Latest / Women Who Ship / [Bonus] Beyond Certainty Part 2: Why the confidence advice you've been given isn't working
Transcript
- Sarah Williams: Welcome to Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they've already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. I'm your host, Sarah Williams. Let's dive in. Sarah: Hey friends, welcome back to Women Who Ship and our special bonus series, Beyond Certainty, turning great work into the recognition you have earned. In this episode, we're going to talk about why the typical advice for being more confident doesn't always work out. Because you know that you're capable. You have a great track record, you've got all the wins and evidence of success. But sometimes in those high stakes moments, you have an old thought that shows up that holds you back. And you've tried all the things that are typically recommended. You've tried affirmations. You've done the list reviewing your achievements, but for some reason in those high stress moments, it just doesn't hold. And then to add insult to injury, you judge yourself for not being confident. But here's what I want to tell you today. Nothing is wrong with you. The advice was wrong. And more specifically, it was built for someone else. Now I know I've shared this story before, but it applies here as well. several months back, I was in a new role and I was joining a new team. And a lot was coming up with that. There were some very different ways of working for this team. So I was constantly being introduced to new things while I also needed to be a leader on the team. And the really helpful thought that my brain was giving me was, I don't know what I'm doing. And I tried that fake it until you make it positive thinking, but it just wasn't helping. Because that advice assumes that confidence is what's standing between you and the results. But it's not true for the reality of the environments that we navigate as women in tech. So we're told to be confident, but not too aggressive. We're told to speak up, but don't take up too much space. And we're supposed to back ourselves, but be sure not to threaten anyone else. The reality is, fake it until you make it isn't built for what we're navigating. So for me, I had to stop trying to leap to a new thought that I couldn't believe. I had to find a thought that I could actually believe. So in my case, the thought I came up with was, I have managed projects before. This is nothing spectacular. It's not something you'd put on a motivational poster in your office. But what it did was it freed me up to show up differently. So today I want to teach you another lesson that I teach all of my coaching clients, which is the thought ladder. The reason that traditional affirmations, those very positive things like you can do anything you set your mind to, don't work in this type of a situation. It's too much of a stretch for your brain to go from I don't know what I'm doing, to I can do anything I put my mind to. The reality is I don't always know what I'm doing. I didn't in that case. So what you need to do is imagine a ladder. The bottom rung is the thought, I don't know what I'm doing. Then the very top rung is the goal thought, I am capable and exactly where I'm meant to be. What you need to do is find a thought that's in between those two and just a little bit better and a little bit more true and believable for you. That's how I came up with the thought I have managed projects before. And this is why the thought ladder works where fake it till you make it doesn't, especially for women in tech. It doesn't ask you to perform anything. It doesn't ask you to pretend that the tightrope isn't there. It asks you to figure out what's actually true right now and build from there, on your own terms, in your own reality. So, your homework for this week, I want you to go back to the thought that you wrote down after the last video, the one that's been quietly running the show. And I want you to try just one thing. Don't try to replace it with the opposite thought. Instead, find one thought that is just 10% better. One thing that is true right now that is slightly more useful than what you have been thinking. Write it down. That's the rung and that's where the transformation starts. Because here's what happens once you find that rung and start climbing. You're going to need somewhere to climb toward. A thought ladder without a direction is just a nicer feeling. And a nicer feeling without a clear goal is energy with nowhere to go. In the next episode, we're going to talk about what you're actually building toward. Because most high-achieving women I work with have been climbing toward a goal that was never really theirs to begin with. And that changes everything. I'm glad you're here. Let's go ship some good stuff together.