From Insecurity to Confidence: Habits to Reset Your Mind and Embrace Self-Love

In this conversation, Julie DeLucca-Collins shares her journey of overcoming self-doubt and embracing self-acceptance. She reflects on her experiences growing up feeling different and not enough, and how these feelings drove her to achieve perfectionism. Julie emphasizes the importance of tiny habits for personal growth and offers practical strategies to help listeners navigate their own challenges. She encourages creating a supportive community and developing a framework for success through intentional habits.

Takeaways

• I compared in despair, focusing on my differences.
• The desire to prove I was enough drove my perfectionism.
• Life is a journey of self-acceptance and growth.
• Breathing deeply resets your nervous system.
• Learning happens through action, not just reading.
• We often feel stuck, but we are just learning.
• Music can shift your mood and reset your mindset.
• Trick your brain into seeing different perspectives.
• Pay attention to where you are going in life.
• Create a supportive community for personal growth.

Transcript

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You know, when I was in high school and even maybe starting in middle school, well, it used to be junior high back then, so that should tell you how old I am. I compared in despair. I didn't know any better. And this is something that really caused me to, well, go down the path of struggling. And I am the one who put myself in that path. I used to look at the other kids that I went to school with, and many of them, number one, they lived in houses, unlike myself and my sisters. We lived in an apartment. The other thing is most of them were not from divorced parents, and none of them were from another country like I was and were from two different cultures. Definitely that's something that I would look around and see how I was different. I focus on the differences between me and my friends and my classmates. What started to happen is that that contributed to me not feeling like I was enough. I remember walking the halls of my high school and seeing everybody come in from the parking lot. And of course, they were wearing the reebox, they were wearing the jeans that were designer and were carrying designer purses as well. The coaches, the Burberies, even the Louis Vuittons. And I would look at myself, and typically my purses were the purses that I bought at the mall and at the discount rack, or even at the Salvation Army. And I remember starting to feel like I needed to hide the part of me that was not like that. I needed to hide the part of me that, well, did not fit in, did not go with the flow. And of course, that caused my inner critic to always tell me that I was not good enough. And it caused me to become the person that was a perfectionist, that wanted to achieve, wanted to control the narrative. And for many years, climbing the corporate ladder came from the desire to be enough, came from the desire to do more, came from the need to prove that I was not broken, that I was capable. And if I didn't live in a home that was perfect, I was going to create that perfection for myself. You know, fast forward. And I'm not going to say that some of these tendencies didn't help me. However, I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the places where I had to navigate and change and evolve and come to a place in which I love myself more, I accept myself more. And by the way, I don't say I accept myself fully because there's still the part of me that continues to do the work because life is a journey. Now, my friend, you're listening to Brave Moves. And as if if this is the first time that you're here, welcome. And if you've been here before, I am so glad you are back. Love coming and doing this podcast, specifically because everything that I'm sharing here are not only the lessons that have helped me go confidently and become braver, but also these are the lessons that I wish I would have had, maybe as a 16-year-old, a 25-year-old, 34-year-old, 42-year-old. And these stages and ages that I've just named are very specific times in my life that I picture as different chapters. So I want you to stay with me and I hope that what I am sharing with you will also give you the tips and tools that will help you in your own journey. And if you haven't subscribed, please do so. But let's get into it, my friend. The one thing that I've learned is that there's so many different things that we need to incorporate into our life. And if you don't know, I am a certified tiny habits coach. And tiny habits is one of the ways in which I continue to evolve and grow and become better at navigating this world of life. Now, for me, the first habit that I had to learn was to breathe. I remember being in a very difficult conversation. And my boss was sitting at the table and we were having dinner with a customer. And basically, the customer was racing all of the issues that had gone wrong in one of the projects that we were doing. And ultimately, I was responsible for a lot of it. I was responsible for the bottleneck. I was the person to blame. And I was holding my breath. I was holding my breath in that moment because I could feel the shame. And I realized that this was not a moment to feel shame. This was a moment to not hold my breath. This was a moment to listen and to learn. And one, I can say, yes, you're right. And two, I can say I can do it better. And I'm learning from what I just did. And I think that so many of us, right, we don't stop to listen to the criticism from others or ourselves because it is so difficult. You know, we have been created as humans to live in a fight or flight stage. And when we are in a difficult situation, a conversation, an instance, maybe something is happening in your job or in your business, you immediately want to fight or you want to blight. And this is the thing that it's a default. We're not created to be in that moment of maybe dealing with social media, dealing with difficult people. We are created to, well, run away from the tiger. And my best habit that I've learned is to breathe. When I feel myself trying to hide or run away from the from the circumstances, or, you know, just to fight or flight, I breathe. This breathing sometimes requires us to really pay attention. And it means that we noticed, am I breathing? Am I breathing deeply enough? And what begins to happen when you breathe deep enough is you are resetting your nervous system. The other habit that we really have to incorporate into our lives, and I have done so, is well, I don't want to be stuck. And a lot of times it feels like we're stuck all the time. Sometimes it feels like I'm dealing with this thing all over again. What's wrong with me? But you know what? We're not stuck. We're just learning. We're learning deeper. And when we are learning, it's not because we are reading something. It is because most of the learning happens when we actually take action. We learn by doing. We are not created to be these individuals who just, well, learn, sit back, and get it together the first time they hear something. We're not that. We are the individuals who actually have to practice it, have to do the stumbling, and then see how we keep improving. And the improvement comes from showing up. The improvement comes from being able to say, I'm gonna try again and again and again. And of course, you've heard the example of riding a bike. Yes, we learn not because someone gave us a book and said, hey, here's how you ride a bike. We actually went and did it. So think about that and try to incorporate the habit of noticing when maybe you're stuck, how you can learn from that circumstance and keep going. The other habit that I have is, well, I mumble when I stumble. And I heard this from somebody else and I had to adopt it for myself. But here's my mumble. Unlike others, and unlike the person that I heard this from, when I mumble, I sing to myself. A lot of times, this is another way in which I reset my nervous system. I reset myself. In the mornings, one of the first things that I like to do, yes, I'd like to put my feet on the ground and say, it's gonna be a great day, boys. And the dogs love hearing that from me. But what I love to do as well is to turn on a song. Or even if I'm having a very difficult time or if I'm struggling thinking on something as I'm working and I'm doing some deep work, I will find a song. I will find a song. If you look at my phone and look at my different playlists, boy, do I have different playlists? And I have a serotonin playlist, I have a journaling playlist, I have a uh funnerl playlist, and those are the songs that I want to have played at my funeral, not my funeral, but my funeral because I want people to live with joy, and that's another story, but not for today. Another playlist that I have, well, uh, you're going to laugh. Some of them are, of course, my jams, my nice piece music. I have the baller bitch relentless confidence, my beach retreat inspiration, my business celebration, my Camino de Santiago, my confidence CEO, and there's so many others that I've put together. I have my hello jam. And the reason I have all these different playlists is because these songs are the ones that can carry me and shift my mood and help me navigate maybe those moments in which I'm stumbling. Next, I want you to think of tricking your brain as well. You know, we have a default mode in our brain that is always going to go to the negative. But I want you to think about tricking your brain and reminding yourself that you can control the situation. A lot of times our brain is ready to, well, create the drama, you know, create the villains, tell us who the villains are, and decide how we're gonna show up and how we're gonna fight. But a lot of times we're just assuming, my friend. We're just assuming. So trick your brain into thinking, hey, you're making your husband be the bad guy. Is he really? Trick your brain into looking with curiosity into the different perspectives onto the different views, or even trick your brain in asking, is that thing that you believe true? Super important. Now, next, I have also paid attention to where I am going. And the reason that I do that is because sometimes many people and even myself, there was a period in which I woke up and I thought, how did I get here? Am I doing what I want to do? Is this what I wanted out of my life? Is this everything? And then we need to watch where we are wondering. And the way that I do that is by really looking at future Julie and saying, what does she do? What does she look like? What is she working on? What has she achieved? Where are the places that she has been? And then take the lessons and take that vision of future Julie 2.0 and decide what did she do today? And then rather than just living by default and allowing the white noise of life to get to me, then I intentionally create a plan. And watching where we wander means that we are paying attention. Are the things coming up? Are the things that we are doing and going back and maybe asking ourselves, what is it that I've learned this week? Did I speak up for myself? Did I leave my comfort zone? Did I complete the projects that I set out to do? Did I set no and say no and create these boundaries? So, my friend, lock it in. Look up to the sky, lock it in and remember that these behaviors don't happen overnight. Create the habits that give you the most success. But overall, here's a reminder: you're not alone. You can look up to the sky and you can see that not only do we live in a world in which there is tons of beauty and we can look at the stars and think these are the same stars that were shining years and years and years ago and will continue to shine if even after we're gone. Friend, we have the power to create our reality. We have the power to zoom out and know that we are just a small speck, and we have the power to make a difference with the tiny speck of life that we have. So if this is helpful, I want you to go and create your framework, your habits that you feel or you believe will help you into success. Find people who are doing the things that you want. Create this board of directors for yourself. And that board of directors can help to inspire you and guide you, like I have seen in my own life. And I want to encourage you. That's your brave move for today. Go and create the tiny habits of success for you that will work and will get you to your dreams and will help you go and bravely daily. And if this is helpful, make sure that you share it with a friend, my friend. Yes, friends help friends. And if you're looking for a supportive community, come and join me at the confident you community where we support one another and we help to have each other's backs. So thank you, my friend. Until tomorrow.