EP.32 - How to Live Life Confidently and Authentically
SHOW NOTES:
Confidence and authenticity are essential aspects of living a fulfilling life, allowing you to navigate challenges, embrace growth, and make genuine connections with others.
How can you develop your inner confidence and stay true to yourself in the face of life's uncertainties and pressures?
The key is understanding you are not the only player in the game of life and recognising your ability to adapt and navigate through change. You can practise fearless authenticity by making decisions based on your true feelings and honouring your imperfections.
Remember, it's about discovering your true self and learning to say 'no' when it's the right decision for you. This journey of self-discovery and confidence-building may be challenging, but with curiosity, self-awareness, and a supportive community, it can lead to a more empowered and authentic life.
Here are the key takeaways from this episode:
01:52 - Confidence is not something that you acquire; it’s an experience.
04:16 - To be confident is to know that at every moment, you are already stepping into the unknown.
08:36 - Know that you are not the only player in this game of life.
09:33 - Give yourself space to reflect and appreciate how far you've come despite everything.
11:18 - Show up every day as you are with fearless authenticity.
15:58 - The way we live our lives, is how we model our living standards to other people.
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About Me:
I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.
Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Knowing that you are stepping into the unknown, that no matter what plans you make, that no matter how certain you are about what's coming next, there's a whole world of unknown and that unknown are all the things you haven't experienced yet. So being aware that there's a whole world out there in every moment that you live that hasn't yet been discovered is part of living life with confidence. Being confident is about knowing that you don't know everything.
[00:00:41] Hey there. Welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, your safe space. Listen, lean in and learn the diversity of human experiences through the lens of fearless curiosity. When we learn more about each other, we also learn more about ourselves. How? Because when we listen to each other's curiosities and experiences, we relate to that which is in common, and that which sets us apart, gives us something to reflect on. We learn through and with each other. I'm grateful to you, the global community, for your curious questions. The Fearlessly Curious Podcast cannot exist without you.
[00:01:28] Hi everyone. Welcome to the Fearless Curious Podcast. I'm Melissa Indot and I'm your host today, and today I've got a really great topic. A lot of people ask me, how are you so confident? How do I gain this level of self-confidence that you have? Confidence, a little bit like courage is not something that you acquire.
[00:01:52] Confidence for me is about an experience. When you are confident with something, or at least when I'm confident with something, the few odd times where I have been so confident about doing a show as a singer songwriter, getting up on stage or very confident about giving a presentation or super confident about delivering a masterclass, that the outcome has always been less than what I expected.
[00:02:19] It's never really quite met the mark. I can at least can promise you the two times that I've been on stage before doing a gig, doing a show, and I've been so confident have been the two shows that I made the most errors in that I bungled up the most. That on the scale of 1 to 10, I felt that I performed at my very worst.
[00:02:40] So how do you be more confident about yourself? It's more about having faith in the moment, it's really about trusting how you're gonna navigate each moment as it reveals itself. Confidence is not an end point. Confidence is a experience. It's about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. A little bit like courage.
[00:03:03] What you can be confident of is that no moment is ever gonna fail you. When we come into a situation, at least from my perspective, with the utmost confidence, then I'm gonna be blindsided. I'm gonna miss the nuances of how someone is feeling, how someone is responding to something that I'm sharing, or what is happening in the field of life itself.
[00:03:29] I'm not going to be attuned to my external world because I'm going to be hyper focused on what's going on mine, which is I feel great, I feel confident, I know what I'm gonna say, and it becomes all about me. Now remember, this is my perspective. How to be more confident about yourself is knowing that I am going to be imperfect.
[00:03:53] I'm sure that I'm gonna show up without perfection. Just that right now recording this podcast, I'm gonna be ums and ahs, there’s gonna be things are not gonna make sense to everybody, and that's okay, because not everything makes sense on paper. Not everything makes sense in theory. It only makes sense when you've experienced it.
[00:04:16] It's how to be more confident about yourself is knowing that you are at every moment you are stepping into the unknown, that no matter what plans you make, that no matter how certain you are about what's coming next, there's a whole world of unknown. And that unknown are all the things you haven't experienced yet.
[00:04:38] The unknown is everything that you haven't seen yet and that possibly you can't see yet. So knowing that, being aware that there's a whole world out there, and every moment that you live that hasn't yet been discovered is part of living life with confidence. It's kind of exponential, this conversation.
[00:05:01] Being confident is about knowing that you don't know everything, being certain of uncertainty, but more importantly, knowing that you are the evidence, you are living proof that you can navigate uncertainty cuz you do it every day. Let me break it down for you. You set an alarm. Right. You know that your alarm is gonna go off, but there's gonna be some days where your alarm didn't go off, or maybe your alarm did go off, but you didn't hear it, and so you woke up and you woke up in a panic cuz maybe you overslept, didn't hear the alarm go.
[00:05:42] But you know what? You still got through your day. But instead of remembering that you got through your day, you remember how you didn't. That you were late for all your meetings. You don't remember that at the end of the day, you made those meetings and those meetings happened and that you got through your day.
[00:06:03] Every meeting that was pushed, you still made it, or maybe you missed the meeting, but what really is the greater impact of having missed the meeting? You still survived the day. You still navigated the uncertainties that were thrown at you during that day. And so therefore there is your proof that you will get through whatever life throws at you.
[00:06:29] You don't need to worry that you won't because you will. And how do you know you will is because you've already done it, day after day after day after day. We are constantly navigating the unknown. Things show up. A car suddenly cuts in front of you in traffic and you navigate that. The waiter spills water on the table over all your work, but it didn't stop you from still getting that work done.
[00:06:55] I may have delayed you, but perhaps that delay was required for you to create more time, to contemplate the proposal you were submitting. Or maybe the save button on that big project you wrote didn't work, and so none of it was saved, but I'm so hyper focused at how angry I am that it didn't save that I lose perspective on the fact that maybe what I'm gonna write next is going to be better.
[00:07:25] I don't trust. I don't have confidence that there is more to life than just me, that there are universal forces at play, and whether you come from a scientific perspective or we talk about physics and we talk about the elements, and we talk about energies from a scientific perspective. Or whether you come from a spiritual perspective where we can talk about spirit guides and spirit angels even guiding us.
[00:07:54] Whatever perspective you come from, you only need to stop for this moment. Look out the window and see there is more to life in this world than just you. There's other people walking around. There's other systems. The clouds in the sky, the sun, the rain, the storm that's approaching the flower, the plants, the the earth beneath you.
[00:08:16] These are multi-layered ecosystems. All existing alongside you. This life isn't just about you. There's a whole bunch of other things going on. And so when things don't happen according to your plan, you are navigating that. You're navigating that without even thinking. You are actually a master at this.
[00:08:36] So how to be more confident about yourself is knowing that you are not the only player in this game of life. That there are other collaborative energies, collaborative components that are playing a part in your journey. Some you know about and you can control, some you know about and you can't control, some you don't know about, but all of it has a part to play in your life.
[00:09:08] So the confidence that you have in yourself I go back to is knowing that whatever happens in life, you will get through it. Where is the proof? You're listening to this right now. You've got this far in your life, whether you're 21, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60. Listening to this, you have got through life. You have got through all the uncertainties.
[00:09:33] How to be confident about yourself is giving yourself the space to reflect and say, man, look how far I've come despite this, despite sickness. Despite redundancy, despite failing my exams, despite my divorce, despite my grief, despite my addiction, despite just hating myself almost of my life, despite all the secrets that I'm holding in my heart, despite my guilt, despite my shame, despite my frustration, despite my anger, despite my disappointment, despite my dark moments, despite my depression, despite those periods in my life where I just wanna give up.
[00:10:11] Despite the pain and suffering that I see in the world on the news, the war, the famine, the conflict, the pain, the struggle, the sickness, the drought, the earthquakes, the natural disasters that I see in the world. Despite all that, I'm still here and I'm still here with you and I'm not doing this alone.
[00:10:36] And then I can reflect on all the people who are standing by me, who supported me knowingly and unknowingly through their love, their active connection. And also all the people who have not been there for me, all the people who have not been there for you, all the people who rejected and abandoned you and cast you aside, they all have a part to play in the way that you are navigating life.
[00:11:00] Because these rejections, as you've heard me say before, redirections, all the people who have rejected and abandoned you are teaching you something about you or showing you something about you could be a lack of boundaries. It could be how you see yourself, they don't value you because do you value yourself?
[00:11:18] And if they don't value you and you do value yourself, then isn't it very clear that they are not meant to be in your field, that they're not the right people to collaborate with you? How do you be confident with yourself? Show up every day as you with fearless authenticity showing up. Covers a whole spectrum of behaviours.
[00:11:37] It means when you feel the fear, do it anyway. It means some days when you feel the fear, take a moment. It means some days when you feel the fear, don't do it. There is no one size fits all. This is what this podcast is all about. Fearlessly curious is all about you getting curious about yourself, asking yourself, not necessarily why, but does this feel right for me?
[00:12:01] How do you know if it feels right for you? I can't tell you because each of us are different, but the more that you get curious about yourself and you tune in, you connect with your body in every different experience that you have, you are going to start to see a pattern. You're going to start to see what a yes feels like in your body, and you're gonna get a very clear idea of what a no feels like.
[00:12:23] You're also going to get a sense of how much time you need to give yourself. In order to receive your answer of yes or no. Some of us it's instant. Like for me, it's in my gut it, and it sounds like a mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right there in the moment. And the clear thing, the most important thing about getting answers or tuning into how an answer shows up for you is knowing that a yes is a yes.
[00:12:45] Okay. It's a fuck yes. You feel that. You feel that either in your gut, in your heart, it's a sense you just know it. Whether it's in the moment or it's in one day or it's in a week, or whether you process it out loud and you talk it through with someone, or you journal it out. When you get that yes, you know it's a yes.
[00:13:04] No matter how short a time or long a time it takes. You know it, you know it, you know it, and it's not because you think you know it, it's because you know it, it lives in your body. The thing is when you get a no, It's also very clear. It's a hell no, no fucking way. Again, whether it, the answer comes in a short space of time or over a long period of time, whether you are like a mm in the gut or your heart contracts, right?
[00:13:27] Or when you talk it through with someone, you're like, yeah, no, this just doesn't feel right. Well, it's just that sense. It's a very clear no, but what happens when you don't get an answer? I wonder how many of you, when you don't get an answer, go to the Yes. Anyway. I wonder, I ask you that. I want you to reflect on that because what I want you to get so clear on my friends is that when you don't get an answer, it's not a yes.
[00:13:53] When you don't get an answer, it's not a yes. Do you get it? So that means when you don't get an answer, it's a no. For now, we find it hard to say no. Well, at least I do. I'm sensing from the people around me. This information I get from my clients and from the community members. Nobody likes to say no because let me ask you, do you like to hear a no?
[00:14:13] No. Right? I know I don't. And because I don't like to hear a no. I don't like to give other people a no, but we need to get confident with what's right by us. We need to get. So confident because it's not something that lives in our minds. It's not something I think I should do, but it's something that I know in my body, in every freaking cell of my body that this is the right decision and that decision is a yes, cuz I feel it.
[00:14:38] It's a no because I feel it and it's a no right now because I don't have clarity right now. No is a complete sentence. And remember, for those people pleasers out there, I'm one. Forever recovering people pleaser cuz I don't like to say no to people. Cause I don't like how no feels to me. I remind myself that saying no to someone else is saying yes to me.
[00:15:06] And when I take care of me, I am taking care of everybody because I'm telling the truth. The truth in this moment in time. I can't predict how I'm gonna feel tomorrow. But I know right now in my body what I feel when I'm connected, what I'm confident about, because it's embodied. I'm feeling an every muscle, every cell in my body.
[00:15:30] It's indisputable. I can claim that right now, and if tomorrow I feel differently about that, I can claim it in that moment. And if someone says to me, oh, but you gave me a different answer, yes, there I'll be yes. Because yesterday was a different moment and since then, this, this, that, and the other happened and it's a different answer today and we can find a way to navigate this change together.
[00:15:58] It's scary. I know it's a scary world out there. Only because remember that the way we live our lives, is how we model to other people, the quality and the standard of life that we expect to be given back to us. So when I can honour somebody for changing their decision and it's valid, they can validate that, okay, there has to be some level of validation.
[00:16:26] It's not because they just made a decision on a whim, then I can respect that. But me inviting you to create space to be very discerning about the choices that you make, that you be confident with your choices by getting into your body, by knowing that you can navigate change is very important because there are three things that are guaranteed in life taxes.
[00:16:48] Well, not everybody pays taxes, haha. Death, that's guaranteed. And the other thing we can be guaranteed of is change. So the least I can do is be really clear when I'm being asked to make a decision, is to be confident with my choice and also confident about how I'm gonna navigate any change that may come with a change of a decision.
[00:17:11] Cause life is always changing and so am I. But at least in any given moment in time, I can honour my truth with fearless authenticity. And the way to discover my truth is to be fearlessly curious, is to ask myself, does this feel right? To explore and discover what the different sensations in my bodies, what they're telling me.
[00:17:34] I will see a pattern. But it begins with starting to experiment with that by asking these questions. In every moment you ask something, feel into your body, how does this feel? Am I getting a gut feeling? Am I feeling my heart expand? Is it a sense and instinct? Is it something I need to take time with? Do I need to talk this out with somebody?
[00:17:52] Is it something I need to journal? Do I need to get outta my head? Am I in my head? Am I doing making a decision? Cuz I think I should, because I don't really wanna be making a decision from my head. My head is full of thoughts and ideas, not just my own, but from other people. So how do I know when I'm making a decision in my head based on somebody else's opinions?
[00:18:12] I'd rather drop into what feels right for me in the moment. And I'm not talking about emotions. I'm talking about being rooted like a plan in the earth, feeling into this moment, gathering information and data from life itself. I'm gonna pause it there. We've been through so much today already, so this has been an incredible episode to contemplate and share my contemplations with you, and I'm changing the vibe of the podcast.
[00:18:39] Those of you who've been following for a while, I'm gonna hear that I wanna do things on the fly. I'm not gonna self-edit as I've been before, I've been like, oh, that doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound smooth. I'm jumping back and forth. I need to make this more structured. That's what people are saying I should do.
[00:18:54] You know what? I just need to be me because like, you know, my values are fearless curiosity and fearless authenticity, and my thoughts are not always organised. My process is to speak things out loud and to play with different ideas and to verbalise them and put them out there until I gain clarity. And the thing is, you might be on that journey with me and you might gain that clarity with me and be aligned, or you may gain the clarity that you are completely not aligned, and that's also okay for permission to not agree with me, but at least you now know that you have a different perspective.
[00:19:28] That is the whole point. Not to agree with me, but to be in discourse, to be in dialogue, to discover something new about yourself. Discover who you are and discover who you are not. So thank you for joining me today and I look forward to hanging out with you on another episode. And if this went by super fast for you, listen to it again.
[00:19:48] Make sure you're on my mailing list cuz I'm gonna summarise some key points for you to take away. And obviously, or maybe it's not obvious, but in my social content, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, even YouTube shorts, I normally post little takeaway bullet points as well to break things down for you.
[00:20:07] But rather than go for the hacks, I would go for the full experience. Subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the mailing list, get on the YouTube channel so you can watch me too, right? Consume and integrate. Embody this information, not by listening to it once but a few times. Have it playing in the background.
[00:20:27] Have it playing in the car. Listen to it with a friend or with friends. Have a conversation about it. Share with me what your takeaways were. Challenge me. Because it's all about getting curious with it. Give me a new concept. I'm all for that. I'm on this journey with you. I'm not here to teach or preach.
[00:20:46] I'm here to share my experience and activate your curiosity so that you can learn from me, but also I wanna learn from you what's the point of this life on, unless we are sharing and gaining wisdom from each other. So until next time, my friends remember. Stay fearlessly curious.
[00:21:14] If you want more, make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode every Friday. And please leave a review if you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send me your curious questions and experiences as inspiration for future episodes. Your anonymity will be respected. If that's what you prefer. For more guidance and support, join my emotional healing, mindfulness and music community over at melissaindot.com. See you next week.
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