🎁 Naked Confidence™ Advent Calendar - A to C 🎁

Welcome to my Advent Calendar! 😁🎉

Rather than chocolates, throughout December I will be revealing new aspects of Naked Confidence™ (1 per day on LinkedIn, grouped together here every Friday for ease) 🎁

And hopefully by Christmas you will be feeling positive, inspired, and of course Nakedly Confident! 😊🔥💪

🎁 First, A is for AWARENESS 🎁

And it's fitting we're starting with this because I say to my clients,

🌟 Self-Awareness is the first step.

You have to start by building your AWARENESS of your thoughts and feelings

- if you don't have that, you won't know that you would benefit from changing them

(usually to something more positive! 😉)

🎁 A's ACTION

Today, every time you pick up the phone, or you're about to go on a Zoom call, take a moment to check in on yourself:

🤔 what am I feeling?

🤔 what am I thinking?

🤔 is it HELPFUL to me?

Just start by noticing.

Remember, self-awareness is the first step 😊

🎁 Second, B is for BRAIN 🎁

It's sad but true: your brain is not always your friend... 😔

But this isn't because you are flawed, or "wrong" - it's simply biological.

The brain's primary purpose is to keep you alive, so you can spread your genes 🐣

It has evolved to be successful at this by keeping you away from things that threaten you.

Think of the negativity bias:

❗️ humans are proven to remember negatives more than positives.

And you can see why this would be the case:

which is more important to your survival -

🐅 remembering where the sabre-toothed tiger's cave is?

🌼 or the field of pretty flowers...?

The problem is that the brain misunderstands what constitute a threat.

These days, situations that feel threatening to you include giving presentations, asserting your opinion in a meeting, going for a promotion... 😬

So your brain tries to keep you safe - by keeping you small.

It throws up negative thoughts to keep you away from this "dangerous" stuff.

But YOU get to choose which thoughts you allow to take space in your brain! 😁💪

Remember, thoughts aren't REAL - they're just thoughts.

🎁 B's ACTION

When you get a thought that is potentially unhelpful to you (see 🎁 A above), question it.

🤔 "Is that REALLY true?"

Most of the time you'll find it isn't... 😉

🎁 C is for CRITIC/ CHEERLEADER 🎁

“Staying out of judgement [is] not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do...”

So says the wonderful Brené Brown 😁

The problem is, all too often we’re not just judging others - we’re also judging ourselves.

(Especially when we have Imposter Syndrome...)

That voice in our heads is a terrible Critic: belittling us, condemning us, undermining us… 😩

But it doesn’t have to be that way! 🌟

You can learn to quieten that Critic, and replace it with a Cheerleader voice instead, encouraging you on 😊💪

🎁 C’s ACTION

Practice “situational” rather than “personal” judgement.

❌ Instead of, “she was late because she doesn’t care about me” (personal)…

✅ …think “she was late because she got stuck in traffic/ her babysitter was late/ she lost her keys” (situational).

In other words, it’s not about YOU.

🔥 Give the benefit of the doubt - and not just to others, to yourself as well 😊

Remember, most of the time, you’re doing the best you can 😍

So keep telling yourself that… 😁🔥💪

With much festive love until next week (and D-I in the Advent Calendar)🤶💖

Kirsten xx

p.s. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my Advent Calendar - you can email me on kirsten@kirstengoodwin.co.uk 😊

p.p.s. if you can't wait until next week, follow me on LinkedIn and get your updates daily! 🎁