Self(ish) Confidence
Your confidence is your superpower… but what if you don’t have any? It can be hard to show up as your authentic self. When we go out, or even scrolling on the couch, it's easy to get trapped in the comparison game, making it even harder to be beautifully you. Self(ish) Confidence is about finding your confidence, shining your light and taking action toward your unconventional life. Every week, we'll chat through barriers that could hold you back. Follow along with me, Jess Clerke, as we learn to find our confidence together and begin to share our magic with the world.
Self(ish) Confidence
Inspiration and Confidence from the Olympics
Ever felt like you're on the brink of burnout while chasing your dreams? I’ve been there, and this week, I’m sharing my personal journey as a solo entrepreneur learning to pace myself and manage burnout while growing our Selfish Sisterhood community.
Olympic athletes epitomize dedication and sacrifice, and their stories are a treasure trove of inspiration for anyone chasing big dreams. From the relentless training to the immense financial investments, we delve into the parallels between their journey and our personal quests for success. The persistence and resilience these athletes demonstrate can inspire you to push past societal expectations and self-doubt, whether your goals lie in sports, career, or personal growth. Let their stories propel you to new heights of confidence and determination.
Achieving your dreams doesn’t always require giant leaps; sometimes, it's the small, consistent steps that make the biggest difference. I'll be sharing insights from my "year of confidence," illustrating how tiny actions, like jotting down your goals or sharing them with someone, can lead to monumental changes over time. Whether you’re signing up for a new class or stepping out of your comfort zone to meet new people, I’ll show you how to start today and keep moving forward. Plus, get excited for the upcoming Speak Up event in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we’ll gather to inspire and uplift each other. Let's kick off the week with a burst of positivity and a belief in our own magic—together, we can achieve anything.
Self(ish) Sisterhood ---> https://jessclerke.com/self-ish-sisterhood
Speak Up! ---> https://jessclerke.com/speak-up
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Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about how hard it is to be your damn self. My name is Jess and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started. Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. If you listen to these in real time today we are dropping this episode on a Monday and if you've been around for a while, which maybe you have, thank you for listening. I love you so much.
Speaker 1:We used to do two episodes a week, one on Monday and one on Thursdays, and we shifted that, I think, a little over a year ago, just because I was starting to feel that burnout. I was starting to feel that heaviness. There was a lot going on as we were growing the Selfish Sisterhood, growing more events and doing all these things. There's only so much you can do as a solo entrepreneur when everything is on you, especially the creation piece. I do have some support in other areas, but the creation for a lot of these things it's all me and that can be a lot and, I think, industry standard, whatever the heck that means. People think they have to do two episodes a week and it was a friend of mine who said to me, like Jess, like, why, like, what does it even matter? And so by taking a step back I'm going back to one episode I was able to allow more space for different things in my life, to grow different areas of the business and to focus honestly on myself and what I needed in these seasons. But also, I think sometimes you can get burnt out too. Like, there are so many podcasts. The average podcast listener listens to like 10 podcasts a week and when our favorite podcast dropped two episodes a week, it can pile up and people get behind, and I'm starting to notice that a little bit more too. So send me a message on what you think about the new podcast day, dropping things on Monday.
Speaker 1:I thought we could use a little boost. We could use a little boost on Mondays. I don't know about you, but I have been feeling some heaviness this summer with just I think it's pressure of a lot of things going on. We have our big event coming up in the fall Speak Up. We are 68, 67 days away, like something like that, for the event, which is wild to me, so like a little more than two months, and you know there's so many other things going on behind the scenes that I can't wait to share with you. We're just not quite ready yet, but it's coming, I promise you, and as that happens, it just reminds me more and more on how important it is for us to lean into this community that we have and to spend some time hanging out with each other. So today, on this extra special Monday, if you're listening in real time, a little Monday surprise for you, a little Monday kick in the pants that we might be needing.
Speaker 1:I know I'm feeling it, but today I wanted to talk to you about the magic of the Olympics and if you are like me, you are glued to your screen watching, and I am not a big sports gal outside of this. I don't know if it's because it's just like so hyped and there's so many good things happening, and it's just extra exciting when the Olympics are happening. I love watching all of the behind the scenes on social media from the Olympians and all the different athletes, and seeing all the different sports and, honestly, like, do you really ever watch fencing outside of the Olympics? Like, tell me, okay, are some of these sports like even skateboarding or anything Like? There's some of these sports that you just do not watch outside of the Olympics and I'm going to be real with you, it's just so fun to see something different, to try, like just to watch these athletes who are in the best shape, like even the worst ones, are incredibly fit, and they are giving it their all to go after what they want, to go after something that's on their heart, and I just find it so inspiring just watching them live. The story that they have been training for lifetimes to do blows my mind, and so that's why I am like glued to the TV watching all the different things, even though on a normal day I could care less. I could care less about what's going on in soccer. I could care less about what's going on in rugby or fencing or cross-country skiing.
Speaker 1:Glenn and I watched the mountain biking trials this morning and I watched the whole thing from start to finish, and some people might say it's a waste of time and it's a waste of money. Right, it's a lot. It costs a lot for these athletes to go to these games. It costs a lot for our countries to be able to host them, to put energy in this to support their athletes to. There's so many pieces of it, right, and it can cost a lot of money. It costs a lot of energy for the families to travel to these games, to support their families, to watch different athletes compete, to buy tickets for the games.
Speaker 1:There are so many pieces to it that we could shake our heads at and be like oh, you are so dumb, how could you spend money on that? How could you show up like that? How could you put that much energy? Like, jess, how long did you sit on the couch today and watch mountain biking, soccer and gymnastics? It's a beautiful summer day. Couldn't you have done something better with your time? Sure, I'm sure these athletes could have other things they'd want to do. Maybe their parents encouraged them to go into accounting and they said nah, I'm going to go do gymnastics instead.
Speaker 1:Right, because you have to put everything into this sport, like everything, everything you have, and again, that's all of your finances, that's all of your energy, that is, you know, sacrifices on a lot of family time, friends. You are putting everything you have into a dream and I admire the heck out of these athletes. They support their teams and how they support themselves and show up for their families and their pride. It's so inspiring and beautiful to watch and I think that's why I love the Olympics so much. It is just like over and over and over again. You are watching people give it their all. You're watching people show up and like put their last drop of sweat in that bucket to hopefully get a medal, to hopefully get on a podium and to be able to represent their country in a way that makes them proud, makes their country proud. Like the energy around the Olympics is just next level. And again, maybe you're listening to this and you're like Jess, you crazy. It's a waste of time, it's a waste of money, it's a waste of energy. Yeah, I bet we've heard that before.
Speaker 1:When it comes to the dreams we have on our own hearts, when it comes to things that we want in our lives, we can hear from family and friends and even that inner mean girl, that voice inside our head, telling us that we're not enough, that we can't do it, that it's going to cost too much. It's a silly move. Who would leave their job to pursue a career that might not make any money for a while? Right To start a business that doesn't make sense to the outside world? Right, there's so many pieces that can come to entrepreneurship and also whatever dream it is on your heart. This doesn't even have to do with a business. This could have to do with your career. It could have to do with the family life you want to have. It could have to do with you becoming your own athlete and doing something you know totally out of the realm that you've ever done before.
Speaker 1:Right, just starting tennis lessons or going for a walk around the freaking block. Right In this heat, right now, it can feel hard. Taking Polly to the ball field. We go pretty much every day to throw the ball for her and it just keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter and I'm like, okay, like how long we got to stay out here? Right, there's always going to be something or someone holding you back from living out that dream and that someone can be yourself, that something could be a belief you have.
Speaker 1:There are so many pieces to pursuing your dreams and these Olympians have overcome every single one of them. Even to try out to even go to worlds, to even be even close to the Olympics at all, they have to give it their all, every piece of them. And sometimes, when it comes to our dreams, that's the scary part Knowing that it is going to take sacrifice, knowing that it is going to take financial abundance of some kind, it is going to take energy, it's going to take, you know, so many pieces of our lives and we have to be willing to give that up in order to pursue that dream. Even just like a quarter of the energy of what these Olympians are putting in. Even when I go back and I think about the year of confidence and where we're coming up on it being three years since we've started this podcast, three years since Olympians are putting in. Even when I go back and I think about the year of confidence and where we're coming up on it being three years since we've started this podcast, three years since we did the year of confidence and started the year of confidence and as we are stepping into again, speak up our big confidence boosting event happening here in Atlantic Canada from October 5th and 6th. Like I, it blows my mind to think about it. I don't know what could have happened if I didn't even give myself a year, and even then, when we were starting this and talking about, you know, tackling something like this, it was so big.
Speaker 1:A year is a lot of time and these athletes are giving, if like lifetimes, at least four years since the last Olympics to this Olympics, of training to be a part of it. Right, and it's probably even more than that. We're talking years and years and years of practice, sweat, training, energy, sacrifices, and the year of confidence was a year and, of course, there were pieces of tears and sweat and exhaustion and burnout and sadness. There was waves of emotions of all different kinds, going through a journey of trying to find yourself and not even find yourself, because I think we're not lost. It's about getting to know and learning this new, beautiful, abundant version of yourself, and it takes a long time of asking those questions, of showing up for yourself, of doing something that you need every single day. It's about being persistent, and sometimes it's about being selfish right, it's okay to be selfish, honestly, to have that confidence. It takes you showing up selfishly in order to really start to see the progress that you need. And again, selfish doesn't necessarily mean narcissistic or even like pushing everyone aside so that you can get to the front of the line. It's not about that. It's about you seeing yourself as a priority and making that priority happen. These athletes had to be selfish. They had to show up. They had to put themselves first. They had to put their sport first. They had to do the things that they needed to show up. They had to put themselves first. They had to put their sport first. They had to do the things that they needed to do to even qualify to get to this event.
Speaker 1:And for most of us, thankfully, our dreams aren't that intense that it has to be all or nothing. I am so grateful for that every single day, and that is the reason why I'm building a business like I'm building it and building a life like I'm building it, because I truly want to be able to have it all. And that doesn't mean it all all the time, but it does mean, you know, getting to make my hours. And, yeah, maybe I'm sitting down and recording this at a time that I, you know, normally might be spending time with my family, but it also means that I could have time this afternoon to do what it needed to do, so that I could sit down here or, when I have my best energy, I can prioritize my work or my family, depending on what I need in that season. So your dream doesn't have to be all or nothing that's the beauty of it but you do have to make some sacrifice in order to start stepping in that direction, to see this dream come to life.
Speaker 1:Had I not done the year of confidence, had I not stepped out of my comfort zone and started a podcast and started recording these in my office, on my floor, when I had the time and when I had the energy and again back then, two episodes a week, like so much effort and energy in these episodes, had I not done that, I wouldn't be planning this event and inviting you to come meet me in person and celebrate these dreams that you have and take you in that direction of finding this version of you that needs to step out and speak up right. I wouldn't be planning a VIP night for you to come and meet all these incredible people who are coming to this event. Even socials or boss talks or courses could confidently you. These things wouldn't have happened had I not gotten to know myself and stepped out of my comfort zone to create something for myself. That also has just rippled into the world of helping you to have more confidence too.
Speaker 1:And I guess it's kind of the same thing watching these athletes perform their best show of their life hopefully right that they're being able to give it their all. Like watching France kick butt this morning at the mountain biking event which, again, like Glenn's into mountain biking I am not okay, it's hot, it's just hot and it's hard and I don't love it. But I really enjoyed watching France like blow the competition out of the water in this event, like it was incredible to see. And that energy ripples into the crowd, it ripples into the other people who are competing, it ripples into me, into my family and into my life, because that energy is contagious.
Speaker 1:When you follow your heart and you go after the dreams that are on your heart and you start to pursue something, your vibration changes and as your vibration changes, the vibration around you starts to change and you start to inspire other people too. And I think that is just like the coolest thing If there wasn't something. If you're someone like me who can tend to be a people pleaser, and I'm feeling even emotional as I think about it, but, like if you're someone like me, maybe it's easier to focus on the outside, it's easier to focus on those other people, than it is to focus on yourself. And I see you, I hear you and sometimes it's focusing on this inner vibration of you, following your dreams and following your heart. It's going to ripple effect in the world. It's going to ripple effect into your daughters, it's going to ripple effect into your nieces, into your friends and all of the things. That energy is changing the world.
Speaker 1:And right now, as you have seen, women are having some really cool moves and some really big things happening in this world right now. This is the first Olympics. I'm getting heated. This is the first Olympics that's 50-50 male and female, the first Olympics that there are equal numbers of male athletes as there are female athletes. Like that is the coolest thing. There are massive shifts happening for women and it all comes from us following our heart and stepping up and not being afraid to speak out when we need to speak out right, not being afraid to step into our power and to be seen because we need to be seen. Right, we are done hiding in the kitchens making snacks for the boys while they go play their rugby game. We are going to be in the ring.
Speaker 1:And that all comes from you starting to take those little, single steps into you becoming the best version of you. And to you following the things that light you up. And again I really want to pinpoint on it being your dream the thing that lights you up, not the thing that your mom told you you should follow, like maybe accounting would be good for you. You should go check out those numbers. Thankfully, my mom never said that to me because she knew the numbers weren't going to be for me. Or maybe it's your guidance counselor at school told you to pursue a different direction, that that one you weren't smart enough for. Or maybe it's a partner who doesn't always encourage you to say what's on your mind or to speak out. Or maybe it's something that's inside you.
Speaker 1:Right, we can be our hardest critics, our worst enemies, like we can be really freaking tough on ourselves. I know I am, and when that happens, it's easy to step back, it's easy to hide, it's easy to just like close the doors, close the curtains and say no, no, no, no, no, I can't go out there. Not me, you know, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not fit enough. I'm definitely not fit enough for the Olympics. Okay, watching these Olympians, but that's beside the point. My dream is not to be an Olympian, praise the Lord. Okay, mine is something different and it's going to be a matter of me getting out of my own way and getting out of my own head in order to make these things happen. And even right now, I'm battling it every single day, as we are talking to more sponsors and booths for the event and people coming and deposits and, again, numbers and all of these things. It's overwhelming and a lot of the things are brand new to me that I have never done before. And, although it can be really scary and really hard, I'm gonna keep stepping forward and I'm gonna keep showing up and this event is going to be the coolest thing I've ever done, at least to date, okay, and I know that because I'm showing up every single day to put that effort in and to make this event magical for you, for myself, for my future, for all of the things To make others proud, to make myself proud, and that I know comes from those little tiny efforts.
Speaker 1:Again, this is not all or nothing. You don't have to sacrifice everything in your life to make your dream come to life right now, but what you do have to do is take one small step forward today. You could do it. Maybe it's even writing it down on a piece of paper and you're like, oh, I didn't even know that was my dream, and now I see it, it's there. Or maybe it's telling someone and you're like oh, I didn't even know that was my dream, and now I see it, it's there. Or maybe it's telling someone hey, I always wanted to start painting. I always wanted to become the world's best solitaire player. I don't know what's on your heart. I'd love to know. Send me a message, connect with me. I truly would love to know what your dream is. Even I saw someone on social media the other day say hey, I've never spoken at an event before, but I'd love to be a speaker someday. Just feel this itch and I'd want to speak. That is so cool. Even just putting it out there on social media, you never know who's going to see it. You never know where that could go.
Speaker 1:It's something really small, but it's the start. It is the direction, and that direction is going to change your life. And then what can you do the next day? Again, small actions, tiny little things. Maybe it's signing up for a class learning how to do pottery or a painting class. Maybe it's connecting with some friends of yours and putting together an event that feels really good for you. You can go in these different directions. It just takes small action, steps every single day, and that's what I did with the year of confidence. It wasn't huge, massive impact in my life. It was me consistently taking action every single day for a year and that truly changed the game for me and it's something I've been wanting to bring back in my life, because I know these small actions have huge impact.
Speaker 1:And I can hear you okay, all the way at my house. I can hear you. But, jess, I got this and this isn't a really good time because you know I have this and the kids are going back to school soon and you know I got to plan this thing for my friend and I have so many other things going on and work is just crazy right now and I have no vacation days left and I haven't really been feeling that good. The heat is doing a lot. There's so many excuses. I know them, I say them too. I hear you, but what are you willing to let get in the way of you taking one step forward? Right, if you started today, think where you could be in a year.
Speaker 1:There are people who are training for the 2028 Olympics right now. They are training for a future version of them that they have no idea could even exist, because they are starting their training now. We're talking four years. Okay. There are people who are watching the Olympics today, who will be at the next Olympics because they are putting in the work right now. So what are you willing to do? To put in the work, to step in that direction and to see yourself in a new light, to see yourself in a successful, beautiful, abundant light, because you're worth it. It just takes you seeing that, pushing the excuses aside, because that's all they are, they're just excuses and taking a step. Start with one minute, one minute a day of whatever it is you want to do, and go in that direction. I don't think you need to be doing four or five multiple hour workouts a day. We're not Olympians, okay.
Speaker 1:If there is an Olympian listening to this, hey, what's up? Send me a message. I'm so freaking proud of you. Watching you, I see you it's low chance, but you never know. You never know. But you do just have to take a small step and it starts today, especially with this episode dropping on a Monday I know how you love to start on a Monday it starts today. So what do you need to put in action in order to see that light shine in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, a year from now? Okay, I am so proud of you for taking a step.
Speaker 1:To you, knowing what you want that's the hardest part, I think. Starting. And if you're listening to this and you're like I don't know what I want yet, just try a few different things. In my year of confidence, every month I had a different theme and I would try something new, because I didn't know totally where this was going or what I wanted to do. But I would try something new and that would be my suggestion for you.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to this and you're like I don't know what my dream is, I just know there's something more. Try a few new things. Maybe sign up for a sport, or come to speak up and meet some new people, join a baking class whatever it is for you. That's gonna feel different, and see how you feel. Like, maybe, after every time you do something different, ask yourself like hey, did I like that? Does that put me closer towards the version of myself that I wanna be? Yes, okay, cool, I'm gonna do more of it. No, okay, screw that, let's try something else. Just keep trying new things, and I promise you it's going to take you in the direction. That is going to be the thing for you. I bet some of these Olympians didn't know that fencing was going to be their thing until someone put a sword in their hand and was like here, fence, I don't know. Remember that. Okay, though, some of these people didn't know what their sport was when they first started, and it's okay if you don't know what your dream is yet too. Just take some steps in the direction. Sign up for the class, talk to a friend, just find something.
Speaker 1:I am so freaking proud of you and I cannot wait to see you October 5th and 6th in Halifax, nova Scotia, for Speak Up, because it is just it's getting more and more fire filled every single day that I am talking to someone, that I'm meeting with someone. I'm literally meeting with people every single day to make this event epic for you, so I will put all the information in the show notes for you. If you want to grab your ticket to be with us to spend time in Halifax, I promise you good weather. It's going to be beautiful. I can't freaking wait and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Speaker 1:Best thing about these being on a Monday now is that we get to kick this off with a positive attitude and know that the rest of the week is going to be freaking cool too. Okay, you got this. I love you. What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.
