In today’s dose of Mindset Monday’s, I want to talk about something that has been ever present within my life and my teachings. Confidence. I want to talk about how your internal dialogue can dramatically shift your mindset and alter your levels of self-worth and confidence. My aim is to help you live an inspired, passionate and worthy life filled with self-love, confidence and a hunger to inspire the world around you through your own actions. 

I have spent the past fifteen years travelling interstate and studying from the masters that came before me, both in person and online, including Tony Robbins, Dr. John Demartini, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Brene Brown, Mel Robbins, Tom Bilyeu and Jay Shetty. These men and women are global educators, researchers, psychologists, NLP masters, bestselling authors, world-renowned specialists in human behaviours and all-round great people. The knowledge and disciplines that have been synthesized through their teachings, and the wisdom that has been translated through the ages, is phenomenal and something that I am grateful to get to share with you now. 

Based on the studies conducted by these amazing minds, millions of people show signs and express feelings of being an “imposter”. Put simply, they fear that one day everyone will find out that they are a phony or fake. So much so that they will question every single action, thought, success or reward they receive around their gifts. 

What these studies suggest is that our self-worth and self-confidence is connected to how honest and how aligned we are with our true selves. Are you living aligned to your highest values, to who you really want to be at your core? Let’s go a little further and explore a passage from the Hermetics teachings, known as “Jacobs ladder”. This ladder is a theory written in scriptures and hieroglyphics, but it is unproven as truth.  Regardless, imagine a ladder similar to “Jacobs ladder”, with seven rungs, and at the pinnacle sit your highest values. As we move down the ladder, we place our values on each rung and clearly make sense of which are of more or less value, or importance, to you. 

The more valuable something is, the higher on the ladder it will be, and the more you will be inspired and act from within. Let’s use the example of a young boy who loves playing video games. He will want to, and most probably will, play them as frequently as possible, with or without the promise of pleasure or the fear of punishment. He is naturally driven to play and dedicates time to playing. If his lowest values were his homework or jobs around the house, the opposite would occur and he would need some type of motivator, such as reward or punishment, in order to complete them. 

This being said, whatever is highest on your list, you will probably be more focused, energised and disciplined in achieving. These values, or areas of your life, will be more inspired, creative, strategic and innovative. The areas that are lowest on your list will lead you to feel more frustrated and you will find yourself procrastinating about doing them. You may find that when you look at your lowest values, you are more likely to be far more subjective and you will sometimes even try to look less important than others that you perceive to have more credibility, or “success”, than you. This tends to cause a diminished sense of self-worth and in turn can be referred to as “imposter syndrome”.

As human beings we tend to compare ourselves to others. I personally have done a lot of work on this throughout my life, especially when playing elite sport. In order to stop, you will need to begin by realising we are not here to compare ourselves to others. As Dr. John Demartini states in his acclaimed Breakthrough experience, ‘whenever you are comparing yourself to others what you are doing is putting them on a pedestal and taking on their highest values rather than your own’. This in turn causes you to undervalue yourself, causing you to self-deprecate and, as a result, the chances of you achieving your goals reduces dramatically, as do your levels of self-confidence. Secondly, this is a normal psychological/biological response from your inner self to help you understand that you are not living authentically and aligned to your highest self, according to what you have as your highest value. It is your honest response mechanism to let you know you are trying to be somebody you were not meant to be. 

You’re not here to be second to anyone else, none of us are. You are here to be the best version of you, to be first at YOU!

As it is believed that Albert Einstein once said, if you are a cat and expect yourself to swim like a fish, or are a fish and expect yourself to climb a tree like a cat, you are doomed. You’re going to beat yourself up every time you expect yourself to live up to something that you are not. However, if you align with yourself and who you are, truthfully and honestly, and have expectations around your highest values, you are more likely to climb that figurative tree just as brilliantly as the cat. So, the minute you can live truly for you and set honest, real goals that are directly aligned to your highest values and what’s authentic to your soul, your self-love, self-worth, confidence, success, and value will all soar. But the moment we live in others values, and decide to live in someone else’s shadow, we are destined for self-deprecation.

It is always wise to be the first and only you. To honour you, your highest values, and to be the best version of you at any moment. 

The thing is, so many people don’t even know what their highest values are, and no two peoples are ever exactly the same. Helping people identify their highest values is something I do when working with clients within my program, and in great depth 1:1, taking you through the process step by step to understand exactly how they correlate. 

The moment you are clear on your purposeful, specific values, you then begin to make the shifts in your mindset that will assist you in no longer comparing yourself to others. What then tends to happen is you will be inspired and compelled to fill out your days with what inspires you, your highest priorities, rather than low priority actions. Go after objectives that excite you without infatuation or resentment. Without trying to alter your own self or play small for the sake of others, all while reminding yourself to stay centred, poised and present in the moment. Another thing I need to be up front about is most of the self-deprecation you are doing is due to being fearful or hung-up on limiting belief constructs which, put simply, is you judging others and placing them onto that pedestal. One thing I can promise you is that if you stick to what you value most in life, you will truly transcend the feelings of low-self-esteem, which is your inner-self giving you the feedback necessary to remind you to come back to your highest values and thus your core being.