MMS_ConfidenceIsBuiltThroughAction_AUDIO
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[00:00:00] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The lie is this. Once I feel confident, then I'll act. And the truth is, once I act, confidence will build. Not instantly, not dramatically, but reliably.
[00:00:22] Confidence isn't something you either have or you don't have. It's not a personality trait, and it's definitely not a mood. Confidence is something you practice, reinforce and embody over time. And this month I'm moving confidence out of theory and into real life, into decisions, boundaries, visibility and self-trust under pressure, not confidence you talk yourself into, but confidence you earn.
[00:00:49] Hi there. I'm Dr. Julia Bowlin and this is Mindset Medicine. And let me say this right up front because I know how this lands for a lot of people. If you've been waiting to [00:01:00] feel confident before acting, it's not because you're lazy, broken, or afraid of growth. It's because you're thoughtful. You care about doing things well.
[00:01:09] You don't wanna screw it up. You don't want to hurt anyone, and you don't wanna look foolish or even irresponsible. I get that. But here's the part that quietly keeps people stuck. Confidence does not arrive with a green light. It arrives as a response. It's the everyday proof that we need, that we might even ignore.
[00:01:31] So what do I mean by this? Let's ground this in a real life experience for a moment. Think about how you make coffee in the morning. At some point in your life, you didn't know how to make coffee. Trust me, this year I had to learn how to make coffee. 'cause my husband used to make the best coffee and then suddenly he didn't.
[00:01:46] You may not have felt confident when you first started making coffee. You measured wrong or you made it too weak or too strong, which I made it too weak. You maybe even burned the coffee. Maybe you even spilt it, but you [00:02:00] didn't wait to feel confident to make coffee again. You just made it, and now your hands just move without thinking.
[00:02:06] Your body knows how to do it. You don't stand there wondering, Hmm, am I a confident coffee maker? No, you just trust yourself because you've done it a thousand times. That's confidence. That's not hype, not mindset trips. It's repetition and repetition's. Really important. Let's think about this another way.
[00:02:26] You know, how do you care for a pet if they're sick, if they're scared, if they're acting off you don't wait until you feel confident to assess the situation. You Google it, you call the vet. You try something, you watch, you adjust. You act while still being a little unsure because responsibility overrides certainty.
[00:02:48] That's important. 'cause sometimes responsibility overrides are certainty. Somehow in those moments, you don't tell yourself, I shouldn't do anything until I feel confident. You move. Because [00:03:00] love and alignment are stronger than fear. That's earned confidence in motion. And here's the disconnect that I see all the time.
[00:03:08] People show up for their kids, their pets, their friends, their coworkers in, in my case and my colleagues, their patients, even when they're scared. But when it comes to themselves. They freeze, they wait. They second guess. They overthink and then they postpone. Or in other words, procrastinate. Not because they don't know what to do, but because they were taught that self-trust has to be felt before it's allowed.
[00:03:37] And again, that's not personal failure, that's conditioning over years. So what happens to the body when we don't act? Let's talk about that physiology for just a moment. When you hesitate repeatedly, when you know what matters to you, but you don't act, your body doesn't interpret that as being careful. It interprets that as [00:04:00] a threat without resolution, and it shows up physically.
[00:04:03] A tight chest, shallow breathing, clenching your jaw, gut tension, mental looping, emotional irritability, and your system stays on alert because it's waiting for completion.
[00:04:19] Commercial Break: If stress and overwhelm or that relentless inner critic has been running the show, it's time to take back control. You don't need another motivational quote or a feel-good pep talk. You need a system, a tool, something that actually works when life gets messy. That's exactly why I created mindset medicine worksheets, no fluff, no filler.
[00:04:37] Just proven strategies that are powerfully designed to help you rewire your thoughts for clarity and confidence. Break the cycle of overwhelm in minutes. Set boundaries that stick without guilt and turn stress into focus and action. This isn't about theory, it's about real transformation. And the best part is each episode of this podcast comes with a worksheet designed specifically for what you're learning [00:05:00] today.
[00:05:00] No more wondering how to apply this. It's all mapped out for you. And if you're ready to stop spitting your wheels and start making real shifts, grab today's worksheet below because life's too short to stay stuck. Check out the episode specific worksheet in today's podcast. Show notes below. The link is right there for you.
[00:05:23] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Action even imperfect action tells the nervous system, I'm capable, I'm responsible. I'm not trapped. And that's why relief often comes after you do the thing that you've been avoiding all along and not before. Confidence is truly somatic. It's in the body. It's not a concept. This is important confidence, not just a thought.
[00:05:49] It's not something you just think up. It's a body state. It's how you stand. It's how you breathe. It's how quickly you recover when something goes sideways and how long you stay [00:06:00] present instead of just spiraling out of control. And the body only learns confidence. Through experience, and I'm gonna say that again.
[00:06:09] And the body only learns confidence through experience. No amount of understanding replaces doing. When I was in gymnastics, if I wanted to learn a skill that scared the jeebies outta me, I didn't just avoid it. I didn't just get it perfectly. I had to build confidence. We started slow on the ground. We started with a higher beam, and then we added match to the beam, and then we went to the higher beam.
[00:06:34] When I started doing my back handspring, back flips, all those things, it just didn't get confident overnight. Hundreds of thousands of times built that confidence. And let's think about this another way. Think about a time when a friend was hurting. You probably didn't feel confident. You didn't have the perfect words.
[00:06:52] You might have been even afraid of saying the wrong thing, and yet he showed up, you listened, you sat [00:07:00] with them, you stayed, and afterwards you didn't think, wow, I shouldn't have done that. You thought, I'm glad I was there. That's internal authority. That's earned confidence and that's presence. And not everybody shows up when a friend's hurting.
[00:07:16] I will say that right off the bat. I have friends, but a lot of them don't check in with me to see how I'm doing. As my husband has terminal cancer, they wait until I reach out most of them, because they don't know what to say. They're uncomfortable or they don't feel confident, so they just don't do anything.
[00:07:35] Other friends who've been there, they just show up no matter what. Sometimes they just knock on my door and say, girl, you're not responding to your phone. Those are the friends that aren't afraid that they don't lack confidence, even though they may not think it's comfortable. They're not worried about not being perfect.
[00:07:54] And confidence, again, has never come as a first to me either. And this is just humanity. [00:08:00] I am a human. Confidence has never come to me. I have to work really hard, and I wanna be really honest here. I have never waited until I felt completely confident to step into something that was very meaningful. Not my medicine, not leadership, not visibility, not loss, not grief, not saying the hard things and not holding boundaries, all of those things.
[00:08:22] I was petrified. I'm still petrified when they put these podcasts out because confidence only follows my willingness to stay present while I'm uncomfortable learning how to use microphones. Learning how to use Camtasia Audio studio quality. Editing software, learning how to control the sound in my house by turning the heat and the fan off, getting my patience and everything ready for all the frustrations that come with recording a podcast episode.
[00:08:53] But here's the deal about confidence. Sometimes it showed up quietly for me, sometimes slowly, [00:09:00] and sometimes only in hindsight, that it always came after I did some form of action. And here's the thing, we often have a lie, and it's a lie. We need to retire. The lie is this. Once I feel confident, then I'll act.
[00:09:21] And the truth is, once I act, confidence will build. Not instantly, not dramatically, but reliably. Once I act, the confidence will build. And I wanna pause here for a second and do just a little reality check. If you've been waiting to feel confident, ask yourself gently, where am I asking certainty to do the job of courage, because I don't want us to confuse certainty with courage.
[00:09:55] Ask yourself, where am I withholding actions, not doing something, [00:10:00] not because I'm incapable, but because I am uncomfortable. Hmm in what is one small action that I could take today that tells my nervous system that I've got me? You don't have to make this jumbo leap, not this massive declaration. Not even a huge step.
[00:10:22] Just what's one small aligned action that you could take today that just realigns your nervous system and say, I got you. It's okay. We're good. Let's go a little deeper. Confidence isn't bravado. It's not volume. It's not huge. It's not perfection. Confidence is the quiet knowledge. It's the knowledge that says I can stay with myself even when this feels hard.
[00:10:49] That's it. And that kind of confidence is built. Not born, and I have said this over and over the last three or four years, I think pretty much every February dive into [00:11:00] confidence. It seems to be the thing should be diving into love. That's what everybody else does. Maybe confidence builds love. Maybe we can just say self-love is how we do it.
[00:11:11] So before I wrap up, I wanna zoom out for a moment and place today's conversation in the context of next month. February is about confidence in practice, not theory, not the kind of confidence you talk yourself into, that you have to hype yourself up or even perform for other people, but the kind that shows up in real life, in your decisions, in your boundaries, in your visibility, in how you respond when you are under pressure.
[00:11:40] 'cause let's face it, there's a lot of pressure going on these days. Today we just started the foundation. Confidence doesn't begin with feeling ready. It begins with action and with small aligned moving action, you are gonna teach your nervous system. Hey, I can trust [00:12:00] myself over the rest of this month.
[00:12:02] I'm going to build on this layer by layer. We're gonna talk about what happens when confidence is tested and not celebrated. How confidence shows up when you are misunderstood or uncomfortable. My confidence often grows quietly before it ever feels solid. And lastly, how self-trust becomes something you live from, not strive for.
[00:12:26] Each episode is designed to move confidence outta your head and into your body. Good old body of yours, and into how you choose, speak and show up for yourself and for those around you. So if today resonated, stay with me. Let this month be where confidence stops being something you chase and starts being something you practice this month.
[00:12:48] I'm not asking you to think differently about confidence. I'm inviting you just to practice it. Action first. Confidence follows always. [00:13:00] Thank you for spending time with me today. Until next time, may you be happy, be healthy, and be fulfilled.
[00:13:13] Outro: Thank you for listening to Mindset Medicine with your host, Dr. Julia Bowlin. To learn more about mindset medicine, go to www.juliabowlinmd.com and connect with Dr. Julia to find out how our team can help you today. Join us again next week for more expert tips, tools, and strategies to become healthier, wealthier, and wiser in your personal and professional life.
