Real Talk on Building Confidence in 2022
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The other day girl asked me on a Q&A “How did you become so confident” and quite frankly I told her that for years and years, I would try to read other thoughts from “guru’s” on confidence and I always found myself in the same place, hating my body, hating myself and never feeling like enough.
Until I came to the realization: I, myself am not enough, I never have been enough and never will never be enough, but God…God is enough, He always was, always will be and that’s why I and you listening can live in confidence.
I saw this quote the other day, and couldn’t agree more with it: “Confidence comes when God’s thoughts about yourself become the ONLY ones that matter.”
I wanted to share that first because although practical advice that I am about to share with you can be helpful, but understanding the profound truth that ultimate and lasting confidence comes from God is the most important!
Jeremiah 17:7 says “but blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who’s confidence is in Him”
Again this message here is that we don’t need to stress so much about our own weaknesses. We don’t have to be the smartest, or most successfull or most productive or the “most” anything…
Our job is to do our best and trust that the Lord will work though that.
With that being stated first, tune into this episode for some other reminders I wanted to share with you.
P.S: If you are wanting to take steps towards honoring your body this year, I want to personally invite you to my 4-Week Honor Your Body Challenge that starts on Monday January 17th!
This 4 week challenge designed to help you commit or re-commit to honoring your body through movement, macros and mindset! It is a great way for anyone looking at starting the new year strong with their health. Starting off on an accelerated path will give momentum that can last all year long!
Sign up here.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real, with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in, let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. Today, we're talking about building confidence in 2022. For most of my younger life I have been insecure. In middle school I was insecure about how tall and more developed I was than everybody else. In high school I started to see my body more and realize that the size zero that I was chasing after was not natural for me, so I tried to create that. I always struggled with having bigger thighs, and I was so insecure about that. I was constantly insecure about how others saw me. So I would try to find ways to please them. I was always looking for approval, whether it be more attention from guys, approval from my friends or my family. I've tried to put my confidence in people and things, but they would ultimately always let me down. There were times in my life I would try to ignore my insecurities and act like they weren't real, but they were very, very real, every single one of them.
And honestly, it was because I was looking for people and things to dictate my confidence, all of which always ended up in the same place, empty and inconsistent. Throughout my years, there were times in my life that I have been very confident. And looking back at all of those times, it always was because of one common denominator. It involved focus on God, remembering what He says about me, and reminding myself that I am never alone or out of His sight. But before I dive into more real talk on building confidence in 2022, I had to share this super sweet review. It comes from Leahbtvet. She says, "Julie is a sister. I've been following Julie since 2019 on Instagram and listening to the podcast from the beginning, and I can't even find the words to explain how much this woman and her mission has impacted my life.
"She is refreshingly honest and true, transparent about the struggles women go through, and gives practical tips and tricks for navigating through the beautiful journey of life. I so appreciate her consistency to show up to her calling and be bold in her faith. Julie's podcast encourages and challenges me in living a Christ-centered life through honoring the person that God has created me to be and loving those around me as a result. Thank you, Julie, for being a sister in Christ, and I cannot wait to hopefully meet you one day at a retreat. You are a very bright, bright light, sister. I'm so thankful to the Lord that He led me to your community. Every woman needs a Julie."
First of all, I'm literally trying to read this review, and I have tears welling in my eyes. Thank you so much for every single one of your guys' reviews, whether it's a sentence or it's a paragraph, it truly means the world to me. It just reminds us why we do what we do, and it also helps spread the message of this podcast to more women, which is ultimately our desire, that every single woman would recognize that they are amazing and that their life has purpose. And so, I just want to encourage you if you haven't already left a review on Apple Podcast, all you got to do is type in Embrace Your Real to Apple Podcasts on any Apple device. First, make sure you hit that plus sign in the upper top right hand corner. That means you are subscribing to the show so that you never miss an episode. And secondly, you just got to scroll all the way down and leave a rating and review. It really does help us out.
And I am still picking one winner every single week for a free challenge entry into my Honor Your Body Challenge. All you have to do is go to an Apple device and leave a review, and I'll be randomly selecting one of you guys, and I will be announcing them on my Instagram story over the next few weeks. If you've already purchased an entry to the challenge and you are randomly selected, I will be refunding your payment. Thank you, guys, in advance. You guys are amazing.
Okay, so let's dive into this episode. So the other day on my Instagram Story I had a Q&A, and one of the questions was, "How did you become so confident?" And quite frankly, I told that girl for years and years, I tried to read other thoughts and read so many books from gurus on confidence, and I always found myself in the same place. I found myself hating my body, hating myself, and never feeling like enough, until I came to the realization that I myself am not enough, I have never been enough and I will never be enough. But God is enough. He always was, He always is, and He always will be. And that's why I can truly live in confidence.
I saw this quote the other day, and I couldn't agree more with it. It said, "Confidence comes when God's thoughts about yourself become the only ones that matter." I wanted to share that verse because although practical advice when it comes to confidence can be helpful, understanding the profound truth that ultimate and lasting confidence comes from God is single-handedly most important to me. I would be doing you a disservice if I was just lending a hand of just practical advice without sharing what's most important in our life, and that is trusting and knowing that our confidence comes from God. In Jeremiah 17:7 it says, "But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him."
Again, this message here is that we don't need to stress so much about our weaknesses. We don't have to be the smartest. We don't have to be the most successful or the most productive or the most anything, quite frankly. Our job is to do our best and trust that the Lord is working through that. With that being said first, here are some other reminders that I wanted to share with you when it comes to building confidence.
Reminder number one: insecurity often leads to judgment by others. When people are struggling with their own insecurities, they often will judge other people openly to make themselves feel more secure. So the person who nitpicks or has to comment on everything you do, or the person that makes you feel stupid, or the person that speaks to you in a condescending way, or the person who has criticism to share and makes you feel like you're never doing anything right. We should never allow judgment of others to dictate our confidence. Thankfully, because of what I mentioned earlier, lasting confidence will only come when the thoughts that matter are the ones that God say about ourselves. In those times, though, when you find people making judgements about you, I just want to encourage you to take a second and pray for them. It is truly amazing what can happen when you bring that anger or frustration to God and how He Himself can bring healing and transformation to your mind and heart. Because it can hurt when we do feel like we're getting judged by others, but just often remember that that judgment from others stems typically from an insecurity in their life. It has nothing thing to do with you yourself.
Number two: focus on your unique gifts and talents. One of the most beautiful things that I've learned is that each of us have a unique purpose in life. In the book, Beauty Begins, one of my favorite books, I quote it all the time by Nancy Stafford, she says, "God made us different for a different purpose. There has never been anyone quite like you, and there will never be anyone quite like you again." When you focus on that truth in your heart, comparison will lessen and you'll start to realize and recognize how beautiful each one of our individual gifts and talents are and how God can use every single one of them in a profound way if we allow Him to. If you look hard and long enough, trust me when I say you will always find a person who is better at whatever it is that you are trying to do. I have found that I can waste so much time looking at what other people have in comparison to myself that it truly robs me from the opportunity that I have right before my eyes.
I read this quote from Lauren Pinkston, and it hit me really hard. She says, "When we try to measure ourselves next to the woman besides us, we are essentially declaring to God that He did something wrong in His unique design of our personal characteristics." Comparison truly is the thief of joy, and it is a direct offense to our creator. At the end of the day, we have to remember that each one of us is designed completely different for a purpose. So instead of wasting that time and energy dwelling on all the things that you wish you had, why not start focusing and developing and strengthening all the things that you do have and use them for God's glory, and ask for His strength and, ask for His wisdom in how He would want you to use those gifts and talents that you have.
If you're struggling to find what your unique gifts and talents are, I just want to encourage you to pray and ask God to reveal it to you. Because honestly, when we come to God boldly and we ask Him for wisdom, we ask Him for discernment, He will give it to us. He wants His children to live effectively for Him. And so, when our hearts come to Him and say, "God, what are the gifts and talents that you have? Or how would you have me use them?" trust me when I say He will come through and He will show up. I want to end with some more words of Nancy Stafford, she says, "Realizing and accepting that each of us have a different purpose in our life affects how you see yourself, how you connect with others around you, and how you serve and glorify God with your life." You begin to embrace, not just tolerate, your face, your hair, your figure, your talents, and you begin to enjoy and even play up your special attributes, even your quirks, as the remarkable gifts from God that distinguish you.
Reminder number three: it's really important to identify your confidence killers. There are so many places that I choose to put my confidence, other than God daily, that I am not even aware of. And so, it's important when I am not feeling confident to slow down and ask myself and really identify what are the things that I am putting my confidence in so that I can identify where I am actually placing my confidence in something that is killing my confidence. I wanted to list out some of the confidence killers that I personally have struggled with, continue to struggle with because you might feel the same.
Confidence killer number one: trying to control circumstances. We think that if we have the ability to change our circumstance, whether that be getting a higher paying job or a higher status job or getting married or achieving X, Y, and Z in our health and fitness goals we will feel more confident. It could be in money. We think that making more money will ultimately bring us more confidence. It could be in achievement. We think that accomplishing goals in our home or work life will bring more confidence. It could be in people. We think that people liking us or having someone respect us will bring us more confidence. Or it could be in pleasure. We think finding some type of pleasure in our life will bring us more confidence.
I have found that I've struggled with all of those different confidence killers in different seasons of my life. But when you find yourself struggling with any of those confidence killers, I want to encourage you to earnestly bring those to God in prayer. I had spent so much of my childhood and adult life running from bringing my honest prayers to God. But I'm telling you that if you don't face those weaknesses, they will end up dictating so many parts of your life, all of which will end up at the same place. They'll end up at a dead end, getting married and finding out that the relationship itself will not make you more confident, making more money and recognizing that it doesn't fulfill you like you thought, the high of achieving that lifelong goal that you finally achieved and realizing that it's so short-lived. There's so many of those confidence killers, you guys, that will ultimately end up, and they will fall short, and they will not give you lasting confidence.
And number four: honoring the body that God has given you. If you've been here for any length of time, you guys know that I'm a firm believer in honoring your body. Martha Graham actually said it perfectly, she said, "The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment. It's what you enter life in and what you depart with. And it should be treated with honor." I believe that God gave us these bodies to steward, and I believe that when we choose to do what we can with what we have and take care of our bodies, it can help us to become more confident in who God has created us to be. I'm not saying that you should have a mentality that only if you work out or eat well you'll be confident. But what I am saying is that when we feel good in our bodies and we are doing what we can from day to day to treat our bodies with the utmost respect because they're a gift from God, we can be confident that we are doing what we can to steward those bodies that He's given us well. And so, I believe that nourishing our bodies and moving our bodies out of celebration, not obligation, is truly a gift from God and should be treated as such.
So, let me recap those four things. Number one, insecurity often leads to judgment by others. Number two, focus on your unique gifts and talents. Number three, identify your confidence killers, and number four, honoring the body that God has given you. Like I said at the beginning, you guys, it ultimately starts when your confidence comes from when God's thoughts about yourself become the only ones that matter. And yes, the other practical advice that I gave you can be super helpful, but if you don't get that truth in your heart first, you're constantly going to be trying to find confidence from things and people and achievements and money, and it will always fall up short. It will always be coming and going. It will not be lasting. The only confidence that we can have as women and men and people listening to this is to trust in God, trust that God calls you beautiful. God calls you loved. He loves you so dang much. And our confidence, and that alone, should be where we derive our confidence.
Speaking about honoring your body like I just mentioned, I want to encourage you to join the Honor Your Body Challenge if you are wanting to take steps this year towards honoring your body. This four-week challenge is designed to help you commit or recommit to honoring your body through movement, macros, and mindset. It's a great way for anyone looking to start the new year strong with their health, starting off on an accelerated path that will give you momentum to last all year long. If you are not familiar, inside the challenge you actually get a lifetime access to a four-week program, Inside Movement with Julie, where all you'll need is a few pair of dumbbells, your body weight, a small space inside your house or apartment. You also receive your customized nutrition that is entirely tailored to your body and your goals. You also receive a recipe ebook with over 25 delicious, mouthwatering recipes. If you've been follow me on my Instagram story, you've likely seen sneak peeks of those. And you also gain access to a private community group on Facebook. If you are not on Facebook, you can absolutely still join the challenge.
But this is just an added layer of additional accountability and support with hundreds of other like-minded individuals. And then two new things that are happening this challenge, number one, we have two live workouts with me and the group via Zoom. This is a great way to connect with others, sweat with one another. I have found that those workouts, when we are doing it as a community, we are truly stronger, and we can push ourselves to places we never thought we could. And then the second new thing that is happening for this one is I've added two live mindset coaching calls. In these coaching calls, I'll help give you tips and strategies to help you conquer your goals this year. This has been a highly requested one. Many people have asked me to do live coaching. I actually haven't done live coaching since 2018, so I'm really excited to bring it back. And so you will have either the opportunity to join live, or if you miss it, you will have a replay to those mindset coaching calls.
And then we are actually donating a portion of every single challenge entry to the Marshall Fire. If you are not familiar with that, that actually happened on December 30th of this past year, and it was the most devastating historical fire in Colorado. It burned down over 1,000 homes and structures, and it misplaced 35,000 plus people. It was just a tragic fire, so we are going to be donating to that fund. I'm just so grateful to every single one of you guys who join the challenge. Just know you are playing a role in actively helping other people who are going through a very hard season.
So, if you are wanting to learn more, the challenge starts on January 17th. You can go to honoryourbodychallenge.com. Again, that is honoryourbodychallenge.com. Or you can click the link in the show notes to learn more and sign up. I hope to do this alongside of you. It has been so fun in the past to do it alongside of so many incredible women and just watch them flourish over those four weeks. When they choose to honor and nourish their bodies, it's amazing to see what they can step into. But I hope that this episode encouraged you. I hope that this inspired you in some way, shape, or form. If you have a sister or a friend or a coworker or a family member that you feel like would really benefit from this confidence talk of just understanding confidence on a deeper level and recognizing where our confidence should come from, I just want to encourage you to share this out. You can copy the link and send it to them in a text message, or you can post it up on your Instagram story. I would love to hear your aha moments. You are amazing. I am so grateful that you are a part of this community, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the 'gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter, yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me, it means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.