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Self(ish) Confidence
What if your confidence didn't depend on fitting into a box you never wanted to be in?
Self(ish) Confidence is the podcast for women who are done living by someone else's timeline and ready to trust their own.
Because let's be honest—it's hard to feel confident when you're constantly comparing yourself to everyone else's highlight reel or wondering if you're doing life "right." Comparison creeps in. Self-doubt gets louder. And suddenly, showing up as your authentic self feels impossible.
But what if confidence wasn't about having it all figured out?
What if it was about trusting yourself enough to take the next step?
Each week, your host Jess Clerke, Confidence Coach, Human Design Guide, and creator of the Self(ish) Sisterhood, shares honest conversations, mindset shifts, personal stories, and practical tools to help you stop people-pleasing, embrace your uniqueness, and build confidence from the inside out.
Whether your life looks unconventional, unexpected, or completely different than you imagined, you're in the right place.
This is your permission slip to stop performing and start showing up as you. To trust your intuition. To shine your light. To create a life that feels deeply aligned—not one that simply looks good from the outside.
Because you are not too much.
You're not behind.
And you don't need anyone else's permission to become the woman you're meant to be.
Let's build that belief together.
Self(ish) Confidence
[318] How to Trust Yourself When Life Changes Your Plans
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Your plan can be perfect and life can still change by lunch. I’m Jess, and today I’m talking straight to the part of you that wants to control every pawn on the chessboard, because I’ve been there too. When my childcare plan shifted unexpectedly, I had a choice: spiral, or pivot. I’m choosing a “30 days of fun” mindset and soaking up a season I might never get again, even if it isn’t the version of summer I imagined.
From that real-life pivot, we go deeper into trusting yourself when things don’t make sense on paper. We talk intuition and Human Design authority, including why “trust your gut” isn’t one-size-fits-all, and how different authority types can shape your decision-making. I share what splenic authority feels like for me, that quiet instant hit that shows up once and disappears, and how learning to listen has helped me build self-trust and confidence.
Then we get practical about taking action when excuses get loud. If time is your biggest roadblock, I break down how to use small time pockets, why messy action beats waiting for perfect conditions, and how simple visual reminders like a vision board can keep your goals from getting buried under real life. We also talk community, sisterhood support, and why consistent action is where confidence actually grows.
If you’re craving more self confidence, better intuition, and a grounded way to chase your goals in a busy season, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more women can find the show.
Join the Self(ish) Sisterhood: $33/month or $333/year.
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 Letting Go Of Control
SPEAKER_00Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here, and I am just taking a little quiet moment to hang out with you. There is literally nothing better than just sitting down with a nice cold drink and hanging out with my besties, hanging out with my sisters here, and that's exactly what I love to do every single week. So I'm so glad that you're here and that we could sit down and chit-chat because I have some things I've been wanting to talk to you about. I feel like life for so many of us is a little unpredictable. It feels a little cray cray. It's crazy over here. And that's just part of life. The world as we know it is always changing every single day, and we just have no control. And I know for some of you listening, you love control. You want to be able to move all the pawns in the chess game, but that is just not reality. And we do not know what tomorrow is going to bring. We could plan, we could have our whole week planned out to every single detail. If you are my detail girlies, I see you. I love that you are that organized and you know everything. But you also know that that might not play out, probably won't play out the way that you think it should. And I think that's the hardest thing right now in so many pieces of our lives. And we're so far away from what happened in 2020 that I think we have gone back to our ways of just thinking we can control things, and we cannot. We cannot. Even if you have the perfect plan, it just doesn't work that way anymore. And I see you, sis. Like I see you because this week, I think I mentioned this a little bit on last week's episode too. We've just had some, I did mention it last week, we've had some changes in our child care plan that I didn't
Child Care Changes And Choosing Fun
SPEAKER_00anticipate. I am an optimist, I am the one who has the glitter goggles on, and I think everything is going to go perfectly all the time. And maybe not like perfect, because I'm also a realist in that sense. Like I know things are gonna happen, but I had a vision for what this summer was gonna look like and what business was gonna look like and what life was gonna look like. And now I unexpectedly have my son home full-time again. And I'm really having to shift my perspective on it that I might never have this opportunity again to have a summer together to just be the two of us and enjoying our experiences and going out and having fun because oh man, life changes really quickly. We do not know what tomorrow is going to bring at all. Like we do not know. Again, you can have a plan. Maybe you're planning on going to work, whatever. You don't know. Life changes in an instant for so many of us. And if we don't embrace the moments that we do get and the fun that we get to have in our life when we get to have it, we could miss the opportunity and blink, and life is completely different. And I tell you this today because I think we take life way too seriously. We've talked about this so much on the podcast. I know we take life way too seriously. For some reason, our society has taught us to show up and to work hard and to, you know, climb the corporate ladder and to do this, this, this, and this in order to achieve success, in order to achieve status, in order to get the partner that we want to have and have the life we want to live and the house we want to have, all of the things we have to do it in this order for a specific way, in order to be seen as value in society. And I call bull crap, that is just not the truth, and I think I know, I know you believe that too, but we get stuck in it. And so when things don't go according to that societal plan that we have, it makes it really hard for us to sit back and be chill about it, to sit back and go against the grain of what we thought was going to be. And although it was not my plan, I have decided to just fully embrace having my little guy home and make it 30 days of fun before he goes into a new daycare that we found for him that I feel really good about. We just signed the papers. I feel like it's going to be a really good fit. And it's a daycare, not a day home. So hopefully less closures and less weird things happening. That's at least my hope. But who knows? We'll never know until we try. That's the other part of it. It's like we think we have a plan, we think we can have it all figured out, and we don't, and also like we'll never know. We are never gonna know unless we try. So that's exactly what we're doing, seeing how this works out in a new in a new way for him. Yeah, summer's here, and I guess I'm just gonna wear my bathing suit a whole lot more, enjoy a few more pool parties, a few more adventures, swim lessons, whatever, beach adventures, whatever we can do to fill this time together and make these memories for me, because again, he's 18 months, he's never gonna remember this, but I will. And I think that that's really important
Trusting Intuition Through Human Design
SPEAKER_00too. So, along with that messaging of you never know what's gonna happen. So, embrace today and do those things and follow your heart. I also want to remind you of how important it is to trust your gut. I've talked about this before on the podcast too, about trusting your authority in human design. So if you're new here, welcome. So glad you're here. I am all about helping you to build confidence, helping you to follow a life that lights you up and feels so great and just is so authentically you, no matter what that looks like. And I also love human design because it gives you this blueprint and this tool to help you to navigate life your way by your design, because we're all designed differently. We know that, but it also makes it really complicated when we don't know what that design is and we're just figuring it out with trial and error. And your authority in human design is how you make decisions. And so often people say things like, trust your gut, but for everyone, that's not always the exact way of trusting your intuition. We all have different ways of hearing things and feeling things. And for a lot of people, yes, trust your gut, that gut feeling is how you make decisions. Finding out what a yes and a no is in your body, but for me, it's something called spleenic authority. And it's this little voice that whispers to you, it sounds so crazy when I say it out loud, but I'm like, it is. It says it once, you'll hear it or you'll feel it, and then it's gone. It'll never say it again. And it really teaches you how to trust those instant moments, those instant hits that you get. And then if you're someone like me, you question it, you're like, wait a second, no, it can't be that. You can't be telling me to do that. You can't be telling me to pull my kid out of daycare like right now. But it is, right? And when we can trust that and learn to trust it, it just makes life a little easier. But again, your authority is going to be different for all of us. So I'd really encourage you, I'll put the information in the show notes for you to be able to check out your human design and your authority, and then send me a message and I'll help to explain it to you a little bit because there's a handful of different ones. And of course, there is your gut feeling, your sacral, there's your splenic, there's your ego, there's your mental. There's so many different ways for you to find out what's the best way for you to make decisions. But I think knowing it and understanding it is like the most important thing. So please look it up and then send me a DM on Instagram, and I'll I'll be happy to send you some voice notes and explain it a little bit more to you because there's something really special about knowing yourself. And when you know yourself, you can have more confidence. And that's exactly what I did with this whole childcare situation is like listening to that little voice, listening to those feelings that we have, and instead of brushing it off like it's nothing, and I bet you can think of a scenario in your life that you're like, oh yeah, I did that, and then I brushed it off and it blew up in my face. Yeah, we decided we didn't want it to blow up in our face, so we thought we would listen early, and I'm so glad we did, even if it didn't make sense. It did not make sense on paper, it did not make sense in my mind, it nothing it didn't make sense, but sometimes you just gotta trust that feeling. So I encourage you to look into that a little bit more today. And if you're like, I already know how my body tells me to make decisions, I love it. I love it because I truly do believe that knowing yourself on these deeper levels, knowing these little quirks that you have, really helps you to build more confidence because we are all made differently. We all see and think and feel things differently, and that's what's so beautiful about this world. We were just on our sisterhood connector call, which is our bi-weekly group chat that we come into and have this like video call and hang out and chit-chat about life and all of the things that we're going through. And we were talking about life lessons and how each of us could think of a very specific life lesson that we would love to pass along to others. And I think this is the best thing that we can do, especially as women who come together, because we all have different life paths, we all have different
How Authority Guides Decisions
SPEAKER_00experiences, we all have different views on the world, and we can learn some really incredible things. And if we just keep that to ourselves, we're never going to be able to share that knowledge and have other people experience things through our eyes. And so on this call, I was like, okay, let's chat about the different life lessons that we've experienced and what's one that you'd want to share here today. And we had a variety of great lessons, like, you know, trying to have more fun and just like releasing this fear of like we have to be so serious all the time. And like, let's actually have fun or following it up and doing the things that you say you're gonna do, or taking time or not taking time in your life to take uh a little bit more of experience versus going straight into this cultural path that we have created by I don't even know who, like who created this structure for our society. I don't know, but following that. So learning from each other is just like the greatest gift. I'm like something I love so much about the sisterhood, having a place where you can lean on others, ask questions, ask for advice, and even just share what you're celebrating. Because for some of us, we don't always have a safe place to celebrate these big life things that are happening, but this is a space, it's totally off of social media, and it is like lock and key. What you share in there, what happens in sisterhood stays in the sisterhood because it's a place that you can feel safe to share whatever you're going through and whatever you need support with and love with. And I just, it's the greatest thing. So I'll put the information in the show notes too because it's a brand new month here. You're listening to this in real time. It's August, so we have two connector calls in here. We'll also have a meetup if you're local in Halifax and our group chat that's always ongoing. And if you're a mom, we also have a mom chat that you can ask questions like, hey, what did you do for this? Or my kid's doing this. What do you think about that? It's great to have these two platforms for one for our sisterhood. So it could be anyone and anything, and then we also have our mom chats. And if you're a new mom, we also offer a month of our mom chat for free. So come in, check it out, see if it's for you, find your sisters, find your other mamas, and really connect because more than ever, we need community right now. So, what is it that your gut is telling you to follow right now? What is it that your intuition has been like picking at you for? Because I know there's something. Like I know there is something that's on your heart, that's been in your mind that you've been thinking about that you said, what if I wish I could? How insert all of the things that you've been saying to yourself about that thing that you have been wanting to attempt. Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be so great if I could do this? And we've been talking about that a lot this year because I feel like I've been almost going through that cycle, not almost, I'm going through that cycle over and over and over again. It's like you finally get my footing and I'm so excited to do the thing that I've been wanting to do, and then something slaps it. And oftentimes it's me. I'm the one that's slapping it. I'm the one that's saying I'm too tired, or that I don't have time, or oh my kid's home now, I can't. But that's not true. Not all true. But I know you're probably tired and you have a million excuses you could play right now. But whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you are right. I've been playing that in my head a lot lately. There's so many dreams and things that I've been wanting to bring to life, and I could list all of the excuses. I'm living a really busy life, and I don't have any time and my kids not napping and blah blah blah, all of these things. But what if instead of focusing on all the reasons I can't, I'm gonna focus on the reasons why I can and find those pockets, and it doesn't have to be perfect. What I've been working on a lot lately is just letting it be cringe, showing up and doing the thing, doing it messy, letting it be cringe, letting it just not be the perfect vision that I have and the standard that I have for myself, and that be okay. Done is better than perfect. I see so many people out in the world who are massively successful because they went through that motto of done is better than perfect, and they followed that. They believed that they could and they did it
Sisterhood Lessons And Real Community
SPEAKER_00messy and they showed up and they've seen massive success. I actually think society, although we are looking for that perfect vision of the house and the kids and the you know nine to five and the CEOs and the blah blah blah, all this boring stuff. Although I do believe we like perfection in this vision that we have, seeing real, raw people in their messy action tackling things in their life is the most inspirational and piece that connects us together that I love so much. We can relate to it. There's people online that we see that you're like, oh my gosh, that could be my bestie. Like we relate to this realness and the world needs more realness. So imagine spreading your light in whatever way that looks like for you by following your heart, trusting that inner knowing, and going after the things you want to do. So today I wanted to share with you just a couple things that I've been doing lately that have been helping me take action when the excuses set in. And the biggest one for me is the time excuse. I don't have a lot of time. Literally, as I'm sitting down to record this, my little one is napping upstairs. He had fussed for a few minutes and I texted my husband, I'm like, I can't do anything. This kid won't nap. And I could live in that energy if I wanted to easily. I could go upstairs and watch TV instead because why not? I can't focus when he's just doing his little fussy nap things. Or I could wait till he settles down, grab a drink of water, check the monitor a few times, and record this damn podcast episode. We have two options. We actually have a lot more than two options, let's be real. So when it comes to following whatever it is you want to do, I actually would love to know what that thing is. So please send me a message and tell me what that thing is because I see you. When it comes to following what it is you want to do, take a step in that direction. It doesn't have to be all in, but do something in the time that you have. Instead of saying, I don't have any time, where do you have time? You have a 10-minute pocket here, an hour there, before bed, you could do something. The most successful people in the world built their lifestyle in these pockets that they have, in the time frames that they do have. So instead of focusing on the time you don't, let's focus on the time you do. And what you do have, take action there. Use that time. And I see you, sis, I know you're tired. So sometimes using that time for anything other than a nap can be really, really difficult. But I promise you, life's gonna look so much better if you follow your heart for the things you want to do instead of continuing to make those excuses. I see you, sis. I know this is hard. But let's lean on each other here and keep showing up for that life that you want. Another thing that I have been doing to help push myself in the direction of my dreams and the goals that I have is writing it down, is looking at my vision board, is seeing and adding new things to the vision that I have for my life and putting it in a place that I'm gonna see it every day. I have been so forgetful lately, like so forgetful, okay? I was making a chicken. My husband was actually making a chicken. He set a timer and he said, pull this out at this time. And I said, I got you. I can do this. I got you. Okay. But I pulled it out and it didn't just it wasn't totally done. So I thought I would put it back in for 10 more minutes. And I was like, I don't want to put a timer on because I don't want to wake up my kid that's napping, so I'll remember. An hour later, I heard my kid fussing and he was done his nap.
Stop Waiting And Take Messy Action
SPEAKER_00And I had forgotten the chicken in the oven. I simply forgot it. And although the chicken was fine, like it wasn't burnt or anything, we could still eat it. It wasn't perfect, but we could still eat it. It was edible chicken. But it's those little things that if I'm not placing something exactly in front of my face every single day, I am forgetting about it. And that includes my dreams right now. I literally just went to go have a quick little bathroom trip. And in the time that I went to do that, my little guy smashed a glass all over the ground. Okay, I'm running to go clean up this glass like mid-poop. Okay. I know that's TMI, but that's the life I'm living in right now. And so if a dream or a vision is not on my fridge or my phone or the wherever, I'm not gonna see it and I'm gonna forget about it. It's just a season I'm in. And so I challenge you to whatever it is that you want to do, if you're in a forgetful season like me or a distracted season like me, you write it down and you put it in front of you. And you remind yourself, even when you're tired, even when you have so many things going on in your life, that you still show up for that, even if it's in the smallest way possible. One minute, five minutes, whatever it is in the time that you do have, not the time you don't have, the time that you do have, you show up for it. And you do the dream anyway. When you see someone that has the life that you want or the success that you want, and you're just like, oh my gosh, they did it. They're so perfect, that's so freaking cool. You're not focusing on their day one or their beginning or their messy action. You're just seeing them in the polished state. So this is just your friendly reminder that every successful person that you see has been exactly where you are at the beginning, forgetting chicken in the oven. We're all just normal people, just some of the people we admire have been doing it longer, have been showing up messy, have just taken the leap that you haven't had the courage to do yet. So you just need to leap. You just need that courage and follow that inner knowing. That decision-making authority that you have, that gift that you have in your body is there for a reason. It's to help guide you to your ultimate purpose, to the things that light you up. So the next time that you're looking at a dream that you have, I want you to really feel it in your body wherever that authority tells you to feel it. So again, if you're like, I don't know this human design stuff, Jess, please take a picture of it, send it to me. Let's chat about it because I'd love to help you have more confidence in this area. But this small thing can really help guide you to knowing what is most aligned for you. And that alignment will also make success easier for you. I shouldn't say e uh, I don't know. I think so. I think if it's aligned, it does come a little bit more natural than if it's if you're fighting against it, if you're feeling like there's nothing that's gonna get me through this. Ask that inner authority, is this really for me? Is this really what I'm supposed to be focusing on? And if it is, awesome. Let's find the path that works and what lights it up. And if it's not, then let's kick it to the curb, which I really struggle with. When I finally get
Time Pockets Vision Boards And Reminders
SPEAKER_00on something, even if I especially if I'm really good at it, and I know it's not aligned anymore and it's not for me, but it's working, you're just like, dang, really, you want me to give this thing up? Like it's finally working. But trust in that inner authority, trust in that guidance, trust in this gift you have in your body to make the path easier for you. And also just like a side note real quick here for my perfectionists and for my people who are really struggling with showing up messy, just try it. Just try to get a little messy, even half messy, like or 75% messy. So it's not a hundred percent perfect, but we're like 75. And then maybe we get to 50%, and then we get to 25%, and then we get to the point where we just like do the thing without even thinking and put it out there and let it be messy. People love it. You will be shocked at what happens when you just take action. So my sisters, I just yeah, we're in this season of figuring it out, taking it day by day, and I'm really trying to focus on being present with my son and having the most fun all summer long. It's it ha it takes wrapping my head around. I feel like there's a lesson here that I'm still needing to learn because I'm caught up in that vision of what life is supposed to look like, what an entrepreneur's life is supposed to look like, and as a parent, like I was gonna put my kid in daycare and figure these things out and have all this time and just releasing that vision that I have that success only comes when I'm away from my kid. I'm rebuilding that right now as I see success by his side uh in the messy season, in the naps, and I I'm just figuring it out. And I know you love that because you're figuring it out too. We can figure this out together and let our lives just happen right now. But even in the season where there's so many unknowns and you feel like you're living in a cloud and not in the good way, in the crazy foggy way, it doesn't mean you have to give up on that goal. It doesn't mean you have to give up on that vision, it doesn't mean you have to give up on yourself. You can keep showing up. It doesn't have to be perfect. The best thing I learned in my year of confidence was consistent action was where confidence was built. It wasn't in the perfection of it or checking all the boxes or doing things like I have to do these things every single day or I fail. It's really about consistency and just showing up in whatever
Consistency Builds Confidence
SPEAKER_00way that looks like. So I'm cheering you on, sis. I'm so excited to see where you are going, where that intuition is taking you, and what's next in your chapter. Please send me a DM on Instagram, review this podcast, help us to get this message out there because it really makes a difference to see your support and to bring this to as many people as possible. So I love you so much, sis. I hope you're having the best week, and I'll talk to you soon.
