Self(ish) Confidence

[303] Become Unfuckwithable

Jess Clerke Episode 303

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0:00 | 29:27

You know that moment when someone shares an opinion and your stomach drops because you can feel the judgment coming? I wanted to talk about the skill that changes everything: becoming unfuckwithable, not in a rude way, but in an unshakable way where you stay rooted in who you are even when people disagree. If you’ve been dimming your personality, filtering your thoughts, or trying to be “easy” for everyone else, this is your reminder that confidence is allowed to take up space.

We start with why it can feel safer to blend in, especially on social media where comments can be brutal, and why people pleasing keeps so many of us stuck. Then I share a simple real-life story from a coffee shop that turned into a bigger lesson about parenting choices, comparison, and trusting your own values. When you know your foundation, you don’t need to defend every decision or spiral after a sideways look.

From there, we get practical: how to identify your values, how to notice the “question marks” where you’re still borrowing beliefs from family or culture, and how to practice saying what you mean with safe people first. This is personal growth, self confidence, and authenticity work all rolled into one, and it helps you build a stronger mindset, clearer boundaries, and a personal brand that actually feels like you.

If you want extra support, I’m also offering a free week of my program Confidently You. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a confidence boost, and leave a review so more women can find the show.

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Thank you for listening to Self(ish) Confidence! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or on your social media and tag me @jess.clerke so I can personally thank you for helping spread some confidence + love!
 
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Welcome And Language Warning

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about hardest 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. It's Jess here, and I started to record today's podcast episode, and I thought, you know what? I think that I should put a little explicit warning at the beginning. I am not typically someone who uses explicit language a whole lot. They might, you know, drop a one here or there, but you might have seen the title of the episode, and that might be a little indicator that there is some language in this episode. So I warn you just at the beginning, in case you're listening to this, little's in the car, I use a word a few times, okay? And I just wanted to warn you. But without further ado, let's get going. Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here and hot diggity dog. Hot diggity dog. Normally I'm sitting here with a warm tea and probably my heated blanket, which I kind of need. It's a bit chilly. But today I'm sipping on some flavored water. It's really not that exciting up in here. I have a box of energy drinks though beside me that a friend of mine had asked me to pick up for them at Costco, so I did. And they are taunting me, but I won't be I won't be crazy. I won't be crazy tonight. I've been seeing the theme on social media a lot. And sometimes when I see this, I think that there's a message for me. And maybe it's like a trend right now, but I do also think sometimes there's like themes that we see over and over again, and we're like, oh, everybody's getting this. And they're not. It's like just for you. Like it's just your algorithm, it's who you're following. The same themes and messages keep coming up. And lately it's been about like leaning into your weird, leaning into just like being the weird and audacious like self that you are. And sometimes it's not just sometimes, a lot of the time that's really scary. I have been thinking about that a lot lately of just like being wholeheartedly the weird version of me. And there's always some fear around that because you know, it's not norm. I've actually really felt like the weirdo on the outside a lot, but I've been connecting with a lot more people who are also the weirdo on the outside, maybe you included, probably you included. And it really makes a big difference because then you feel less alone, you feel less weird. And maybe you can relate to that. There's something in your life too that you have just been like, I do not relate to any of these people around me. It's like you go to a dinner party and you're just like, What? I do not fit in here. But when you find those people, it just clicks, it works, it feels really good. And I've been really working on finding those people. And today I really wanted to talk to you about how to become unfuckwithable. I do not know why, but all day that theme has been at the forefront of my mind. It is like I knew I had to sit down and record an episode about how to be unfuckwithable. And I like even as I sit here and I'm like, okay, I know this is the message I have to bring. I'm like, what? Do I even know how to do that? Am I even that? Like, I I often feel like I am sometimes sharing with you a message that I oft I often need to hear it too. And this is one of those messages. It's like, okay, how do you become unfuckwithable? How do you become this version of you that is so solid in who you are that you don't question it, you don't feel like you have to show up as a particular version or a dimmed version, which I do think that I have been doing a lot. I I won't even say for a while. Like I feel like since becoming pregnant, especially, but even before that, social media in the last six years, like since the pandemic, it has been really difficult. And I've talked about this before to show myself wholeheartedly. If you are in my communities or you listen to the podcast, you you know a different side of me than the one that shows up on social media because it just doesn't always feel like I fit in in that space. And I've been doing a lot of work lately on discovering this new version, and not even new version, this version of myself that's almost been dormant inside for a while, and how I can bring that to life a lot more in content and almost bringing this version of Jess that shows up on the podcast mic somehow to social media. I don't know why I struggle with that so much because it comes really natural to sit on the mic and hang out with you and to chit-chat, and it doesn't always feel as natural to do that in a reel or in a TikTok or whatever, and I'm not sure why. But, anyways, that being said, this theme has been playing in my head all day, and I knew it was what you needed to hear today. I think we've been in this world of needing to blend in for a really long time, that it has been safer for us to blend in, to dim, to stay small, because if we were to put how we're really feeling out in the world, it would be attacked. And I keep seeing this a lot lately too, where I see someone who posts their opinion and the comments are not kind. They are not kind, especially in the parenting worlds. Oh man, I saw a post about oh, what was it even? It was about sleep training or not sleep training your kid, and it was not, it was not pretty, and it was just one mom sharing her opinion, and this happens all the time. But I also think we need to be in a place where we can share our opinions and not care about what the comments say, and I think that's where this theme of becoming unfuckwithable is so important. It is so important for us to be clear in who we are, confident in who we are, and that we're able to share that in the world without there being that fear of backlash. There's gonna be backlash, there's gonna be someone who is rubbed the wrong way. You are not meant to be everyone's person. If that would be exhausting, right? That would be so hard to keep up. An image that was calm and comforting for every single person in the world. I want you to think of someone who is like the extreme opposite of you. They are so opposite of you, but like you can get along with them, you're fine, but like they are so different, their opinions are different, everything about them is different than you. And I want you to think about sharing an opinion with that person and like instantly how their face would look. Like, you know, they'll have a little eye roll and they have like a little like uh you know they don't agree with anything you're ever gonna say. It's like that. Like, even people in our day-to-day lives, there are people who we see at work, at school, on the school bus. Like, I don't know why I thought school bus. Are you taking a school bus? I'm not taking a school bus. Anyways, on the regular bus, in your Uber, wherever you're going, right? Even in your freaking car with your partner, right? There are things you're gonna say that they don't agree with that doesn't work with their mindset and their thoughts and their feelings and their energy. We can't be agreeable to everything. And if you think you want to be agreeable to everyone, attention, my people pleasers. I hear you, I see you. I actually was just in a therapy session the other day and she pinpointed. She's like, I think you care a lot what people think. And I'm like, You think? That's why I'm here, sister. That's why I'm here. And this can be really hard for my people pleasers. I see you, okay? I see you. Because the sooner we can realize that us hiding our opinions and dimming down who we are and staying small and not speaking up, the sooner we realize that that is actually the thing that's holding us back and becoming the version of us that we want to become, the sooner we can kind of step into it a little bit more. We can accept it a little bit more. Because the only thing that's holding you back is other people's opinions. Like that is literally. So actually, when you think about it like that, the only thing that's holding you back is you. It's you. It's not even the other people's opinions. It's your perception of their opinions, which we don't even know if that's what they're thinking. We are stepping into an era of us really becoming the versions of ourselves. We're getting away from this influencer and celebrity energy, and we're stepping into personal brand and being authentic and being 100% you. And I know a lot of people would look at me and look at my brand and be like, you're so authentic, and yet I still struggle with this. I'm authentic with the people who I feel safe to be authentic with. I want to be unfuckwithable with everyone, like every person I meet, like even, you know, Sue on the bus that I'm taking the school bus. I want to be unfuckwithable with like a stranger that I meet who maybe I need to say something to, or even with people who you're really close with. Like, and I am not saying when I say unfuckwithable, I'm not saying to be arrogant, to be mean, to be like, you know, an absolute crazy person throwing bananas in the supermarket. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is having the energy of you, being you and that being unshakable. It's that unshakable confidence. And I know we have talked about that here on the podcast before, but there's something about this energy of like, I am me, and I don't care if you accept it or not, that is changing the game as we move forward in this world. And you're probably listening to this and you're like, okay, Jess, I hear you, but like how? How do we get there? And I am telling you, I am still figuring this out day to day. But I had this moment on the weekend where my husband and I went to a coffee shop with our little guy, and I was like, We gotta do grocery shopping. I at least need a cookie and a coffee before we start, okay? Anyone else who needs a treat before they go and do like the mundane task of the world. And when we got there, I was like, I'm getting a breakfast sandwich, and we're gonna have this cinnamon roll, and we're just gonna sit and enjoy a meal, the three of us, as best as we can. And there was another couple there with their little guy, and so we were just chit-chatting a little bit about, you know, oh, theirs was older than than our little guy, and you know, this and that, and this was what they were going through. And he saw their little guy saw my cinnamon roll. It was a big, big, big, big, big yeah. Okay, it was a big, big cinnamon roll. That was a little large, it was delicious. It was a carrot cake cinnamon roll. Oh, hot damn. Okay. And it had this like beautiful frosting on the top. And the little guy pointed at it and he's like, ice cream. And I was like, it's not ice cream, but good try. And their parent was very much like, Oh, I don't know why he keeps doing that. Like, he's never had ice cream before, but for some reason he keeps calling things ice cream, and it's like she really wanted me to know that her kid had never had ice cream before. He was two years old and he had never had ice cream, and I was like, Oh, yeah, that's so funny, like interesting, ha ha ha. And you know, just a little bit of banter and a little bit of chit-chat and you know, move on with our day. And we got in the car to go do our groceries, and Glenn, my husband, looked at me and he's like, So how did you feel like when she mentioned that her little one had never had ice cream before? Because he knew the night before I gave our little guy a spoonful of my ice cream. And I was just like, you know what? It doesn't bother me. That truly, there's a lot of parenting things that might bother me. That one definitely doesn't, because I know a value of mine is to not demonize food. And in our house, I have made it very clear that our guy can eat, you know, whatever he wants to eat. He's a great eater. And I think that that comes from being open to all foods, letting him eat off my plate, sharing with him what I'm having. And what I've done to make this really safe in our house is I've cleaned up my diet a lot. I have decided that if I wouldn't give it to my little guy, then I shouldn't be eating it either. And that comes with the exception of coffee and diet coke, okay? We all have exceptions here, but that one being a big one. But really, I want him to experience everything that I enjoy and experience within reason, within like it not being a lot. I'm not giving him his own bowl of ice cream. He's just having a taste, but also just remembering that that's part of how I want to teach him how to eat is that he is going to experience what I experience. But that also means that I just need to be better with what I'm eating so that he is getting, you know, a good vision and a good version of a balanced meal for him. And also, like, I really don't want to demonize food. So if I'm having a bowl of ice cream and I'm like, oh, mommy can have this, but you can't, I just don't, it's not for our family. That's not how we do it. And everyone's gonna have different opinions. Again, that's part of parenting and part of the journey. Everybody's gonna have an opinion. And this family that we met obviously parented differently, and that's totally okay. Like, I wasn't gonna be like, oh, our little guy has ice cream, or like your little guy hasn't had ice cream and he's too. Like, don't you think you're depriving him? No, because for them that was a really important value. And so when I was in the car with Glenn, I made sure to like just say, like, it didn't bother me because I know what I'm doing is good for our family. I know who I am as a parent, and giving my little guy a spoonful of vanilla ice cream that was absolutely delicious before he went to bed wasn't a bad thing. It was something that fit into how I want to parent. And I think if we can apply this to all of our values and all of the things that we want to share with the world, or are like pieces of who we are, the more that we can really stand clear in that, I think the better we'll stand in our confidence. The issue when it comes to shakeable confidence, is like, you know, curl up in a ball and cry in the corner after you said something, confidence, is that we're not solid on our beliefs. And it's not that we're not solid on our beliefs, it's that we question our beliefs because they're not the same as what other people have. We question our values because they're not the same as what other people are valuing. And in the last couple of years, I am noticing more and more what I am valuing and what I see as important for myself and for my family is different than other people. And again, that's okay. You and I probably have different opinions on a lot of things. Like maybe I'm like, my favorite vegetable is broccoli, and you're like, bleh, that's disgusting, right? We're all gonna have different opinions, and that is part of the journey. So we need to be clear on what those opinions are, and you don't have to share them with people. You definitely don't have to have these conversations, but I think you do need to know your foundation so that if it does get questions, if it does get shaken, you're like, no, no, no, no. I know who I am, I know what I stand for, I know what's important to me, and this is important to me. So it's not gonna bother me if you question it. It's not gonna bother me if you try to shake me down a little bit. I know that this is my foundation. Easier said than done, right? Easier said than done, Jess. I know, I know, but that's what we wanted to talk to you about today. We being me and my dog Polly, who is asleep in the guest room bed. My husband came down here to ask some questions and he's like, oh, a podcast with Polly. I'm like, she's always here. If I'm down here working, she's sleeping in the bed. She's just a part of the furniture down here. I cannot ever get rid of this bed because it's really Polly's bed. And sometimes mine when my husband snores. Anyways, the first thing you need to do if you want this unfuckwithable energy is to really sit down and get clear on what some of these things are. I don't think I totally know what all of my values are, what all of my opinions are until they kind of pop up. And I'm like, oh, I think that's one of them. I think that's something that's important to me. Make a note on maybe in the note section of your phone, or have a journal where you can start to just like, you know, pencil some of this stuff in as you start to realize this and that. Hey, I really do like this, or you know, I think this is really important, or I like insert whatever it is. Let me give you a couple of mine if I can think of them. For for me, I really love being able to support local farmers. That's something I have on my vision board. It's something that I'm like, oh, I want to be able to know where my meat comes from. I want to be able to know where my vegetables come from. And that comes with, you know, up and down. I live in Canada. So sometimes it can work and sometimes it can't. But that's important to me. Supporting local, supporting the farmers, supporting my community, and also like really nourishing my body with good food. That is a value of mine that I think is really important. Another one is one of my love languages is quality time. So spending quality time with people around me, one-to-one quality time if possible, or small group quality time with the people that are important to me is really something I prioritize because I need that energy. I need small group. I get really distracted in large groups. I can't focus. And so when I spend time with the people I love, I want it to be really good quality time. So I'm someone who prioritizes quality time with the people who are important to me. Those are a couple values of mine that I'd be like, oh, like you don't even question me on this. Like, I know where I stand here, and I'm not going to change my mind on it. Those are just part of who I am. So what are some of yours? Think about some of those things. And they don't have to be big things, they could also be really small things. Like, I'm a person who drinks a cup of coffee every day, right? This is how I drink my coffee every day. I drink it with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, or I am someone who loves to support my friends and their businesses, or I'm someone who loves to take my dog for a walk every single day, or breathe fresh air, or get into nature. Like these can be really simple and they can be really more complex. But it's about you figuring out what some of these things are and knowing who you are. And this comes with asking yourself questions and asking yourself really tough questions. The same way you would get to know your partner, your new partner, someone you just met on Tinder, and you're like, I need to know that you're not gonna murder me if we go meet up. These are some of the questions that I'm gonna ask you. I want you to start asking yourself some of those questions. I really want you to start knowing yourself the way that you would know your child. I know my kid's gonna eat as many strawberries as I will let him eat, the same way that I would know that what my partner's favorite food is, or if it's his birthday, how I'd want to celebrate. I want you to know this stuff about you. What is that thing that if I put it in front of you, you are gonna keep wanting more and more and more? It's probably mini eggs, right? Because I think that's one for a lot of us. And I also saw a post today that talked about the calcium of mini eggs, so we're supplementing calcium when we eat them. Enjoy, my sisters, okay? Enjoy your mini eggs. But what are some of those things for you that you're just like, I can't help myself? I love this so much. Or if you had a day off and you could do anything, no limits, what would you want to do? Where would you want to go? Who would you want to meet up with? Like, really starting to get clear on that. And that is gonna help you to have this solid foundation of this is who who I am. If I have a day off and my best friend is messaging me and say, hey, it's a yes day, where you want to go, you know straight up where you're gonna go, what you're gonna do. Because you know who you are, you know who you are, and that is a leg up on a lot of people in this world. If you get confident and know who you are, you are gonna have a leg up on so many people in this world because we are so bombarded by everything on social media, even this podcast, right? We are bombarded with information all the time, and it is making it blurry in our mind what we actually value, what's actually important to us, and what's somebody else's opinion. And this can also come from family beliefs, right? Things that have been passed down to you that we need to decondition. It's sometimes almost realizing, oh, I actually don't believe that thing that I have been taught to believe my whole life. Huh. That's interesting. And working to peel back some of those layers to decondition that. And I just want to say this too. This takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of courage to step into this, to understand yourself, to question your beliefs, and to really start to just make notes of it a bit more. Understand who you are. This is like asking yourself a question every single day and being open to what that answer is. Sometimes we're like, oh no, this is my belief. This is what this is it. But it's the safe road. It's a safe belief. It's the one that, you know, isn't gonna ruffle too many feathers when in reality what you believe is actually deeper than that. What you believe is very different. Or not even different. It's just a level down. You're like, oh yeah, it's actually this. You know, I support this. And maybe you've never said it out loud. Getting that clear foundation is the start. And once you know that foundation, you can dip your toe in a little bit. You can start to be like, okay, this is actually how I want to dress. This is actually how I want to show up for myself. This is the version of me that I want to start to share in the world. So I'm going to start to share it with my best friend. I'm going to start to share it in the selfish sisterhood. I'm going to start to share it with my partner, with my dog. Okay. You're going to start to dabble in with those safe people and share who you really are. And then you're going to expand that a little bit more. And if you don't have someone that you're like, this is my safe person, couple things you can do. One, you can join the selfish sisterhood. We are going to celebrate you and help you to really shine that in the world. But you could also share it with a stranger in the grocery store lineup. I have heard people doing this like to announce their pregnancy, but they can't tell it to anyone. So they like tell a stranger. You can like share it with your pharmacist. You can share it with, you know, the random person on the bus. Okay. Like it's super weird, but you're just like, hey, this is what I think. Or, you know, make a secret social media account and start to put it out there a little bit more. Like find the thing that works for you and how you can dip your toe and sharing your opinion a bit more, and then get ready to cannonball into it. This doesn't happen overnight. Being clear on your beliefs doesn't happen from like zero to 100. You're like, yeah, this is who I am. For some people, it is. We all know those people who are just so wholeheartedly confident in who they are. They don't have to question it. They wear what they want, they do what they want, they do not care what people think. We all know those people. It's not typical. And if it's you, I love it. I love it. Please share your tips with us. But for most of us listening, it's not. And if that is, like you just want to dip your toe in, just dip it a little bit. You'll get to the point where you can cannonball in, but that comes with time of you playing with it and feeling more confident in this being something that is obscure value of yours. And then that's it. Like that's it. It's so easy when we think about it like that. You're like, oh, I just have to get clear on who I am and what I want, and then tell people about it. That's it. And and like call it a day. And I know, like, here I am sitting here almost 36 years old. And I can be like, yeah, pretty solid in that. But there are other things that maybe I would be more shakeable on. And someone would say something and it could really shake me up. There actually has been points in my life like that that somebody has said something and it shook me to the core because it questioned one of my beliefs and one of my values and one of my pillars in my life. And then I'm like, okay, well, if they're questioning it, then I should be questioning it. And maybe that person's questioning it and that person's question, and then you spiral into this like pot of like, oh my gosh, all these people are thinking things about me and I am the worst human in the world. And that is not the reality. None of those things are true. But our brain can do that, it can spiral so fast. And so if you're not clear on who you are and what it is that you want in this world, it's going to be easy to shake that up. And sometimes even when we are clear on it, we've just been told our whole lives from people who have been supposed to love us the most that that's not good enough. And you think that this is the most important thing in your life, but like it shouldn't be. And so it questions it a lot more and creates these question marks in our mind. Where you have question marks in your mind right now is just where you need to be focusing a little bit more. Get solid on figuring out what those question marks are and what your opinion is in those areas and start to write it down a little bit more. And if you're someone who likes to rehearse things, write notes about it too. Like if someone questioned this, how would I say it back to them? How would I, you know, tell someone my opinion in a way that feels safe for me, in a way that feels kind to me. You know, it could totally be a safer version for you, dipping your toe in a little bit more, but start to do that so that you can cannonball in. You can be fully yourself because the world needs you to. Like we need you now more than ever to be you. And I think that that's where people can sometimes struggle because it feels easier to hide in that hermit rock in the corner with everything going on in the world, but now is not the time to hide. It is the time to find yourself and shine. We need more people who are shining their light and being authentically themselves and not dimming because somebody made an opinion about you or said something to you that shook your confidence. If you want to become unfuckwithable, you need to know who you are. And then just practice that every single day. And practicing can even be like writing it out over and over again. I'm someone who prioritizes my health, and you know, I'm someone who loves everybody in my life, or I'm like, you can start to have these values and just start to play with them over and over again until it feels more confident and more comfortable for you to share with. But I'm telling you right now, the world needs you to be your most confident version of yourself. And I know that it's not that welcoming. I know that. I live it too. It's not that welcoming for a woman to be confident. It's not celebrated for a woman to be confident, but we need it. So if you need a little reminder or a person in your corner who's like, hey, I'm doing this too, send me a DM. Please connect with me because I am doing this too. This is hard freaking work. It is vulnerable freaking work, but we need to do it because you are meant to be you. Your soul didn't come here to dim and to sit in a corner and to hide. Your soul came here to thrive and to stand out and to be themselves. So please, please, please stand out a little bit more. And if you are struggling with this and you're like, okay, I want to dip my toe in a bit more, I have a free week of my program, Confidently You, which is all about you figuring these things out, like learning things about yourself and trying new things and building your own year of confidence so that you can start to discover new levels of who you are. And so I'm giving you the first week of that for free. I will put the information in the show notes for you to be able to sign up and get that into your inbox so you can start stepping into your power a little bit more, stepping into your confidence a little bit more, and really starting to see who you are. And with that being said, I hope you have the most confident and magical week of your entire life because you deserve it and the world wants to see you shine. I love you so much. 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.