts nicer, and it might be that you have to actively recognize those thoughts, hear them, and then go, no, no, no. I need to stop doing that. Even if you can't immediately replace it with a positive or a neutral, just even hearing it and going, no, no, we don't do that anymore. That's a really great place to start. And then actually you can progress that. And you go, oh, nope. We don't talk about that like that anymore. I don't make comments on my body like that anymore. Actually, today. My body looks pretty good in these clothes that I'm wearing. You know, you, you can start to turn those thoughts around. It's really important because all these things just embed and embed and embed in the brain and you end up believing it and you end up saying to yourself more and more and more and connect with people who get it. I know I've said about curating your social media feed, but this is slightly different. Confidence grows in community too, right? You know, when you used to go to a diet club and there were all the people in the group, they felt like people who know you, they felt like people who get you, they understand your struggles, blah, blah, blah. They were also reinforcing though, that if you do this, you can be like me. You know, there's always the one person who loses so much weight every week, isn't there? There's always the person that's at goal weight and you can't wait to be like them. That sort of thing. This is what I mean by it grows with a community. So what if your community was friends or another group or a coach? They all believe the same things that you believe about what confidence should be. What confidence can be. Friends who just get it are the best friends that you can talk to about this stuff. Family you can talk to about this stuff. It's brilliant, but not everybody has that. And that's why I've got my group, the Eat From Within membership. That's what that is there for. And the women in there, they tell me, and they've said it in group settings, if they didn't have that group to talk to about this stuff, they don't know really who they talk to because, because it's a hard thing to discuss with people who don't understand. So you're very welcome. Got literally. Just a couple of spaces left because I keep it nice and small. I've got a couple of spaces in the group, so if you want in, then come and join us. It's so lovely. It's such a nice, supportive space. Or a coach, you know, if you don't want to talk in a group, I do coaching, as you know, and a coach can just be that person that sits and works through. These thoughts with you and figures out where the lack of confidence is coming from and how to improve the confidence and how to build, how to make steps forward that suit you as an individual in your circumstances. It's just brilliant. When I hear from clients that are telling me, oh, I've tried this and this worked and this feels great now. Then I'm like, right, brilliant. Where do we go now? Then what? What do we work on? I love it. I love it so much. You can make such massive strides forward. So if you want me to help you, then do drop me a message. I'd love, love, love to work with you, but either which way, whatever your options, surround yourself with people who remind you that you are already enough, they then just help to boost you up. It makes a massive difference. It's really hard to feel confident when you are constantly trying to do it alone. So let other people in, let them hype you up, let them make you feel good. So confidence really isn't about your size. It's about a series of choices. And every time you choose to show up as you are, you are proving yourself that you can. Every time you choose to take a step forward, to put yourself out there, to have a voice, to post a photo, to get up and dance, you know, whatever it is. Any time you choose to show up, really show up in life as you are. You are proving to yourself that you can be confident and that you don't have to wait. So maybe here's a nice affirmation for you today. I don't have to wait to shrink myself to take up space in the world. Do you like that? I don't have to wait to shrink myself to take up space in the world. You don't need to do all this at once. Just start small. Start changing the way you behave. Start changing the way you think. Go find something nice to put on right now. Go make yourself feel good. Put on the jewelry, do your nails, put on some makeup if that's what you want. Get those clothes out that you never wear because you're saving them for somewhere special or whatever it is. But go make yourself feel good and then go take up that space. So a reminder, if this is something you're working on and you want support with building your confidence in your body, in your life, in your business, whatever it is, I'd love to help you. You can book a coaching session with me and we'll work through it together. The links are all in the show notes, obviously. Um, so yeah, let's, let's leave it there. Hopefully that's been motivating and positive, and you can go take on the world now. Yes. Okay. So until next time, wear the dress, say the thing, and know that you are worthy of taking up space. Love you. Bye.