How To Be A Confident Mom

Hi there. Welcome to the Design Your Dream Life podcast. My name is Natalie Bacon, and I’m an advanced certified mindfulness life coach as well as a wife and mom. If you’re here to do the inner work and grow, I can help. Let’s get started.

Welcome to the podcast, my friend. So happy to be here with you today. Oh my word. Can we talk about confidence? I have been totally blown away by how much confidence and my work around self-confidence has changed my life in every single area from my personal life to my professional life to my marriage to my friendships to just about everything, how I relate to the world. It’s been so incredible for me.

I am on fire about this topic because I revisited some of my old tools and processes and kind of methods for teaching confidence as well as did new research and just gathered so much new information from the coaching that I’ve done in the last several years. I created a new course called Confidence on Purpose. It is the workshop course, a workbook, and a coaching call, that will be the topic of the month in September.

So this podcast episode comes out the last day of August. So when you join Grow You in September, you get this course. It is some of the best work I’ve done because I’ve been able to simplify confidence down into a practice that I think feels incredible to use because it’s so simple. I like simple because then it means I’m more likely to use it in my life. So I wanted to bring you today kind of a taste of that with a twist on how to become a more confident mom, how to practice confidence, confidence is a practice we’ll talk about that as well, in motherhood.

So what happens when you’re not confident? That’s what I want to talk about first. Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t really walk around thinking oh, I’m not confident. I need to work on my confidence. That’s just not kind of the dialogue in my mind. But once I refocused on these tools, I realized that you’re either practicing confidence or you’re not kind of with every decision.

So when you’re not practicing confidence, you find yourself in the comparison trap. You have thoughts, you have a mindset like she’s just a better mom. She can handle so much more. She doesn’t yell at her kids. Those thoughts, that mindset creates a very insecure, disempowered feeling in your body. You can’t feel confident when you have those thoughts.

Similarly, if you’re not practicing confidence, you will be fueled by self-doubt. You’ll have thoughts like this is just too much for me. I feel so depleted. I can’t handle this. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to moments, many moments of having these thoughts. When I have these thoughts, there’s no way I can be fueled by confidence. Because remember, that mindset is what creates your feelings. So if I feel self-doubt, I can’t be feeling confidence at the same time.

Another way that I see this showing up in motherhood when you’re not confident is that you will seek external validation. You will talk with other moms to complain and get validation for your experience. So this is basically looking for other people to approve of what your mindset is because you’re not so sure about it. You want other people’s approval. When they give you your approval, then you will approve of yourself.

You want that external approval in order to know that what you’re doing is okay. So you want them to validate maybe your past experience as well as your decisions. So if you’re not sure about whether to send your child to a particular school, and you’re fueled by self-doubt about it and not being certain, you may seek external validation to get approval from someone else.

You’ll want to know what would you do in this situation, and you’ll ask all your friends and family in hopes that something that they say will make you feel better. Of course it can’t. Because as long as you’re having these thoughts, they will create self-doubt.

So please don’t take this to mean you shouldn’t ever ask people their opinions. You just want to notice the difference between genuinely being curious about alternative ways of thinking about something and other people’s opinions. Versus when we’re asking someone their opinion because we’re looking for validation. It typically comes from us feeling insecure about a choice we’re making.

You want to notice that this is where you’ll do that mindset work to create confidence so that you can practice it and ask other people their opinions. There’s such a difference in the experience. Because if someone has a different opinion, and you’re fueled by confidence, you’re interested. You’re connected. You want to know more. You don’t make that mean that you are wrong, which is what happens when we’re fueled by insecurity, and someone doesn’t validate us.

Another example of how this shows up in motherhood when you’re not confident is trying to become a better mom from lack of not enoughness. I think this is one of the most pervasive problems that I see, specifically with motherhood. Because so many women are moms, and there are so many different ways to do it. So if you learn about a new way, or you see someone else doing it in a different way, you immediately think that their way is better.

This may just be because you like them and respect them, or it may be because you see their kids behaving in a way that you wished your kids would behave in. Whatever the reason, it’s coming from this place of I think I should be better because I’m not enough right now. Because, for example, I yell at my kids, and that makes me a bad mom.

So it’s taking an action of yelling and making it mean something about you as a person. This means you are acting from shame. You’re thinking I need to change so that I can be good enough. There is no space for confidence to live when you have this thought pattern and when you’re fueled by mom guilt and shame.

What I say instead is to yes, want to change and grow and get better, but do it from wholeness. Do it from I am a good enough mom, even when I make mistakes, even when I yell. It’s not my finest moment. That’s the part I’m working on right now, but it doesn’t affect my worth. I am still a good enough mom. Changing from that place is so different than changing from I’m not enough.

I always give the example of weight loss here because it’s a parallel example that I think we can all relate to. It’s I want to lose weight because I care about my body, and I love my body, and I think that’s what’s best for my body in the future. Versus I want to lose weight because I hate my body. It’s ugly. It’s not healthy, it’s not enough. That’s what we do in motherhood. We say we need to change our actions and our patterns and how we show up because we are bad. When you have this thinking, you’re in shame, and there’s no room. There’s no place for confidence there.

Another example that I see often when you’re not fueled by confidence is worrying about everything. It’s researching everything. This is coming from a place of not trusting yourself. You think that you have to be perfect. You have to make the perfect decision. If you get it wrong, then you will blame yourself pretty much for eternity.

This is so important to see that it is actually a thought pattern. It’s what’s creating the worry that’s fueling all of these sort of neurotic actions. I like to say that if you’re in this pattern, you just have no chill. I promise you that you can care and be very purposeful with how you make decisions with respect to your kids from such a better feeling emotion. Confidence, for example, since we’re on the topic.

Confidence feels so much better. Confidence doesn’t mean that you don’t research. It doesn’t mean that you don’t make very intentional decisions. It just means that the fuel that you are taking action from feels certain and clear and future focused and abundant. It does not feel worrisome. It does not feel like fear. I see this so much in motherhood. I think it comes from a good place, right? We think there’s so much on the line. We don’t want to “mess up” our kids as if every decision sort of hangs in the balance. Again, notice this is a thought pattern.

The last place that I see this come up is mom guilt and then mom shame. It’s making any little imperfection mean something about you. That you’re a bad mom. That you’re doing it all wrong. Let’s say you forget to pack one of your kids lunch, and they go to school, and they don’t have lunch with them. You make that mean that you are a failure as a mom. You make it means so much more than oh yeah, I’m a mom. I’m a human. This was a mistake. It’s okay. I can course correct here.

When you take imperfections and mistakes and make them mean something about you, that is shame. Confidence is I can handle this. I know I’m a human being, and I am supposed to make mistakes. Even in motherhood, yes. Sometimes my kids will be at the effect of that. That doesn’t make me a bad mom. That makes me a human mom.

It’s so important that we remember this. I can’t tell you how much I see this coming up in my own brain and in so many of my clients’ minds. It’s that mindset that will sabotage your experience. You end up worrying and stressed, and you really rob yourself of the experience of enjoying the moments that are right in front of you. Because you’re in mom guilt. You’re in mom shame. You’re worrying. You’re stressed. You’re overwhelmed. All because of the mindset that is fueling these emotions.

So the solution is confidence. Confidence is a feeling that you feel in your body. It’s created by a mindset that you can feel any feeling. That you are willing to try new things and fail forward. That you like and love yourself in all of your roles, in the good and the bad. That you believe in your dreams. When you have this the mindset, you will create the feeling of confidence.

Self-confidence, which is what I’m talking about here, is the idea that you don’t know how to do everything, but you know how to handle your own mindset and emotions. Specifically, when you try new things or when you get it wrong. You don’t hold yourself out to have all of the answers and do things perfectly. Instead, you know you can handle it if you make a mistake and figure out what’s next. You say yes to all of you.

This is self-confidence. It’s different than competence in a specific area where you’re really good at something, and you make that mean I’m certain I can handle anything that comes up in this space. Like I’m confident as a coach. I’m competent as an entrepreneur. This is I’m confident in myself. I don’t know the best decision. That’s the truth. But what do I know? I know that I can make my best educated guess. Once we get new information, once we follow through with the decision, we’ll get new information and see was this the best choice in this situation.

I was coaching someone recently. She wasn’t sure whether it was the right choice to send her daughter to preschool, and she was really nervous about the decision. I said you’re only nervous about the decision because of what you’ll make it mean if you think you made the wrong decision down the road. There is no such thing as a right decision and a wrong decision. There is only your interpretation of the decision later on.

I say interpret all your decisions as the best decision that you could have made in the moment. Now in the future, we have new information. Let’s read aside. You can always read aside and change your mind. This is self-confidence. It’s knowing that you can handle anything that comes your way, anything in your circumstance, any emotion that you feel. When you’re confident, the results in your life explode. Because you drop the anxiety producing need to get everything right in motherhood as if there is a right thing that exists outside of us and that it’s all about us.

Instead of what confidence gives you is permission to allow yourself to be a messy human, a messy mom who is half amazing and half mess, who is there to serve and guide and teach and mentor her child. When you’re fueled by confidence, it’s much more about your kids and giving to your kids than it is about you validating your own experience.

By accepting the uncertainty, fear, and self-doubt that you experience as a mom, you really lighten the pressure on yourself to always get it right. You just know that yeah, sometimes I’m gonna feel uncertain, and that’s okay. I can handle uncertainty. I can handle a little bit of self-doubt. I can make confident decisions moving forward, and allow my self-doubt to come with me. I’m not going to decide from that place. I just know that as a human, of course, I’m going to feel those feelings sometimes. This is confidence in who you are.

So inside the Confidence on Purpose course inside Grow You, I give you 10 practices to increase your confidence. These can be practices that you use for the rest of your life. They are simple. Not always easy, but simple. Here I want to give you a few different practices and different mindset shifts.

If you like these, I want to encourage you to join us for this month. You can just come for one month if you would like to test it out, and get these practices so that you can really change how you show up in your everyday life. I like to say you’re either practicing confidence or you’re not. It’s in every decision. So notice that. If you’re not practicing confidence, this is something that you want to make sure that you have in your tool belt.

The first practice I want to share with you here is to adopt the mindset that there are many different ways to parent. Moms are supposed to parent differently. My friend is supposed to parent different than me. I think this shift alone removes a huge weight that we put on ourselves as moms. It comes from wanting to validate that we’re doing a good enough job.

When we see someone else doing it differently, we immediately make it mean something about us that we’re doing it wrong. When you have the mindset that moms are supposed to parent differently, then there’s freedom. There’s space for there to be so many alternative ways that are good. It doesn’t mean that what you’re doing isn’t good.

The next practice is to think that there is no one right way to be a mom. There isn’t a right way, and there isn’t a wrong way. So you’re not right or wrong for doing the things or not doing the things. Whether you’re a working mom or a stay at home mom or a part time mom or a stepmom or any other way that you would describe how you have your many roles. There are an infinite amount of ways to describe it in combination. What we want to see is that there is no right way.

This will help you be fueled by confidence because you won’t be thinking that how you’re doing it is something to be compared to how the next mom is doing it. She’s being a mom in one way, and I’m being a mom and another way. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way. There are just many ways.

The next way to practice confidence in motherhood is to specifically think about mistakes and failures and change how you think about them. You are going to make mistakes and failures. Accept this and welcome it. Do not try to avoid it or outrun it. I’ve seen this. It’s exhausting. It’s worrisome. It robs you of the joy that is right in front of you.

There is no way to make sure that your child never experiences anything bad in life. They are going to have challenges. They are going to have trials. They are going to feel negative emotion, which of course you already know. But isn’t it interesting that we act from this place of trying to be perfect, so our kids never experience those feelings? That’s what we want to notice because we can end up kind of acting crazy.

We want to change that. Just remind yourself I’m a human. I’m supposed to make mistakes and failures. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and not even care or not even try. It means that there’s space in the middle for me to allow myself to make mistakes and failures without making it mean something’s gone wrong. Without worrying all day and night trying to make some “right choice” and avoid any mistake or failure.

The next practice is to notice the fuel that you’re taking action from. When you take action, there’s always an emotion underneath it because emotions create your actions. When you’re taking action is it coming from fear, judgment, worry, self-doubt, insecurity? Or is it coming from openness, curiosity, fun, confidence?

On the one hand, you have emotions that are rooted in fear and scarcity. On the other hand, you have emotions that are rooted in abundance. Try to notice the fuel that you are experiencing that’s underneath those actions, and change it. You want to be fueled by positive emotions. This is kind of the practice of changing your mindset and your emotions that we do inside Grow You, but you want to make sure it’s that positive fuel.

The next practice is to get in the habit of validating your own decisions. This comes from a confident mindset where you say I don’t know if this is the right decision. There is no such thing as a perfect right decision. All I know is that this is the best decision for me to make given the circumstances, given the information that I have. If it turns out to be a decision that isn’t going to produce the result that we thought, I can always remake that decision. That is confidence. That is knowing that you are making your own decisions from a really empowered place.

The last practice I want to offer you here is to give your brain equal airtime to the good things. Make sure that you are journaling, or you are listening to coaching replays, or you are listening to other types of positive input. Then also creating that positive output by rewiring your mindset so that you are fueled and focused on positivity.

When you are a mom, it can be so tempting to think that it is responsible to focus on the bad and the risks and the problems. I’m not saying ignore all of that. But I see an overweighted focus like 80/20, where 80% of the time you’re focused on the negative and what could go wrong and all of the risks and all of the worries, and only 20% of the time, it’s the good.

I want that to be at least 50/50 where you are really thinking about all of the good things that could happen and all of the good that is right in front of you so that you are feeling joyful and positive and loving the day to day life and not feeling fueled by worry and overwhelm. Regardless of your circumstances, I promise you this is available to you.

For example, if you find yourself transitioning back to work let’s say after a third or fourth child. If you have the belief that you are not able to manage everything, that you are going to be overwhelmed, that you are stuck and you can’t solve childcare challenges, particularly when one of your littles is sick. That mindset is going to keep you stuck and disempowered. It will keep any solutions blocked.

Think of your brain as a search engine. What you’re typing into Google is how can I make sure I can’t solve this problem. How can I make sure I don’t find childcare? That is what you’re looking for. What you tell your brain to look for is what it will find.

Conversely, if you are fueled by possibility and confidence and you have the mindset this is really challenging. I don’t know how it’s gonna work out, but I know that I can handle anything that comes my way. I know that as a family we are capable, more than capable of solving this challenge.

I know that this might be difficult, but I also know I’m getting stronger, and I was made for this. This is the exact family I want. This is the exact career I want. Somehow I’m going to navigate marrying the two. When you have this sort of mindset, you will create completely different results than if your mindset is this is impossible. This is terrible.

It is a practice because I’m telling you on default your brain wants to feel disempowered, like your life is happening to you. Confidence is the opposite. Confidence is saying I am going to choose to think differently and to feel differently in a way that serves the future that I want.

It is magic, my friends. I promise you practicing confidence will change your life. It will change how you show up as a mom. It will change so much. I have seen it in my own life and in my clients’ lives. I invite you to join us and give it a try in September in Grow You.

If you loved this podcast I invite you to check out Grow You my mindfulness community for moms where we do the inner work together. Head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more.