Trust Yourself Thursday Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Believe it or not, it's Trust Yourself Thursday already, sweet spotter. And I'm so glad we're doing this together that we are unpacking this series on standards together. We've been having a blast, haven't we? Here on The Sweet Spot, where science, soul, and success come together. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet, I'm your host here on The Sweet Spot. I'm delighted that you are joining me for this series we're doing on Standards. Today we find ourselves in Trust Yourself Thursday. Don't talk yourself out of the room. Bet on you. Fear will make you play small if you let it put the chips on yourself. That's the title for today's episode on Trust Yourself Thursday. What's going on? I hope you're having a good Thursday. And if not, stick around with me and we'll unpack it together. So Monday we talked about movement, right? We said you've gotta move before you become confident. In fact, movement and actions will make you become confident, as opposed to waiting for it to happen. Then we said on Tuesday we talked about protecting your standards. When it all wednesday, we talked about

Fear And The Internal Conversation

SPEAKER_00 1:20

staying connected to the process even before results show up. But today we need to talk about trust. Not trust in other people, trusting yourself. Because by Thursday, a lot of us, a lot of people are no longer fighting outside pressure. We're fighting the internal conversation. You know, you ever notice how some rooms change the minute a person walks into them? It could be a meeting room, a locker room, a stage, an interview, I don't care. It could be any kind of room. The internal dialogue changes when they come into the room. You start saying, hmm, that person is this, that person is that, and your mind starts going. Even if you're walking into the room, sometimes the internal dialogue can change, and it can change the whole vibe in the room. Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I don't belong here. Maybe somebody else could do this better. Maybe I should be quiet. Meanwhile, nobody in the room is paying any attention to you or me. Or even if they are, it's just fleeting. All of us are locked in this kind of weird dynamic. And that's what fear does. Fear starts talking before reality does. And if you're not careful, you will start shrinking before life even applies pressure. Absolutely. If you don't have standards, well then every opinion, every thought, every weird look by someone, every time somebody turns their head and looks at you and knits their brow, you can take that to mean something is wrong and you could be blown left or blown right by the winds of people's opinions

Standards That Stop Self-Abandonment

SPEAKER_00 3:05

or thoughts, right? So, yeah, that's why we have standards. So we can live and walk according to our standards. Yeah, I've learned this from observing a lot of high performers. What I've seen is a lot of talented people not losing because they lack ability, but losing because they keep abandoning themselves internally. And that's the real issue. They overthink themselves out of opportunities. They second guess themselves out of leadership roles, they compare themselves out of confidence issues, talk themselves out of rooms they already earned a right to be in. And the dangerous part is that hesitation often disguises itself as humility. But shrinking, you know, shrinking yourself it's not humility. Constantly doubting your value, that's not humility. Pretending not to care because rejection feels possible, that's not humility. Staying silent when you know you have something meaningful to contribute is not humility. A lot of times that's just fear. Plain old fear. Wearing intelligent lines, intelligent clothing, and trying to look all humble and self-effacing when in fact you're just afraid. Just admit it. It's fear. And you know, fear can be quite persuasive. Let me tell you, fear will tell you, stay quiet, play small. It'll whisper, wait a little longer. Not now, not now. It'll make you want to be invisible, not trust yourself, don't risk being embarrassed, don't take the chance. And every time you and I repeatedly silence ourselves, for whatever reason, our nervous system starts learning to hesitate. And that becomes a pattern. It becomes a pattern. This is where standards matter deeply, and why we're spending time this week with standards. Because sometimes you have to just walk and hold on to your walk according to and hold on to your standards, even if you emotionally feel like you can't trust yourself. Trust your standards. Because you see, a standard is not just how hard you work, a standard is also how you speak to yourself under pressure. What are you saying to yourself? When you work when you're working with your standard, you're refusing to abandon yourself every time discomfort comes alongside you. A standard is basically refusing to abandon yourself every time it gets uncomfortable. A standard is staying connected to your preparation even when the fear is loud around you. And trust matters. Yeah. Trust matters because confidence is not something you can magically feel. Confidence, as I've said before, is evidence. Your brain has to remember the moments that you stayed steady. Your brain needs evidence that you can speak your mind, that you do matter. The brain needs evidence that you took action and didn't back down. The moments you recovered,

Confidence Builds From Evidence

SPEAKER_00 6:45

the brain needs to see that. The moments you showed courage, the brain needs to see it. The moments you kept your word to yourself and to others, the brain needs to understand that. The moments you survived the pressure to collapse and you didn't collapse, you squared your shoulders, you walked across the room anyway, you spoke up, you took the shot, you took the risk. That's how self-trust gets built. And that's how your standards become stronger. One decision at a time. Okay, you're a player on the court, you miss a few shots early. Instead of not shooting the ball, you keep shooting the ball. You ever notice that? You ever notice the best players they'll keep swinging the bat? They'll keep taking the shot even if they miss. They're not gonna keep hesitating, they're gonna keep going. You're not gonna pass up open looks, you're not gonna overthink every possession. You're not gonna play cautious instead of decisive. Because your coaches will notice it immediately. The people around you will notice when you're shrinking, when you're trying to hide. Because hesitation changes your body language before it changes the results. And people can spot it, sweet spotter. So that's why we don't allow ourselves to have negative self-talk. We've got to begin to trust ourselves. Yeah, yeah. Don't protect yourself emotionally in self-trusting your work. You gotta stay aggressive, not reckless, but stay aggressive. You gotta say to yourself, I trust my preparation enough to stay present even if I've made a mistake, even if I've missed a shot, even if I've missed a defensive assignment, even if I blew the meeting, I said the wrong thing. That applies everywhere in your life. Some people walk in the room trying not to fail. Other people walk in the room prepared to contribute regardless of whether they fail. That difference changes careers, it changes relationships, it changes leadership, how you heal, it changes everything. Attitude is everything. There's a reason, sweet spotted, Tupac Shakur. Tupac still resonates across generations. Now Tupac is, you know, he's not here with us, he's with the Lord and uh rap artists, in case you're not sure. So Tupac, beneath the intensity, a lot of his music wrestled openly with pressure, with fear, with survival, with identity, all the things we all wrestle with, and

Keep Your Head Up Mindset

SPEAKER_00 9:30

the fight to keep believing in yourself when life keeps testing you. And one of his simplest lines remains one of the most powerful. Keep your head up. Keep your head up. Very simple, but psychologically deep. Because sometimes resilience starts with refusing to bow down. Sometimes resilience starts with refusing to mentally fold during a difficult season. Keep your head up. Epictetus, the stoic philosopher that we always quote here on the sweet spot, said, no great thing is created suddenly. Confidence works that way too. Real confidence is accumulated self-trust. It's self-trust that's stacking on itself because you've taken chance after chance after chance. You've given up worrying about what other people think about you so much. You feel the fear, but you do it anyway. You say to yourself, what other people think of me is none of my business. That's a book, by the way. I think it's written by Terry Cole Whitaker, and it's a book we should cover here on the Sweet Spot. Somebody remind me about that. That's a really good book. I read it in college, it really changed my life. What you think of me is none of my business. So let's make that personal today on self on Trust Yourself. Thursday. Where in your life have you started shrinking? Be honest. Where are you overexplaining yourself? Hesitating? Avoiding visibility? Afraid to disappoint people? Playing it safe after being hurt? And asking permission from people who never built what you're trying to build. That matters. Because self-doubt grows in abundance when there's avoidance. I'll say it again. Self-doubt grows in abundance where there's avoidance. Yeah, it loves avoidance and it'll just grow there. And the longer hesitation becomes your emotional habit, the harder confidence is going to be to feel. So what do you do? First, stop waiting to feel confident before acting confidently. That's backwards. Hold your head up, square your shoulders, be confident. Sing when you feel a little worried. Confidence usually follows evidence. Movement first. Listen to our Take Action Tuesday

Three Practices To Build Self-Trust

SPEAKER_00 12:05

and make Making Moves Monday episodes again. Because evidence comes from your actions. That's the first thing. Now the second thing is to pay attention to that internal language. What is your self-talk? What are you saying to yourself? Don't speak to yourself in ways that you would never tell talk to somebody else like you wouldn't say those things to somebody else. Don't say it to you. Right? That matters. Because your nervous system listens to every tone in your internal environment. So you've got to make sure your self-talk is positive and affirming. Treat yourself like somebody you love. Third, take one visible action today that your fearful or avoiding self is trying to get you not to do. I don't know if it's about speaking up, I don't know if it's about taking a shot, taking a chance, about posting something, about introducing yourself to that person you want to meet, about asking the big question, about setting a boundary. I am not sure, but you know exactly, and I trust you to know exactly what you need to do. Take a risk, think bigger. A thousand years from now, a hundred years from now, what is it gonna matter? And listen, expect discomfort. Your old identity will pull you back towards safety. That's normal, that's all of us. But every time you move with the fear, instead of obeying it, your brain collects evidence. When you move with the fear, when you feel the fear, you do it anyway. Your brain collects that evidence, and you are being conditioned to believe that you can survive, that you can survive pressure, that you can trust yourself in the moments when it feels uncertain, and that's how your self-trust grows. A lot of people are waiting for permission to become who they already are. That's the crazy thing in my work. So much of my work, I don't know, was it Michelangelo or Michelangelo who said that they chiseled out the angel, they chisel out the the the sculpture. It was already in there, like it looks like a block of stone, but it's really an amazing, amazing image in there. A lot of us are just waiting for permission to become who we already are. Think about how crazy that is. And life keeps moving. Time is not waiting on us. So the biggest risk is not always failure. It's spending years slowly convincing yourself to stay small, to play small, smaller than your potential because fear sounds so reasonable. Because fear, because fear is so logical. And remember, was it Mariam Williamson? I can't look, I can't remember who it is. She said, Who are you to play small? It doesn't serve the world when we play small.

Bet On Yourself And Close

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So today, today, trust yourself, Thursday, stop talking to yourself about anything that's negative. Stop talking yourself out of the room. Bet on you, bet on yourself. Not because fear will disappear, not because confidence suddenly becomes perfect, not because success is guaranteed. Bet on yourself because constantly abandoning yourself has a cost too. Yeah, you matter, you really matter. You're one of a million, a gazillion, you made it onto the planet. And eventually, you have to decide which discomfort you can live with. The discomfort of growth or the discomfort of regret, right? Protect your standards from fear, protect your confidence from hesitation, protect your future, protect your future from the version of you that keeps shrinking and playing small to stay comfortable. That's not serving anyone. And future you is looking. You know what? Future you is counting on you to step up, to not accept anything lower than your standard. For science, for soul, and for success, this is the sweet spot. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. Thank you so much for joining me. Protect your energy, trust your work, keep building, sweet spotter. We're doing this. I'm proud of you, and I trust you. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Tomorrow is finished strong Friday, and we're going in. We're going in. If you loved what you heard today, please share it with someone who might need it. And then subscribe if you haven't subscribed because it's totally free. Love and blessings.