Latest / Notes to Her / Note 83: Quit Trying to Become Someone Else

Transcript

Note 83: Quit Trying to Become Someone Else · Notes to Her

• 0:14
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome back Notes to Her, the daily pep talk. I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, here to help you stop shrinking, stop second guessing, and start becoming the woman that you know you are meant to be. Well, that was a tongue twister.
• 0:28
  Let me ask you a question. Have you ever watched a woman speak up in a meeting without apologizing first or turned down a request without a ten minute explanation? Or maybe she walks into a room like she belonged there and you felt a little pang of envy. Maybe you even thought, I wish I was like that. I've thought it too more often than I'd like to admit.
• 0:50
  For a long time, I believed that those women were simply built differently. I figured that they may... Maybe they came out the box confident, and the rest of us got hands at overthinking and second guessing. Now if that's a story that you've been telling yourself, today's no is going to challenge that gently because a lot of women think becoming her means turning into somebody completely different, being more fearless, more bold, more certain, a woman that you haven't met yet. And that belief keeps so many of us waiting at the starting line for a stranger to show up.
• 1:19
  So stay with me because I'm gonna share a piece of my own story, and then I'm gonna ask you to think about who you were before you started editing yourself. You've had a picture of her in your head for a long time. She says what she means without rehearsing it in the shower first. She sets a boundary and doesn't spend the next three days apologizing for it. She applies for the job even though she knows that she might be rejected.
• 1:53
  She walks into a room and takes up space that she's standing in. And when you look at that picture, she feels far away. She feels like an upgraded version of you who lives a few years down the road, and you're still trying to figure out how to get there. Take a second and notice how detailed that picture is. You know how she talks, you know how she carries herself, you know exactly what she says yes to and exactly what she says no to.
• 2:21
  You can only picture someone that clearly if you've met her somewhere along the way, and I believe you have. I believe she's part of you that was there before you learned to edit yourself and she has been waiting for you to make room for her. Now that might sound too simple, so let me tell you how I figured this out for myself. When I was younger, my friends used to call me goody goody, and I secretly hated it. I was trying so hard to be perfect for everyone, the friend who never caused any problems, the girl who did everything right, the one nobody had to worry about.
• 2:54
  But I'm not quiet by nature, which is the funny part. I'm just into it. I've always been good at debating even when I'm wrong. Ask anybody who's ever argued with me. And I have strong opinions, so I wanted to be a lawyer.
• 3:08
  Somewhere along the way, I figured which opinions people welcome and which ones made them uncomfortable, so I started keeping the uncomfortable ones to myself. I learned to read the room before I opened my mouth. I learned to smooth things over. I learned to agree a little faster than I meant to, and to let a disagreement go that might cost me somebody's approval. I decided that that's just who I was, the nice, easygoing, agreeable one, which is not me at all.
• 3:33
  Like, I'm nice, but I'm not always gonna agree with you. However, it took me years to see this differently. The debater with a strong opinion was the real me all along, and the goody goody was the version that I built so that people would keep on liking me. That's why when a woman tells me I've just never been a confident person, I think back to the younger version of me, and I wanna ask her, are you sure or did you adapt? Now before anyone told you to be quiet, you probably had instincts.
• 3:59
  You knew what you liked, what you thought, and you said it. You had opinions, preferences, and a clear sense of what you wanted. So in note 78, we talked about who you were before anybody needed something from you. If you missed that, go back and listen to it after this one because it'll make everything come together. But when life started giving you feedback, things changed.
• 4:23
  Maybe you spoke up and it caused conflict, so you started speaking up a little less because it felt risky. Maybe somebody called you aggressive for being direct. No. That went out too well. Maybe your ambition made people around you uncomfortable.
• 4:38
  Maybe you set a standard and somebody tells you that you were too much. I I hate that one. So you adjusted, and at the time, it was a smart thing to do. You softened your tone. You filtered your opinions before they left your mouth.
• 4:52
  You overexplained your decision so that nobody could be upset with them and downplay the things that you were proud of. Every one of those adjustments made sense in the moment because each one of them taught you to be a little bit more belonging. When you're afraid of losing people, belonging feels so much safer than boldness, and I really think a lot of us traded our confidence for acceptance a little at a time until the trade started to feel like our personality. Have you ever been called easygoing, low maintenance, or so understanding, and felt a pain because you knew how much you were swallowing to earn those compliments, that pain is worth listening to. Now adapting works for a season.
• 5:35
  The trouble is when it keeps running long after the danger has passed because eventually you'll forget that you're doing it at all, and there's always a cost. In this case, the cost shows up in small ways. You let someone pick the restaurant when you were craving something specific. You say yes to the extra project and then resent it on Sunday night. You agree to the plan in the moment and then replay the conversation later wishing you had said what you really thought.
• 6:03
  Over time, it gets harder to hear your own preferences because you spend so long checking what everyone else wants before you check what you want. It also costs you opportunities. It might be the raise that you never asked for because you didn't wanna seem pushy, or the idea that you let someone else present because you weren't sure it was good enough. It might be the relationship where you stopped mentioning what hurt because bringing it up felt like starting a fight. And this is the part that stings the most.
• 6:33
  The people around you end up loving the version of you that you have built for them, and you can feel lonely even when you are surrounded by people who care about you because they haven't met the woman who has the real opinions. So here's the question to sit with. Where in your life are you adapting to a danger that has passed long time ago? If you caught note 72, we talked about putting down a reinvention plan, and this is the same idea from a different angle. So if you missed that one, don't worry.
• 7:03
  I will link it in the show notes for you. But becoming her means expanding into a woman that you already are, the one with the voice, opinions, the standards you had before you started filtering them. It doesn't require you to create a new personality for that, but it does open up room for the one that you set aside. That changes the work. Because if you believe you're broken, you are gonna spend your energy trying to fix yourself, and fixing yourself turns into a project with no finish line, and you is the problem.
• 7:34
  If you see that you adapted, you'll start releasing what you picked up along the way. Releasing feels lighter than repairing, and it's a lot more honest about what actually happened. The releasing looks like unlearning. Unlearn the belief that being liked matters more than being true to yourself. Unlearn the idea that feeling uncomfortable means you're in danger.
• 7:54
  Unlearn the habit of pulling back the moment you feel seen. Growing changes things, and sometimes those changes are uncomfortable. When you start saying what you actually think, some people are gonna be surprised. Some relationships will shift. Some rooms that used to fit will start to feel a little tight, and your body notices all of it.
• 8:18
  For years, belonging meant saying small, so when you start taking out more room, your body reads it as risk. You can hear it in a question that'll pop up. If I change, will they still like me? Will I still fit here? It's also why so many women get nervous when things start going well, Because success asks you to be seen, and being seen has felt risky for a long time.
• 8:43
  Now those questions are real, and I won't pretend that the answer is always gonna be yes. Some people will prefer the smaller version of you because she was easier for them, and that can sting especially when it comes from somebody that you love. But staying small to keep everyone else comfortable has its own price, the one that we just walked through. The woman that you are becoming cares more about staying true to herself than having everyone else's approval, and she's willing to feel the discomfort of that trade because she knows what the other trade has cost her. If you're listening to this podcast, I guess that you probably felt this way for a long time, a quiet sense that you were built for more.
• 9:21
  Maybe you felt that when you watched somebody speak boldly and thought, that should be me. Maybe you felt it when you stayed somewhere for too long and you knew, this isn't it. Maybe you felt it when you dimmed yourself in a meeting and replayed it on the drive home frustrated. That frustration is awareness. It's the part of you that refuses to settle, and she has been trying to get your attention for a long time.
• 9:45
  I built Slay Society for the moment you decide to listen to her. It's my community for women who are ready to practice instead of just thinking about it. You start with a free seven day challenge, and inside, you get access to my private podcast, the confident girl code. It's my inner guide to maintain your confidence, and there's also life coaching and resources that will assist you doing the real inner work and a community of women who will hold you to your highest self. You also get a coach who has been in your shoes and will tell you the truth with love.
• 10:17
  Expanding gets easier when you are surrounded by women who are doing it too. So the link will be in the show notes and the description, so consider this your personal invite to the community. Now let's talk about what expansion looks like. It usually looks small, surprisingly. It looks like applying for the role even though your voice shakes when you hit submit.
• 10:38
  It looks like posting the thing you overthought for three days. It looks like saying no without rehearsing it 10 times in your head, and letting someone misunderstand you without chasing them down to explain yourself, and that one might be a little hard in the beginning. But each time you do one of those things, you collect proof that you can be fully yourself and get through it. Your brain has years of evidence that speaking up leads to trouble, and the only way to build a different file is to add new evidence, one small honest move at a time. Confidence grows out of that repetition.
• 11:14
  You won't wake up with it one morning and you don't need to because you can start practicing it before you feel anything. Also, let me tell you this, it helps to know that a few times you're probably gonna feel awkward. Your voice might shake, you might over explain halfway through, or you might replay it in your head that night. That awkwardness is what practice feels like when you are out of practice, and it fades faster than you expect. This week, I want you to pick one conversation where you would normally soften what you say, and then say the unfiltered version out loud one at a time.
• 11:49
  It can be small. It can be telling your friend what you actually wanna eat or telling your boss that you disagree with this timeline. Then pay attention to what happens in your body afterward and what happens in the room. Often, room is a lot kinder than the voice in your head predicted. One of the biggest lies that you will tell yourself is I should be further along.
• 12:12
  Further than what and further than who? The woman you are comparing yourself to has her own history of adapting, and you only see the part that she lets you see. You are in a season of expansion, and seasons change. Sometimes you're releasing old habits, sometimes you are stretching the new ones, sometimes you're settling into a new version of yourself that finally feels steady. Every one of those seasons counts as growth, and you are in the middle of one right now.
• 12:43
  So take a second wherever you are. Think back to a time before you started editing yourself. It could be a childhood memory, a moment at school, or a time you said exactly what you thought and it felt easy. What did that girl know about herself? What would she say if she walked into the room right now?
• 13:06
  And what's one small thing you could say to her this week? Hold on to your answer. Because you've spent years adapting to make other people comfortable, and every adjustment made sense when you made it, but now you get to release them one small, honest move at a time, and make room for a woman with the voice, the opinions, and the standards that were yours all along. Make sure you are subscribed so you do not miss the next note because the holidays are coming and I'm gonna talk to you about setting boundaries with your family. You will want to hear this before the first big dinner.
• 13:46
  Remember, you were always built for more, and she is already in you.