Balance & Beyond Podcast

Tired of working harder only to feel less confident?

You're not broken – you've just been following a broken model. 

Most ambitious women have been caught in a vicious cycle, believing that if they just work harder, polish their presence, gain more credentials, or wait until they've conquered self-doubt, then they'll finally feel confident. But the truth is shocking: these very strategies are what's killing your confidence.

In this revealing episode, we unpack the six hidden traps draining your confidence and fueling burnout. We explore why perfectionism is on overdrive, why external validation becomes more toxic as you climb the career ladder, and why waiting until you feel "ready" is keeping you stuck. You'll discover why confidence isn't about conquering imposter syndrome (even the most successful people experience doubt), but learning to move forward despite it.

The most liberating truth? Confidence isn't something you chase – it's a decision you make today. By rejecting these false narratives and embracing your authentic self, you can escape the prove-polish-perfect cycle that's stealing your freedom, peace, and fulfillment.

Ready to reclaim your confidence and create success without burnout? Join our free five-day Confidence Kickstart challenge. Your journey toward sustainable confidence and true balance starts with recognizing these traps – and deciding you're ready to break free. Register for FREE here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/kickstart 

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honor the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

Jo (Host)

The number one confidence killer I see in women, which is being exacerbated by AI, is the belief that if I just work harder and prove myself more, I will feel more confident. That's right. Many women still believe in this day and age that confidence comes from delivering flawless work to an incredibly high standard, never drop the ball.

Take on more responsibility. Say yes to everything. Even when you're already overloaded, make sure that you outperform, outlast, outwit, just like Survivor, the others to earn the authority and recognition. Any of this sound familiar? I've heard so many women say to me, I'm starting a new role. I've got to prove myself. I've got to get in there.

No.

You already got given the job, you got already given the promotion. You don't now have to go on this journey of proving that you're worthy or proving that you're worthy of the money or the opportunities. What we are seeing is because of this confidence trap, so many women are overworking, their perfectionist is drowning out so much joy from their lives, and the people pleasing is on steroids. That's right.

If you're in any way a perfectionist and you're in any way a people pleaser, these two pieces along with this working harder are having a huge drain on your confidence, even though you've been told the opposite. Along with the perfectionist, so many women have been told to be a little more polished. Just polish your presence a little bit further. And if they can speak more assertively in meetings,

Let me lower my voice. Let me put on my power suit, my red lipstick. I will posture. I'm going to do a power pose. I'm going do all of these things. And then now magically, I'm going to feel more confident. Now I get it. Many people, including me, teach that you can use your physiology to trick your brain into being more confident.

However, if you haven't done the deeper identity work first, then what happens is the perfectionist now tries to polish. So you rehearse and you rehearse and then you come off a little funny or you bite your tongue because you haven't quite done it right. Or then you try to be more authoritative because you've been told you need to stand up for yourself. And then you lie awake at two in the morning overthinking, my gosh, why said this? What are they going to think of me?

And you stew and beat yourself up because of how you've tried to do it. Because when you're polishing from a state of fear, which is what this is, then you usually either overcook or undercook with a huge amount of suffering. It's not actually done in a way that when you've done the proper nervous system and identity work, then when you polish, it lands because you're in alignment. The inside of you believes it.

Instead of being, I'll just put my lipstick on a pig, meanwhile, I shouldn't be here and my brain's going and my God, what have I done? You're like, no, and no one actually listens.

So if you're doing any of this, my friend, you are caught in a trap. Credentials, qualifications, MBAs, letters after your name. So many women have been taught from a very young age that if I have one more qualification, certification, do this course, get this skill, then I will feel more confident.

If I had a dollar for everyone who had spent between 40 and 60 thousand dollars on an MBA, and when I asked why they were doing it, they said, I want it to feel more confident. And I said, okay, so you've just spent $50,000 in three years of your life giving up a of weekends. How do you now feel? And they said, that much more confident. And now I've got a lot more debt than I wanted because this MBA was meant to give you confidence. It doesn't work that way. More credentials do not make you feel better. They do not empower you to speak up.

Sure, they can improve your technical knowledge, but there is not a direct link between knowing more necessarily and being more confident. This is one that comes in school. Get better grades, go to university, go to college, do all these things, and then you'll feel better. But it's this when then. It's the wrong way around. The more you start to feel confident, the more the extra knowledge that you've gained is actually going to support you.

So this has to be an inside job, not an outside job. And especially now with the rise of AI, knowing how delayed, let's say some external qualifications can be, I would ask everybody who might be looking to do some kind of more study or qualification just to ask themselves, why am I really doing this?

If it's in any way to feel more confident, then I would ask you to pause and ensure that you're doing the inner work first. If it's to get more qualifications or if it's to get more skills that you need because you have a gap, sure. But also with the rise of AI, be very, very careful about what you do and how you do it. Because there is a lot of women now who are rethinking on their bucket list was to do an MBA and now going, "Hmm, is that really the thing that's going to take me to the next level?" "Or could I spend that 40, $50,000, and three years of my life in other areas that are going to get me that result again?"

If I'm doing it for that reason, along with looking for more credentials, looking for more qualifications, this is a very big trend that is a huge confidence killer. And this is seeking confidence outside of ourselves.

So yes, you've got qualifications, you also have the need for external validation. Wanting other people to see you as capable. Ever looked for praise or feedback from a boss or clients or colleagues, seeing salary increases, promotions, titles as a way of feeling better about yourself or being invited in to senior conversations?

I remember the first time I got invited into an executive team meeting, I was like, "Ooh, I've made it!" "I'm now at the executive table!" Because, for me, I was so hooked on external validation that was almost like childhood version of me got a pat on the head was like, you can come and sit at the big kids table now. And I was all puffed up just like when you tell a four year old that they can now have, you know, a glass cup instead of the plastic one that, my gosh.

And it's very, very obvious as to why this happens. We grow up often with this trained into us with this recognition from our parents, we do something in turn to our parents and looking for the good job or well done. But the further you get up the food chain, the more toxic this reliance on others becomes. Cause you now fall into the trap of outsourcing your self worth to someone else's recognition.

And the higher you climb, the less feedback you get. So if you're someone like me who really craved and relied on this external validation, I found it an echo chamber. The further up I climbed, I realized that there was no good feedback coming. Usually the only feedback I got was a whack because you've gone too far or you haven't done this or you haven't done that. like, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. What happened to the feedback sandwich? What happened to the, you're great by the way, you could improve this and now, you know, you're also great.

The shit sandwich is not always delivered kindly. And this is why we see so many women get a promotion and then fall into all these traps. my gosh, I've got the promotion. Someone has now shoulder tapped me and said, you're good enough for this. But I've got to prove to them, I'm going to work even harder. Now I'm going to go get a qualification to prove that I can sit at this table.

I'm going to get myself polished and all of these things feed and spin off each other, which ironically, every single one of these that you do erode at your deepest self trust and end up eroding confidence much faster than you would believe. Which is why we see so many women get a promotion and be like, my gosh, I've made it. I'm feeling great. I finally got the title I want only to be falling apart on the inside because they're leaning into all these traps.

One of the most common triggers for somebody coming to us here at the Balance Institute is a promotion within the last three months because they have doubled down on, my gosh, I don't feel like I deserved it, but yay, I'm working hard. So these are really, really big triggers and you can see how they all feed on one another.

Next up, all of these, my gosh, these so fuel each other. Next up, as well as seeking external validation, many women believe, I think because we've seen this from men and we believe that others feel this way, that we must get rid of our imposter syndrome, conquer it, kill it, get rid of it before feeling confident or before stepping up or making that decision.

So many women say, once I've built self-confidence, Joe, then I'll go for the promotion. Once I stop doubting myself, I'll put my hand up. When I don't feel nervous sitting at that table or presenting that thing, then I'll know that I'm ready for the next job. my gosh, please. Confidence is not the absence of doubt. In fact, the further you rise, the bigger the stakes are.

The bigger the consequences, the bigger the failure, the bigger the exposure if you do happen to make a mistake. So it is not the absence of doubt that becomes your confidence. It becomes the ability to move despite it. So imposter syndrome is not something to be conquered. And there are so many women out there saying, I've got to get rid of my imposter syndrome. There's something wrong with me. No, you're human. You don't like uncertainty.

Confidence is knowing that you will no longer be paralyzed by it. Confidence is knowing that you can make that decision without staying up all night and doing a pros and cons analysis at 4 a.m. of your decision because you've lost complete access to your gut. And so you flail and overthink and then can't make a decision and then ask everybody else for feedback and then wanna undo it anyway. We have to stop this craziness that there is somehow this land of rainbows and unicorns where self-doubt disappears.

You speak to some of the wealthiest people in the world, the most successful people in the world, and they still have self-doubt. They have just learned to move in spite of it. And lastly, the sixth biggest confidence killer is waiting.

Waiting until one day I'm ready. One day I'll be ready for that promotion. One day I'll be ready to invest in myself. One day I'll be ready to speak up. One day when I've got all my ducks in a row, I'm on top of my inbox, my projects are going well, all my projects have green lights on them and there's no red. My boss is happy with me, my team's under control and the unicorn and the leprechaun are dancing over the rainbow. My gosh.

"Ready" is a decision. That's right. It is not a feeling because you will never be ready for some things, but ready is a decision. So drawing a line in the sand and saying, right, that's it. I'm not going to wait any longer because confidence comes from taking the bold steps that actually builds it. It's like wanting to ride a bike. I'm going to wait until I feel ready to ride the bike.

Let me watch some more YouTube videos about riding a bike. Let me learn more about the wheels. I know I'm going to ask people, am I going to be good at riding a bike? Just get on the damn bike. You have to start falling off. That's the only way to build confidence.

And this is true of anything, whether it's speaking up, whether it's taking that promotion, putting your hand up for that opportunity, saying no to somebody, confronting your boss about your workload, confronting your partner about how the mental load is shared, deciding to invest in yourself. All of these components are decisions, not feelings. And the moment you step in and say, I'm ready, make that declaration, then everything starts to shift. You then can learn that you don't have to work as hard. That's right, it's not just about working hard and you have nothing to prove to anyone. That is how you get your confidence back.

Owning your authenticity, your humanity, instead of polishing yourself to perfection is how you build more confidence. Not believing that you need any more credentials, believing that your humanity is enough, learning to trust your own validation, your own self-worth, your own inner wisdom. You begin to do that. My gosh, everything changes.

Moving on in spite of the self-doubt, knowing that that imposter will probably be with you for life, but it's not going to paralyze you and it doesn't have to cause you to burn out, miss out on opportunities, take away and steal your freedom, your peace, your fulfillment. None of that has to be possible. But the first thing you have to do is decide that you're ready. Make a decision to be confident today. And I promise you, you will escape all six of these career killers that especially right now are draining the confidence and the life out of so many women.