Self(ish) Confidence is your reminder that you don’t need to become someone else to create a life you love.
Hosted by Self-Discovery and Empowerment Mentor, Jess Clerke, this is the podcast for women who are ready to stop second-guessing themselves, let go of the “shoulds,” and start living life on their own terms.
We’re talking confidence, self-trust, identity, boundaries, relationships, motherhood, ambition, personal growth, and all the messy in-between moments that come with becoming more YOU.
Because confidence isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about knowing yourself well enough to trust your choices, even when they don’t make sense to everyone else.
Each week, Jess brings honest conversations, real-life stories, mindset shifts, and practical tools to help you question what you’ve been told you should want and get radically honest about what you actually want instead.
You don’t need more permission. You need more trust in yourself.
Welcome to Self(ish) Confidence. A place to trust yourself, own your truth, and live life on your terms.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
0:00
|
11:40
Tomorrow could be the best day of your life, the hardest day of your life, or the last one. That thought can feel heavy, but it can also be the cleanest reset we have when we’re stuck scrolling, overthinking, and telling ourselves we’ll “do it later.” I’m sharing a short holiday boost that cuts through the noise and brings you back to what matters.
We talk about why modern life leaves us overstimulated and unsure of our next step, even when the thing we want is simple. With Canadian Thanksgiving as the backdrop, I go beyond the usual gratitude script and focus on appreciation: the micro-moments we miss when our foot is on the gas pedal. Think hot coffee, garden tomatoes, the way trees move in the wind, or a neighbour chat on a dog walk. Those details are not cheesy, they are grounding, and they can shift your mood fast.
I also get honest about how powerful “thank you” can be in close relationships. Saying it more often is not formal, it’s connective. If you want something practical, I share an easy habit you can start today: keep a running list in your notes app or journal of small things you noticed, then revisit it when your brain starts racing.
If this gave you a little calm and a little spark, subscribe to Selfish Confidence, share it with a friend who’s feeling stretched thin, and leave a review so more people can find these quick boosts. What’s one small detail you can appreciate today?
Thank you for listening to Self(ish) Confidence! If this episode inspired you to trust yourself, take up space, or live a little more unapologetically, share it with someone who needs that reminder too. Tag @jess.clerke so I can celebrate you because when one woman shines, we all shine. ✨
Hello, hello, and welcome to this little boost episode of Selfish Confidence. It's Jess here. And I almost said, fudge it, I don't have time. But I have been wanting to sit down and do a little boost for you. And I just got a call from my husband, Glenn. He said, Hey, I can pick up the baby on the way home. And I was like, yes. You know what? Because if you do that, I can get a few more things done. That being, hanging out with you for a few minutes and giving you a little boost on this Friday. If you're listening to this in real time, or whenever you're listening to this, whatever day it is, I'm just so happy to hang out with you and chat with you before we walk into the holiday long weekend. If you are Canadian, happy Thanksgiving. And if you are not, happy day. Happy day. Maybe you can come back to this before your Thanksgiving.
I don't know why it takes so much for us to convince ourselves to do things. I I don't know. It does for me. I almost have to like hype myself up a little bit more or give myself that extra like kick in the butt. I'm like, is this what a woman in her 30s feels like that you just need that little extra like oomph to get going? Or is it just we're in a world that's overstimulated and overwhelmed, and we have so much going on all the time. Like literally, you could have any information you want at your fingertips right now. Like you could find out anything you want, whenever you want, all the time. And as soon as something happens in the world, you can know about it in real time. It is wild. We get more information in one day than our grandparents did in a whole year. And we wonder why we're so overwhelmed and overstimulated and unsure of how to take the steps forward that we want to take in our life. And I was thinking about this, especially with just making the time for the things that I want to do, right? Period. Just making the time for something as simple as something that I want to do. But I get caught up in the distractions, you get caught up in scrolling, you get caught up with TV, you get caught up with complaints and life and just wanting to go to bed early sometimes, that we forget that we have one life to live.
We forget that tomorrow could bring anything, any cards on the table. It could be the most wonderful day of your whole life, it could be the worst day of your whole life, and it could be the last day of your whole life. Ooh, I feel emotional as I say that because it could. And you don't know. You don't know what's coming tomorrow. And not to go too deep, but I really think sometimes we need that reminder that tomorrow's not guaranteed, and we're holding ourselves back from the dreams we want to do, the life we want to live, the things we want to create in this world because we think we have more time. Isn't that a Justin Bieber song about having more time? And honestly, you just don't. You really don't. You don't know how much time you
have. And as we come into the season of Thanksgiving, we're gonna get asked, oh, what are you thankful for? What are you thankful for? Da-da-da-da-da. Give me a list. I'm thankful for family, I'm thankful for friends, I'm thankful for this turkey dinner, whatever, right? The the tried and true things that we say every Thanksgiving. And I am, I am, I love my family, I love my friends, love me a good meal. But sometimes I think we need to go a little bit deeper and remember to every day have appreciation of noticing the little things we're experiencing. We are so busy and so caught up, and our foot is so heavy on that gas petal that we forget to notice the bees enjoying a little sweet nectar in the wildflowers that we grew, or the extra tomatoes from our garden and our trees that we somehow planted and grew. Had that on my vision board, grow a vegetable. I grew many, still wild to me. Or maybe even it's just the color of someone's eyes, or the simplicity of a hot cup of coffee, or my husband picked up some soup from a friend yesterday, just having a friend who would make a nice bowl of soup for you. These simple appreciations can go so much farther sometimes than gratitude. Gratitude is this like deep feeling of warmth and thankfulness for something in our lives, something that we're given, some just genuinely the breath that we have and the life that we're living. These small acts of noticing and appreciation just take it one level a little bit deeper. And so, this Thanksgiving, I challenge you to notice a little bit more, to put your phone down and to truly be present in whatever moment you're in. If you are home alone and it's just you eating a bowl of turkey soup, maybe you even got it out of the can, and you're just like, oh man, this Thanksgiving is kind of boring. It's just me sitting here. How can you notice a little bit of appreciation? Appreciation for yourself, for showing up for yourself, for giving yourself the gift of a meal, for being in your own presence and your own energy. Like, where can we shift our appreciation and just notice the smaller and the more simple things in life? I
was sitting on the couch earlier today and I looked out the window and I just saw these blue jays dancing around in our front yard. And there's just something about a blue jay. Every time I see one, I instantly think it's a connection to spirit of some kind. It's like a gift to see a blue jay. And I know if you live in Nova Scotia like I do, they're everywhere. It's not, you know, an uncommon bird to see, but it still just feels like such a gift. And it just took that one moment for me to sit and hang out with a bird, a couple birds, for a few minutes to just appreciate nature. Or when I was out on my walk with my dog Polly earlier today, too, I was like, that is the top of the list. I have to get this dog out for a nice walk for her, for me, for all of us, because sometimes the poor girl gets put on the bottom of the list when it's a busy day with sick toddler. And getting out and just smelling the leaves and getting fresh air. And even when I was on my walk, I got to talk to several of my neighbors. I saw one of my neighbors who lives across the street, him and his dog, and just get to chat with them and to get an update on what's going on in the neighborhood. And then we rounded the corner and I saw another one of my neighbors who has a couple dogs. If you have a dog in my neighborhood, I probably know you. That's the beautiful thing about having a dog. And you just really get to spend that quality time. The neighborhood I live in really changed my mindset on community in a way that I had never seen before in my old neighborhood. It was like house on house, and it was so busy, and there were so many people that nobody really stopped to say hello. And here in our new community, there's just like, I know everyone. I get to say hi to people. I could knock on someone's door and ask for help. Sometimes if I see something in my yard, I text my neighbors like it's just a different level of village and community that I feel here than I did in my previous place, and I'm so grateful for that. And it's these small moments of appreciation, I don't know, walk where you get to talk to your neighbors and see people and look at the leaves and see the flowers, and these simple, simple things have created a deep sense of appreciation for where we live. Or this weekend, we're cooking a turkey dinner for our whole family. Everybody's coming over here and we're gonna have a really nice meal with everyone and get to spend some quality time with them and deeply appreciate who's sitting around the table and just notice things and listen to things about what's going on in their jobs and how's life going in the gym and all of the things in these small little conversations that we often can miss because we're so caught up in everything else. So point of this episode is to remind you that yes, gratitude and thanks is
so important. I believe the words thank you are very strong. I heard on the radio this morning that in some cultures the words please and thank you are too formal and you don't use them in your immediate family. And I just kind of like shook my head a little bit because the person who was bringing up this argument was like, yeah, my wife does nice things for me, and I obviously love my wife more than anything in the world, but I just don't need to be saying thank you all the time. And maybe it's because I'm a words of affirmation girly, but when Glenn says thank you so much for insert the smallest little thing I did, I feel like a million bucks. Like it just feels so good, and I think gratitude and thanks is so important. And telling people that you're thankful for them, telling them thank you for this can go a really long way. So I'm not saying take that off the table this Thanksgiving, because we need some thanks up in here, okay? What I am saying is notice the small things too. Notice the decorations that your mom put out on the table for Thanksgiving dinner. Notice the trees waving at you when you're driving by, notice the leaves changing. Notice the little things and appreciate them. Say thank you to the earth for what it's given you. Appreciate the beauty in the small moments, appreciate the details in little things, appreciate someone's interest in a new hobby or love for something new they found, or how deep they go into a new book series, and they'll share with you all of the details about
it. Maybe even keep a list in your journal or in the notes section of your phone of little things that you've noticed and can appreciate. As many of you know, I love birds. Like I just think they're fascinating, and to see a beautiful bird or a strange bird or a a different bird, it just can change my whole day and my whole energy. And I just believe them to be like messengers of angels. It's just what I believe, okay? And if I had my nose in my phone all the time, which sometimes I do, like truth be told, like we know, sometimes I do. But when I don't and I can see a cool bird, it's just the greatest feeling. I want you to find that thing for yourself. Maybe you love a garden, you love a variety of flowers and plants, and to see something so beautiful in nature is like the greatest gift. So taking time to do that and to appreciate those little things and notice the details in that is gonna shift your whole mood. Not just for Thanksgiving, but all year round. So as we walk into family celebrations and things going on, remember, of course, be thankful how grateful we are for this beautiful time that we have and people around us and friends and all of the things. I'm so grateful. And also appreciating the tiny details, the little things we're seeing in nature, the little moments, the little comments on our walks or at drop off. Or maybe it's a moment at the coffee machine in the office. These little things are the noticing moments that we can start to appreciate that are gonna help to make these long ass days feel a little more fun, feel a little more magical.
Well, I love you so much. Happy Thanksgiving, and I'm so grateful, truly, that you're here, that you're hanging out with me and really bringing selfish confidence back to life. I love you so much. Happy Thanksgiving.
![[BOOST] Notice The Small Things Artwork](https://selfishconfidence.buzzsprout.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MTgzMjEzOTQ1LCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--320310658068fc53b2471636f4de06acf6f5a18d/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJmb3JtYXQiOiJqcGciLCJyZXNpemVfdG9fZmlsbCI6WzYwMCw2MDAseyJjcm9wIjoiY2VudHJlIn1dLCJzYXZlciI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2MH0sImNvbG91cnNwYWNlIjoic3JnYiJ9LCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--0b154cb6b88107719b1a277923d35676ba5519cc/cover%20art%20podcast.png)
