7 Tips to Building Confidence with Danielle Cobo

Danielle Cobo  0:05  
The dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast is designed to empower women to turn life's biggest challenges into their greatest strength. To address the confidence gap and why women often struggle with visibility. Guests, I talk about how to find your voice, create your seat at the table, and how to be an amazing ally to other women in the workplace. I am a career coach, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, military spouse, and mom to young twin boys. I have experienced as a fortune 500 company leader who guided a team to number one in the nation. Having a thriving career and a balanced life is within every woman's reach. And the time is now. 

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of dream job with Danielle Cobo. I am your host, Danielle Cobo. How often have you experienced self doubt? How often have you experienced times in your life where you've maybe lacked confidence. You've either compared yourself to others, saying they may be doing it better. Or you've had that negative self talk that telling you, you can't do this, others are doing it better than you. Whatever it is, you're not alone. There's been several times in my life where I have experienced self doubt, I have lacked confidence. And one of them was when I was overcoming postpartum depression. My twins were born six weeks early. And there's there's an episode where I go into detail of this. But there isn't a time where I was really lacking confidence. I was trying to navigate through how do I become how do I be a mom and a mom of twins, while also getting back into the workforce and being an effective leader and being an influential and inspiring leader. And I lacked a lot of confidence as I was trying to navigate through that. And then there's been another time in my life where when my husband shared with me that he was going to be deployed. And I said, Well, how am I going to do this? How am I going to be traveling overnight for work and leading a team while also raising two kids at the age of two years old. And I almost quit on myself. And then the other most recent time was starting a business and leaving that safety net of corporate and the paycheck and the company car and all the safety around that. And through these experiences, I have really learned the tools to transform that self doubt and be in a place of confidence and courage. And to share that with you today, I'm going to be talking about the seven steps to building your confidence to regaining your confidence and taking that power within yourself. 

So the first one is acknowledge the negative thoughts that are not serving you. We all experienced these it this and even I do as well, the difference is is having the self awareness to it. So there's times where you're going to be going through your day going, my quote is too high, I can't I'm not gonna be able to achieve it. I'm not going to get this promotion, I'm not going to get this job or I've Gosh, I'm such an impatient mom, or I'm just tired all the time. These negative thoughts are not serving us in life. And so the first step to regaining your confidence is really to acknowledge them. And I'm not saying dismiss them, because they're there. So the first step is to acknowledge them and think gosh, I am telling myself some negative things right now. And what I invite you to do is ask yourself, look yourself in the mirror and as you're telling yourself these negative thoughts Imagine yourself at three years old, or even your your son or your daughter across from you. Would you tell them the same things that you tell yourself? Having the self awareness to be able to quickly say, Oh, wow, I'm telling my myself negative negative thoughts. I know they're not serving me is the first step to regaining confidence. So acknowledge your negative thoughts. Don't dismiss them, acknowledge them and then find ways to flip the script that I can't to I can.

I am I'm not perfect. While I'm striving for excellence, not perfect. Perfect doesn't exist. Perfect is perfectionism is procrastination in disguise. When you're striving for perfect, you're comparing yourself to others and you're If you're stripping yourself of the joy of being the best version of you, so start your morning with affirmations. And I have a couple resources that are available to you when it comes to affirmations. One of them is, and I'll include it in the show notes is a workbook. So whether you are in sales, and you want to crush your quota, I have a workbook that says it's a sales performance workbook. And in there, I have all these affirmations that you get to tell yourself every morning and throughout the day, to support you in transforming that negative thought and what you can't do to what you can do in sales. I also have one for career. So it's a career acceleration workbook. So if you're looking to get a new job, if you're looking to get promoted or start a business, there's affirmations specifically for that. And then also, if maybe if you're in a spot where just really struggling with being present at home and at work, and you're wanting to find a balance in your life. And sometimes that starts with just the things that we tell ourselves. And I have affirmations for you for that as well. So I'm going to include in the show notes, here, some affirmations to set you up for success, whether you're looking for a job, and whether you're in sales, or whether you're just a working parent on the go. And you want some affirmation examples to start your day up for success. I'll include the links in, there's also a really nice app that I love. It's called I am and I'll include the link in the show notes. I am is an app of daily affirmations, and you can set the parameters for it as well. So if your personal growth or stress and anxiety or career or wealth or positive thinking or if you're also maybe having some body confidence where you want to regain the confidence in your body affirmations, it will be a notification and it notifies you, you can set the parameters for morning, afternoon, evening or however many times throughout the day. But it's a daily affirmation that just pops up and you can choose the ones that you want. And I love it. It's just a great way to kind of sporadically have them throughout the day for affirmation. So I invite you to really start your morning with affirmations because the first hour of your days, it's the intention of the day. So starting your day with affirmations and gratitude is a great way of transforming those negative thoughts to positive thoughts. And then taking it a step further and having affirmations that are kind of pushed to you throughout the day to really keep that that positive thought in your head throughout the day. 

So the first one is acknowledge the negative thoughts that are not serving you. The second one is starting your morning with affirmations. And I have multiple resources that I'll include in the show notes with examples of affirmations that you could use also the app called I am which is one of my favorites. The third one is celebrate your successes. Sometimes we can get so caught up in "Well, I wish I had this" or "I thought it would be here in my career." Or "I should be doing this." And sometimes we lose sight on the things that we've already accomplished and the miles that the milestones that we have unturned to get to where we're at today. And so really taking a step and looking at what is celebrate what successes can I celebrate today. And that's daily. Maybe the success was today. I normally wake up in the morning and I work out I do my 30 minutes on my peloton. Well, today I didn't. And I could have easily gotten hard on myself and said, crashing y'all you should have really worked out. This morning though, I celebrated the fact that my son woke up with me early and said, Mommy, will you snuggle with me? Yeah, that today was something that I get to celebrate, because I know those years are not always going to be there. So I am going to soak up those snuggles as much as I can. And so it's easy for us to get hard on ourselves on what we should we think we should be doing that language of I should or I have to, but it's really about celebrating the successes of each and every day.

If you're in sales, celebrate the sales that you've got from that day, whether it's that you were able to get in front of a customer that you've been wanting to get a hold of for a long time, or you did an awesome presentation where you felt like you really empowered your customer with some tools to help them be productive and efficient in their day. Or whether you're in your career and you're going to celebrate the fact that if you want to get promoted, you're going to celebrate the fact that today, you took the steps and investing in your personal growth and development by reading a book or listening to a podcast or whatever it is. celebrate your successes, and to take it a step further. celebrate your success. As with your peers and your managers, because they want to celebrate with you. And when you think about this, because I know sometimes people are hesitant to celebrate their successes on social media, because they don't want to come across as if they're boasting themselves. I want to, I want you to, to kind of think about something, I invite you to think about something from another perspective. There are times in people's day where they're not, they're feeling depressed, maybe or sad or frustrated, they're just not feeling their best selves. And sometimes seeing somebody hearing somebody else's success, maybe a struggle that they've had, and how they've overcome that might be inspiring, and might be exactly what somebody needs to see and hear that day. So celebrating your successes with yourself, and acknowledging them and every little success, find one thing to celebrate for that day, share it with your peers, your friends, your family, your manager, and then also take it a step further. And really kind of look at things from a different lens that if you're sharing your success, with some with on social media, is there somebody out there that really could say, oh, gosh, like, that inspires me to go after that as well. I know that when I was starting my business, it was really inspiring to see some of the people had been in my shoes before and hearing their struggles. And then also seeing the successes that they had, because it motivated me to be like, well, if they can do it, I can do it. So the third tip to regaining confidence within yourself is to celebrate your successes. 

So fourth is dress for success. I'm a big advocate and dressing for the way that you want to feel. Now, majority of the time, you're probably going to see me done up I like to have my makeup done. I like I love fashion, so I always dress up, but you can still there's going to be times where I'm going to be sporty, you're gonna see me on the kids soccer field, and I'm gonna be wearing tennis shoes and the ball cap. But I always say like dress the way that you want to feel. If you're going to be going into a meeting and you're going to be presenting in front of a big group, put your favorite outfit on where you feel like you, you put that on, and you look in the mirror and you're like, hey, I look good. You know that that confidence, dress, the way that you want to feel, dress in the way that you feel like you that you are confident. If it means putting on heels, if it means putting on doing your hair up that day, whatever it is dress the way that you want to feel, because that's dressing the way for success. You know the difference, you know the difference and when you're at home when you're in loungewear and you're just kind of snuggled up on the couch, there's a time and a place for that. I love my husband I call the lounge wear there's always a time and a place for that where you're like you get to be comfortable and, in baggy clothes and be all snuggled up on the couch. And then there's also a time where if you're gonna be walking into a big meeting an interview or, or presenting in front of a group of people find that outfit that you feel calm, comfortable and you feel confident in that you're going to walk into. And then if you are going to be presenting in front of a group, one of the things that I do to to kind of give you a quick boost of motivation is to it's called the Power Pose. It's called the Superwoman Power Pose. So you stand up with your legs kind of shoulder width apart, and you put your arms on your hips, and you stand there like a super woman for five minutes. And you just stand there with your head high. And it's one way of giving yourself your mind, your body, your spirit, a quick boost of confidence. So that's another to take that dressing for success and step further, which is the power pose.

We will be right back to today's episode. There is one thing you can count on in sales, and that your quota will continue to increase as your business grows. Sales is tough, and salespeople are constantly looking for ways to be more successful. And it's no secret that having a well thought out business plan is key to success in sales. But it can be hard to know where to start, or how to quantify your results. Without a clear plan of action, you're likely to spin your wheels and not make much progress. To be successful. It's essential to have a process to help you focus on what's important and get measurable results. I've experienced success firsthand, learning for back to back President circle and lead a team to number one in the nation. Now my clients are achieving same success maxing out their comp plan and finishing at the top with the support of a salesperson formance coach, you can achieve the same success too. We work together to transform self doubt, to confidence, analyze and quantify what has worked well in the past to accelerate those results. Set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and time bound goals, then build a business strategy to exceed your goals. How would you feel if you were empowered with the tools to thrive and sales, without sacrificing your personal life, I invite you to go to my website, Daniellecobo.com, that COBO Daniellecobo.com, and schedule your free career discovery session with me today. Now back to today's episode. 

So the fifth is Oh, and then also for dress for success, I'm going to include a link to an Amazon storefront. So I actually have some of the favorite dresses that you will that you often see in some of my photos that I take. Some of my favorite dresses that I enjoy wearing, whenever I do speaking engagements, or whenever I am doing presentations, I have a link in there with some of my favorite dresses, which majority of the time I get on Amazon, because quite frankly, I don't want to drag two kids to the mall to try on clothes, not necessarily my idea of fun so I always have everything delivered to me. And I'm a big advocate of how can you look stylish while also being affordable. 

So the fifth is creating your tribe of women that hold you high. There's people in your life where you call them and they can just be the Debbie Downer of the day, they're the person that is just negative and can just drain you emotionally throughout the day. And so those are the type of people that you're going to want to limit, you're going to really want to create more space for the people that support you, that empower you, the people that hold you high that encourage you that you have trust with that can be honest and open authentic with you when maybe there's some blind spots that you may be experiencing. But as they share with you, Hey, have you thought about this, they're also gonna be the first one to pick you up, when you fall down. And so really creating your tribe of women that hold you high is so essential, because it's really interesting when you look at when I was on it, I was with a conversation with somebody earlier today, and we were talking about kind of sometimes the differences between men and women and I've worked in predominantly women industries, and I've I've worked in predominantly male industries. And it's interesting, some of my observations that I found is women are often harder on other women. So if we want to rise, and if we want to, if we want to create our seat at the table, if we want equality, then it first starts with us. It starts with us supporting each other, not comparing each other, not judging each other, not tearing each other down. It starts with us supporting and empowering each other. And so that's going to be the first step to creating equality in this world. For women to have the seat at the table is for us to support each other. And so by doing that, create your tribe of women that hold you high that support you and empower you. 

So again, the first one is acknowledge those negative thoughts that are not serving you. The second is start your morning with affirmations. The third is celebrate your successes. The fourth is dress for success. The fifth is create your tribe of women that hold you high. 

And the six this hold your head high. And in this is something that I'm always speaking with, with my kids, you know, sometimes when they get down on themselves, or they're just discouraged by something, one of my boys, you just immediately looks down, and he's looking at his feet. And he's just you can just see that discouragement in them. And so one of the things I'll say is, when you hold your when you look down in the ground you miss out on the world. When you hold your head high, you see and you get to experience the world. So one tip is when you're walking into a room, especially if you're new. You don't know anybody in the room that can sometimes be intimidating. And so when you're walking into a room, one of the things you do is you walk into the room and you have your eyes looking at the ceiling. And then as you're walking into the room, work your way down to make eye contact with everybody. So you're looking at their ceiling, your wall, you're walking into the room and then you're as you're walking into the room, you're making your eyes down towards them. looking at everybody in eye contact. So it's important that that's, again, when it comes to confidence. It's your mind. And it's also how your body posture is, Are you are you sitting upright? Are you looking straight ahead or is your head your chin high. Because if it's not, if you're looking down at the ground, and you're not making eye contact with people, people are going to sense that, that lack of confidence that they're going to see that discouragement, very similar to, they say, if you ever run into a bear, and hopefully never run into a bear, but they say act big, fill up the space, fill up the room be bigger than you are. And a lot of that isn't same philosophy is, is regaining your confidence, it starts with holding your head high and, and being a big powerful presence. Because people can feed off energy very easily, if, if you're walking in confidence people you're gonna people are gonna want to be gravitated towards you. People want to be around confident people. And the seventh fifth, adopt a growth mindset. Constantly be learning, constantly be investing in yourself, the best investment that you can make is in yourself. So continuously learning, and evolving and striving for excellence and striving for the best version of yourself starts by adopting a growth mindset. And so setting aside time, each day each week, for you to really invest in yourself, fill up your cup. So one might be starting your morning off with an inspirational video, motivational video, a podcast, something that fills your, I would say, fill your mind, body and your soul. So fill up your, your, your mind with something that is you get to learn from and then and then from there taking a step further and really applying it. So something that I do is every single day, I listen to some sort of podcast or a video or just something, you know, 1520 minutes, just kind of a quick boost of inspiration, motivation, something I get to learn from each day. And then every quarter I set aside time, specifically, at least a day on self development, whether that's attending a seminar, whether that's attending workshops, or whatever it is, it's all about growth. It's all about self development, because it's always evolving. And so really that seventh one is adopting a growth mindset. And one of the things that I'm going to include in the show notes here is a link to my favorite books. So whether it is your leadership position, and you want some favorite leadership books, or whether you're in sales, and maybe some of my favorite sales books. I also have a group of of book recommendations on my favorite books for strong women. So with some of the books that I've I've have on there are from guests that have been on my podcast like Heather Monahan, who talks about how to overcome your villains, and she's also the author of confidence creator. Also Kara Goldin, the CEO and founder of hint water, her book on overcoming doubt in doubters. So some of the guests that have been on my podcast, who talks specifically about how to be a powerful woman in in the corporate world, and how to be confident, is a lot of what they talk about in their books. And so I have some of those book recommendations as well. 

So again, my seven, my seven tips to gaining confidence is acknowledge or number one is acknowledge the negative thoughts that are not serving you. Really transforming that self doubt, to confidence and courage starts with that cognitive psychology, which is reframing of negative thoughts. So acknowledge them. The second one is start with an affirmation. That's that transformation. And there's resources available for you that in the show notes. The third is celebrate your successes, every success that you've had, even if it's writing down one thing that you're going to accomplish that day, and the end of the day, celebrate the fact that you accomplished it. It's so important to celebrate the milestones because sometimes we can forget when we have a particular goal in mind and then long run, sometimes we forget all the milestones that we've overcome to achieve to where we're at today. Even if we still got more room to go. We so important that we celebrate those successes. And then the fourth is dress for success. dress the way you want to feel dress with confidence and invest in in in clothing that makes you feel good to wear. Fifth is create your tribe of women that hold you high. No more judging each other, no more tearing you down each other, no more. No more jealousy, those things do not support other women. We want to create our seat at the table, we want equality in this world, we want to have equal pay for equal rights we want to be in leadership roles within it starts with supporting each other, not tearing each other down. So create a tribe of women that hold you high. The next the sixth one is hold your head high. Walk into a room with your head high. When you look at the ground you miss out on the world. When you hold your head high, you get to experience and see the world. And the seventh is adopt a growth mindset. Invest time each day, each week, each month each year and your personal development, whether that's investing in time and learning how to create balance in your life or investing time in in learning how to meditate so that you can have a clearer mind whatever it is. And it's essential to make sure that you're blocking time on your schedule. Because if it's not on your calendar most likely is then not going to be a priority. So ensuring that whatever you're doing to adopt a growth mindset, whether it's read a book, whether it's attending a seminar, it's on your actual calendar. 

So know that if you're if there are times where you're not experienced when you're experiencing self doubt, maybe you are lacking confidence, know that you're not out, you're not alone out there. Many people experiences even the most confident women out there experiencing self doubt at times. Sometimes the difference though, is maybe they're able to quickly identify when they are. So I'm able to quickly identify, there's a there's something I'm telling myself right now I am feeling anxiety, why able to quickly identify it because that self awareness, and then it's a matter of flipping the script from I can't to I can from I should, too, I get to or a half to to, I choose to flipping the script from these couple of phrases can help flip the script in your mind. So we could move past these negative thoughts that are not serving you. 

So thank you so much for tuning into today's episode, I invite you to share this episode with your friends, your family, your peers on the seven tips to gaining confidence, regaining your confidence, because you know, there's probably somebody out there that maybe experiencing self doubt, and maybe one of these tips can support them. And that's how you can support other women out there. So thank you for tuning in. And I invite you to also write a review on this podcast to help support other women in in seeing this podcast as well. And thank you for tuning in and create an intentional day.

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. To receive your free career accelerator and crush your quota workbooks with actionable steps on how to accelerate your career. Go to Danielle cobo.com. To learn more about my services, including keynote speaking, corporate workshops and one on one coaching. I invite you to go to my website, Danielle cobo.com and schedule a call with me. And one last favor to ask. The best compliment is a review. Please take a quick minute to share on iTunes or Spotify why you enjoy tuning into the dream job within your Kobo podcast. Thanks for tuning in and create an intentional day