The Simple Mind is a newsletter to help you reduce overthinking and boost self-confidence.

This edition is inspired by two things:

• It’s officially the beginning of summer, or at least the weather is starting to feel like it, so I am in a celebratory mood.

• Earlier this week I talked with Kelly Berry from Life Unintended podcast about all things self-confidence. We talked about the importance of celebrating, and Kelly shared a habit for celebration I loved (more about this in the Nudge section!)

Here’s the bulk of it: celebration, and post-mortem, done in a systematic way are crucial for your mind to register your ability to overcome challenges, which boosts your self-confidence.

Let’s dive in!

Orianne

PS: Kelly podcast helps listeners embrace their individual journey, encouraging them to follow what feels right for them. Pretty cool huh? Check it out and I’ll let you know when the episode we recorded together comes out.

Reading time: 5 min.

A reminder for you

There are two elements of self-confidence:

• Insecurities: the not-so-nice things you tell yourself, we can call it your inner bully and how much you let it take over

• Self-efficacy: your trust in your ability to overcome challenges

These elements feed one another. I like to say self-confidence is similar to a set of muscles.

Insecurities = your core: are you able to put mental boundaries on your inner critic?

Self-efficacy = specific muscles: if you have strong muscle in an area, does your confidence lay in your strong muscle (skills), or in your ability to grow muscle?

The importance of looking back

This is what you do when you do a post-mortem or a celebration. You look back on what happened, acknowledge and register what you went through and did.

It sounds basic, and as an overthinker, you likely feel like you spend enough time reflecting and going back again and again on what happened.

Yet doing it in your head, vs taking a moment to write it down and celebrate is different.

The travel back in time test

In my self-confidence workshops, I ask participants to travel back in time and think about themselves when they were junior.

What was one thing that felt scary as a junior and you now do without even thinking about it?

Think of one (ex. writing emails, voicing your opinion, talking in meetings…)

Now, when did it stop being scary, can you think of a specific time?

Not really? It just happened, and you moved on.

Your overthinking brain spent a lot of time back then, rethinking email and how you could have done better, or thinking about how you lacked self-confidence, but did you ever take a moment to register your progression?

Not really?

This plays a big role in building self-efficacy (your trust in your ability to overcome challenges).

We often don’t celebrate cause “it’s too late”

When we lack self-confidence, it feels like even when we reach a confidence milestone, we’re late to the party. Let’s say you own your business and you don’t feel confident asking for specific pricing.

When talking about money, many of us don’t feel confident, we are afraid to ask for too much, to appear cocky, to invoice too little. Many struggle to state their prices with a quiet, confident mind.

Once you reach a level, where you finally feel comfortable asking for what you want, it does not feel like a win, it feels like a long-overdue mindset. So not only you don’t celebrate it, you dismiss it.

Think about it, where do you dismiss your progress because it’s too late?

Shame takes over. Shame of not doing it earlier, shame of celebrating something that seems basic, or that seems like a small win in the bigger vision.

We reserve celebrations for “destinations”. Celebrating the milestone feels both like it’s too late, and like it’s too soon. After all, there are many more milestones to come and we’re late on our made-up “schedule”.

Celebrating your progress ≠ stop wanting more

Here’s the thing, it’s not you vs what other people do. It’s not you versus where you should have been a while ago (that kind of self-talk does not help).

It’s now-you vs past-you.

Of course where you want to go matters, and as an over-thinker you spend a lot of time thinking about your progress and where you want to go next. So what’s the point in stopping, writing it down, and doing something to celebrate? Sounds more uncomfortable than anything…

As a driven individual, you won’t stop looking towards your next step, and I am not encouraging you to stop.

I’m encouraging you to learn to pause for a moment, reflect and register, so you can build more amazing things, with a quieter mind.

Register it all the good, the bad, and the ugly

And let’s be clear both can happen for the same project or business. You could celebrate some wins or learnings and still do a post-mortem on what went wrong.

You could have a lot of things go wrong and still celebrate the one thing where you made progress.

What matters is to do it

I recommend doing it in writing, and for celebration creating a moment, doing something to treat yourself to register and activate your reward system (which registers in your mind when there is a hardship and I push through, something good comes up, let’s do it again)

How you can write about it:

Do it around an easy structure, using a simplified hero journey.

• Comfort zone: what was the situation before you started?

• Call to adventure: what nudged you to make a change, take on a new project, start a new product, try something new?

• Challenges: what took you out of your comfort zone, how did you feel?

• Overcoming the challenges: what happened? Which mindset shift took you on the other side of things?

• Return: you come back to your comfort zone, only you are different, and your comfort zone slightly expanded. What’s your new comfort zone? What have you learned (the good and the bad)? What will you do differently next time?

One nudge for you

Celebrating can feel uncomfortable for all the reasons I’ve mentioned. Maybe you feel cringe to celebrate yourself, maybe you feel like it’s not enough or too late, so not knowing how to celebrate becomes the excuse not to do it.

Kelly had a solution for this, make it easier for yourself, reduce decision-making around celebration by creating a celebration list.

Put in there 10 ways to celebrate, some big ones, and some smaller ways so you have an option for each occasion. When you celebrate, take a moment to mentally acknowledge what’s happening:

“I am celebrating this milestone, overcoming this challenge”

Some ideas to get you started:

• Try out this new restaurant down the street

• Have a little dance party in your living room,

• Booking a flight

• Buying new clothes or a piece of jewelry

• Taking someone who supported you out for lunch

• Taking a day off (or a lunch break) for yourself

• Book a workout class…

It does not have to be fancy, it can be fancy but does not have to. It just has to be something that will spark some joy and create a good memory that you’ll associate with overcoming the challenge.

It may feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but with time you’ll feel more and more at ease doing it. And Also, isn’t life more fun when we take a moment to celebrate?

Want more on self-confidence? Check out exercises in this self-confidence workbook.

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Orianne, I share weekly tools to help you reduce overthinking and boost your self-confidence.

A bit more about me: I am a mindset coach. I coach brilliant humans who perform very well but want to improve their relationship with themselves (their minds). I am a chocolate addict, live by the beach, and always read several books at the same time.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, you can read the previous editions and subscribe here. If you’re ready for coaching you can book an intro call.