← Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
246 | 10 Ways to Boost Your Self-Esteem so You Can Show Up More Confidently at Work and in Life
00:15:43
Confidence isn’t something you have to be born with. It’s something you can build over time. And in today’s HER Style Podcast episode, I want to share some of the most effective ways to boost your self-esteem, both internally and externally, so...
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
Confidence isn't something you have to be born with, it's something you can build over time. And in today's Herstyle Podcast episode, I want to share some of the most effective ways to boost your self esteem both internally and externally so you can show up more confidently at work and in life. From how you speak to yourself to how you get dressed in the morning, these small shifts will add up to a major transformation. Let's dive in and get you feeling your very best, my friend. Welcome to her Style podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day with confidence. I'm your host Heather Riggs, a 15 year and counting certified image consultant and color specialist, ready to build a wardrobe and a personal style you love. Let's get started. It was not my intention going in, but it definitely feels like our June episodes have had a running confidence theme so far. We had my interviews with Lara Frenjian where we talked about feeling better and better both inside and out as you age. And our last episode featured the RealReal founder Julie Wainwright, who shared a ton of amazing advice on going for your goals. And in my last email newsletter I talked about embracing where I am in my life and taking charge of the changes that I wanted to see. And so we are just going to keep rolling with this trend, at least for today episode because I want to help you feel and be bold and confident in your life. And part of this comes from your mindset and how you feel and think about yourself. And then another part of this really comes from how you show up on the outside. So I wanted to take this episode to address both sides of the coin because I believe that you can fake it till you make it. But I also want to see your self esteem building authentically too. Not just dressing the part, but being and becoming the part. And I also wanted to remind you of my belief that confidence is a selfless choice. When you feel confident in who you are and how you show up, it does really allow you to be fully present and to put your focus on others. I talked about this at length in episode number 45, which I will link up in the show notes for you. But for today, let's start with a few internal self esteem builders. The first one is to name your inner critic and then mute her. One of the biggest confidence killers is the voice in our head that tells us things like we're not good enough, pretty enough, young enough, smart enough. You can just insert your inner mean girl banter right here. But the thing is that Voice isn't you. It's just a part of your brain that is trying to keep you safe. It's trying to protect you from taking a risk or speaking up or showing up out of the fear. Fear of what could go wrong. So you can try, if you want, giving your inner critic a name. I use this one a lot. Mine is Debbie Downer. And so when she pops up, if I hear her putting myself down or putting a situation down or going into fear or panic mode, I will just calmly in my head say, thank you for your input, Debbie, but I'm doing this anyway. Or I know that that's not true, and it really does help to say, separate that critical voice from your true self. And when you do that, you can choose a more empowering thought to replace it. I strongly encourage you to try practicing this and catching yourself in these bullying moments and without judgment, because we don't want to beat ourself up when we keep doing the same thing over and over. And it is a learning curve to shift these thoughts faster and faster. But I want you, for now, to just notice it and decide to think about something else instead. Replace that mean thought with something more empowering and try talking to yourself like a friend instead. If you were standing in front of the mirror talking to a friend instead of yourself, what would you say to her? Then say that to yourself instead. The second thing that you can do is work on curating your inputs. And what I mean by this is what you consume affects how you feel. So if your social media is full of people looking picture perfect or comparison traps, it might be time to do a little curation. Clean out. I want you to follow people who inspire and uplift you, not ones who make you feel less than or who send you spiraling into comparison mode. I've talked very openly about how that happens to me often when I'm on Instagram, so I have curated my feed, but I've also decided not to spend much time on social media for that reason either. I want you to notice how you feel before and after you read, watch or consume something. And then ask yourself if that feeling is empowering you or if it's inhibiting you. I'm not into cancel culture, especially with personal relationships, if there's an opportunity to work through a conflict with someone and grow from it. But I do think it's really wise to be intentional with who you follow and what you consume in the media. I'm talking about books, TV shows. My girlfriend and I were just talking the other day about how she used to watch a lot of guilty pleasure shows. I did the same thing, like the Real World and the Jersey Shore and the Real Housewives, all the Bravo shows that really normalize drama. And she was saying about how looking back now, she can really see how that seeped into her actual relationship at the time. And so you want to look at those things. Are the things that you're consuming impacting not only how you're treating others, but how you're treating and thinking about yourself? And I want you to also examine the podcast that you listen to. I hope and pray that this is an empowering one for you, but if it's not, I will be the first to tell you to give it a break for a little while and think about again how you feel with the people that you follow online and in real life. Because we want everything to ideally line up, at least from a value standpoint, with where you want to go. So all that to say, choose to input things that build you up, not tear you down. All right, my third tip is to create a proof of confidence file. Anytime someone compliments you, if you accomplish something big or small in your life, if you feel proud of yourself, I want you to screenshot it, write it down, save it to a folder, or you could even start a little running notebook of kind of your daily wins. And this is going to become an evidence bank that you can revisit anytime imposter syndrome or self doubt really starts to show up. It's going to become a personalized reminder that you are absolutely capable, capable. And it's going to give you a quick confidence boost anytime you need it, so you can look back on those little moments of evidence that you are amazing that you can do the thing. And to help give you that boost to do it again. All right, tip number four is to visualize the best case outcome. Our brains love to run on worst case scenarios. So I want you to flip that. Before you have a big meeting, an event, or even before you're picking an outfit for the day, I want you to pause and and imagine it all going well. I want you to see yourself walking into the room with confidence, being well received and feeling completely secure. Let your mind rehearse this feeling and imagine this experience of success. And here's a little bonus tip. You can imagine it in every sense. Think about what you might be seeing, smelling, tasting, touching. Imagine exactly what you're wearing in that scene to really anchor that confidence in your real life. Athletes do this all the time. It's visualization techniques. It really will help your overall performance. And then the last one for the inner work is to try doing one bold thing every day because your self esteem is going to grow through action. It doesn't have to be huge. Maybe it's just wearing a new lip color and taking a chance on that, or making the first move in a conversation. Going up to someone that you might want to be friendly with and asking them how they're doing today. Or could be setting a boundary that is so hard for so many of us to put up boundaries and to be more protective of our time or the things that we say no to. I want you to try making one big or small bold move every day because that is really going to help you to build your confidence muscle over time. Okay, so we talked about five internal things that you can do to start up leveling how you see yourself. And now we're going to make sure that you're matching this growing confidence on the outside with some really simple outfit styling strategies. The first one is to dress for the mood that you want to be in. I feel like I talked about this recently in another episode, but instead of dressing based on how you feel, I want you to dress based on how you want to feel. So if you want to feel confident and persuasive, maybe you're going to pull out that structured blazer or you're going to wear your best red so that psychologically you can create that empowered state when you show up. If you want to feel more joyful, you could try wearing a bright color, even if it's just a bright color for you color. It might not be bright by everybody's standards, but if it feels like something happy or a little lighter and brighter for the day, that might really lift your spirits. Or you could opt for a playful print. I always want you to keep in mind your style preferences and what flatters you. But remember that getting dressed is an opportunity to set the tone for your entire day and also to communicate an accurate story about who you are to the people that you interact with. So let's have some fun with that. I want you to think about how you want to feel and be seen the next time that you get dressed. Dress for the mood that you want to create. The second thing is to remember that your best colors are going to give you an instant confidence boost. So if you're feeling down or if you're not sure what to wear, I always encourage you to reach for a color that you know looks great on you. This could be something that brightens your complexion makes your eyes really pop and stand out in a beautiful way or that consistently earns you compliments. What are the colors that people say all the time look amazing on YouTube? If you're still figuring out your best colors, you can look through photos where you felt really amazing on your phone and try to spot any commonalities. What are the hues that you tend to feel your best in in person or in pictures? Maybe you always feel good in blue and that's kind of a natural color for you. I want you to wear that the next time that you're not feeling so great. If you want to look more refreshed, you could try wearing a color that's related to your skin tone or a natural blush color for you. Maybe opt for something in a really soft or luxurious texture to give it of an extra oomph. One of my favorite things also I will say about Her Style Collective is the opportunity to hand over a fully custom color palette of your 35 most flattering hues. I base this of course on your personal coloring, but also on your personality and preferences so that it's aligned in all of the possible ways. And I cannot tell you how much of a game changer this resource is for your confidence. So if you want to team up on this, if you're ready to discover your best colors, you can head to herstylellc.com collective to get all the details and to join us inside that program. All right, the third way that you can boost your self esteem is to have a signature outfit that you can reach for when you're low on confidence or on time. Maybe it's a flowy midi dress with great belt and boots or sandals in the summertime, or some dark jeans with a crisp blouse or some great statement earrings. Whatever makes you feel your most powerful and confident, I want you to have that sort of go to outfit formula ready and waiting. You can keep it easy, flattering, of course, and we want it to feel unmistakably you. So your power outfit should really feel like armor or a suit that you actually want to step into and wear on the days that you're not feeling your best. All right, the fourth thing is to remember the importance of balancing comfort and style because if you are uncomfortable, it's going to show. That stiff fabric, the shoes that are pinching your toes, or that top that you keep adjusting can all chip away at your confidence throughout the day. So instead I want you to really think about prioritizing clothes that feel good on your body and that reflect your style I don't think you have to compromise. It doesn't have to be one or the other. You can choose clothing that feels really comfortable, that fits you flawlessly, and is reflective of how you want to show up and be seen. So remember, comfort and confidence are not mutually exclusive. When you feel comfortable and secure, you're also going to show up better and be able to focus your attention on other people like we talked about earlier. And the last tip number five is to try some mirror work with a twist. That was weird to say. Try some mirror work with a twist. Hopefully that came out better. So instead of standing in front of the mirror and critiquing yourself, I know you do this sometimes we all do it, friend. Especially if you're having a bad day can get really critical and go down that slippery slope of being your own worst critic. So instead, I want you to choose one area or physical feature that you do feel good about or even just okay about, and then focus on highlighting that in your outfit for the day. If you feel really good about your eyes, you could try wearing your eye color especially close to your face, or repeating the shape of your eyes in your earrings or another piece of jewelry or a print to draw the focus back there. If you feel okay about your legs, maybe you're gonna wear a skirt or a pair of shorts that day and really show them off. I just want you to pick one small thing to celebrate. And when you focus your attention on that, your insecurities really will fall to the wayside. Okay, so I just gave you 10 ways altogether to boost your self esteem. And this week I wanna challenge you to choose one internal and one external confidence building practice from today's episode. Try them out, experiment and pay attention to how they make you feel. And let me leave you with this one last thought. Confidence doesn't come from being perfect. Perfection is impossible. It just comes from practicing the courage to show up again and again. That is how you are gonna build up your confidence over time. So remember every thought that you shift to a more empowering one. Every outfit that you put on with intention and joy, every small action you take in the direction that you wanna go is all going to add up over time. And remember, you don't have to wait to feel 100% confident to show up fully at work and in your life. You just have to start start showing up like the version of you who already is. So keep putting these tips into practice, one at a time. Layer them, stack them up, and your inner confidence will inevitably line up. I hope that you love this conversation today, friend. If so, please let me know. Take just two minutes to leave a written review and a five star rating of the show. It means the absolute world to me. It really does help us to grow and to be able to continue doing this work and it helps other women like you find us and join our community. I can't wait to hear from you. So go ahead, leave your review and then step into your confidence. This week I am here cheering for you and I'll meet you back here for another episode in just a few days.