Fear can grip us in many ways. It causes us to self-censor, to push down our authenticity, to hesitate in reaching for opportunities, and more. Speaking from personal experience, fear can have a powerful impact on how we behave, but the good news is that these moments of fear are perfect opportunities to practice the power of self-coaching.

Self-coaching is the practice of pre-selecting words of affirmation, encouragement, and guidance that you can tell yourself when the gremlin in your head wants you to hold back. It’s a form of mental rehearsal, which we know is a clinically proven strategy for reducing stress. Essentially, it’s a strategic way of giving yourself a pep talk when you need it most.

Self-coaching is a great tool for building your confidence and overcoming your fears, because it’s all about taking your power back. You don’t need to rely on anyone or anything else to support you — you have all the tools you need to help yourself!

Here are three ways you can get started with self-coaching.

Start with Mindfulness

As with many (if not all!) other forms of self-work, mindfulness is essential for knowing when to self-coach. Mindfulness is the practice of tuning into the present moment to gain awareness of what you’re thinking, feeling, and sensing — all in a non-judgmental way.

When we experience moments of fear or panic, our nervous system is activated, and we enter into a fight, flight, or freeze response. When this happens, the physical symptoms of stress can impair aspects of our cognition and decision-making. By practicing mindfulness, we can slow down, hear what’s happening in our mind, and be in greater control of how we speak and behave.

After practicing mindful awareness of your thoughts for a while, you’ll have a better idea of the kinds of situations in which you’re likely to experience negative narratives. It’s in those situations that you’ll want to have self-coaching on standby.

Then, whether your fear is caused by a negative narrative you’ve internalized (“You’re not good enough”), a self-limiting belief that you hold about yourself (“I can’t do this”), or feeling pressure to behave like someone you’re not (“Don’t show your true feelings”), self-coaching can help you to behave or speak in a way that will serve you better and is in alignment with your Authentic Self.

Use Mantras and Affirmations

A mantra or positive affirmation is a statement of reinforcement that you can use strategically to keep you grounded, rooted, and calm during moments of stress. You can choose something simple to practice and call upon when you need it most. For example, during tough moments I use the mantra “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m great, I’m great.”

You can also use mantras or affirmations during vulnerable moments. For example, the first time I said “I love you” to my partner, self-coaching really helped me! Firstly, I was terrified, because one of my own negative narratives is a fear of being unlovable. Secondly, when the moment arrived and I knew I had to tell him, my body was telling me to run far, far away (which I clocked using mindfulness)! Eventually, I called on the power of self-coaching to push through the nerves, and using the mantra, “I am love, I can do this!” to encourage myself, I was able to push through and express my true feelings. And I can tell you, it was a very rewarding feeling.

You don’t have to use these exact affirmations, and in fact, I encourage you to come up with your own! Choose something unique to you that will help make you feel more grounded during moments of fear or stress.

Challenge Your Negative Narratives

When it comes to challenging negative narratives and long-held fears, sometimes a positive statement isn’t enough. In these cases, it’s important to focus on giving yourself concrete evidence of the positive truth you want to be thinking instead.

For example, if you suffer from impostor syndrome (like I occasionally do when I present to audiences), your negative narrative might sound something like, “I can’t believe I’m up on a stage in front of 500 people right now. What if they think I’m stupid?” This negative narrative is hard to overcome with a simple, “You got this, girl!”

It can be more powerful to take stock of your accomplishments and use them as evidence to unlearn your negative narratives and instead start to internalize a positive truth about yourself. In the example above, I would beef up a positive, encouraging thought by adding evidence of my worthiness, for example: “I am qualified to be on this stage. I have presented over 1,000 times in my career. I’ve got this!”

Sometimes this kind of reality check is what we need to ground us and make us feel stronger, and the more often we do it, the more powerful and worthy we feel! It may not come naturally to you at first, but by practicing this essential self-coaching tool, soon you’ll learn to recognize the negative thought patterns that are fueling your fears and have the tools at your disposal to quickly disrupt them.

Feeling confident and self-assured in the face of our fears is something that everyone struggles with, but these techniques will help you to self-coach the next time the gremlin in your head makes an appearance. By practicing mindfulness, using personal affirmations and mantras, and focusing on positive truths, you’ll soon find that your fears are encouraging you instead of holding you back.

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On top of this, beauty for women is defined as an external experience, rather than being an internal experience (which in my humble opinion is far more important in defining beauty, and so whenever you hear me talk about beauty, know that I’m referring to both our internal and external attributes), and so for many of us, it doesn’t matter how many times we receive feedback that we’re beautiful, intelligent, kind, or anything positive — we still struggle to believe that we actually embody those attributes.

For example, a while ago I was having a conversation with a friend who is a beautiful woman of color and who I think oozes both intelligence and gorgeousness. When I told her how radiant I think she is, she thanked me but then told me it was hard for her to believe the compliment because of her struggle with her weight.

It made me really sad to hear this, but I empathized with what she was saying. Given that I also used to have difficulty accepting compliments, I know that there’s a difference between being told we’re great and truly feeling it.

Why Do We Believe We Aren’t Beautiful?

For many of us, the reason we don’t believe the kind words coming our way is because we have internalized negative messages from a young age that we lack these attributes.

For example, when I was growing up, I consistently received critical comments about my appearance, mostly as part of the horrible racist bullying I experienced.

With my brown skin and long black braids, I looked different in comparison to my peers at school and was constantly called ugly for it. Also, as a darker skinned brown girl growing up in South Asian culture, where fair skin is valued over dark skin, I spent my early adolescent years believing that I was not as beautiful as others.

The cherry on top of this messy cake? For a chunk of my early teens, I really wasn’t very cute (picture an overbite, acne, facial hair, and thick glasses). When I finally blossomed in my late teens and people started to tell me that I was pretty, I just didn’t believe them.

This is why it’s so important to interrupt the negative messaging we’ve internalized, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m an advocate for self-love. By cultivating self-love, we increasingly move to a place where we start to believe deeply in our core that we are worthy of both receiving compliments and of feeling beautiful. When we cultivate self-love, we start to see that our real beauty lies in being perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect.

Feeling Beautiful Comes from Within

If feeling beautiful is something you struggle with, one of the most important things you can do to cultivate self-love is to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is about tuning into the present moment and being aware of what you’re doing, feeling, and thinking without judgment. It’s about slowing down to observe how you talk to yourself — no more negative self-talk! — and how you feel about yourself.

The more mindful you are about your thoughts and about how you feel, the more likely you will be able to identify the negative messages you’re harboring about yourself. Once you identify the negative messages, you can work to replace them with positive truths about who you are, for example, “I am beautiful.”

Aside from practicing mindfulness, there are a few other simple things that I do to help me feel beautiful from the inside out that I’d like to offer you:

1. Focus on Activities that Make Your Heart Sing

Not surprisingly, it’s when I’m doing things that I’m most passionate about, like dancing to my fave tunes, cuddling with my boyfriend while watching Netflix, or presenting to a warm and receptive audience, that I truly feel my most beautiful. And I note, not surprisingly, these are also times when I’m radiating my Authentic Self.

2. Look Good so You Can Feel Good

I believe that one’s body is like a personal art canvas. We use what we wear, how we do our hair and make-up, and more to self-express what we’re about internally. But I also believe that how we self-express externally impacts how we feel internally. Because of this, to feel beautiful on the inside I always make sure that I’m wearing something I’m comfortable in and that I feel great in. Sometimes that means a fabulous dress, while on other days it means leggings, but the point is, I make the effort to do whatever makes me feel good.

While it can be challenging to shift negative self-beliefs to positive ones, cultivating self-love and taking actual steps to change your behavior are critical to get to a place where you’re able to embrace compliments and to feel beautiful inside and out. We all deserve to feel good about ourselves, and it starts with self-love.

The post Why So Many of Us Struggle with Feeling Beautiful appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

During those days, if you’d told me that one day I’d be a professional speaker, I would have said, “Get outta here!” But here we are now, decades later, and I’m blessed to speak on inclusion, leadership, authenticity, empowerment, and more for a living.

Getting to this place took a lot of hard work, and I was blessed enough to have great mentorship along the way. Through my experience (I’ve now presented over a thousand times to organizations around the world), I’ve developed specific practices that enable me to command attention onstage — and online, considering most of us are now public speaking/presenting virtually — and deliver my content as effectively as possible.

There are 4 specific tactics that I’ve learned along my journey that, if practiced, will help you become a better public speaker. Whether you’re presenting in a boardroom, classroom, conference room, theater, or on a video conferencing platform, paying attention to these elements will help you better connect with your audience, come across as polished and professional, and communicate your ideas in an engaging and effective way.

1. Body Positioning is Everything

Body positioning isn’t something I considered when I first started presenting, but I know now that it’s critical! This first became clear to me when I first did my yoga teacher training many years ago. We were taught, in the context of becoming skilled yoga teachers, how to move our energy throughout the room while teaching. Essentially, where you place your body in relation to the audience has a huge impact on how you are received.

There are a few key ways to ensure that your body positioning is optimal. For in-person presentations, the basic rules are to always stand (never sit) and avoid hiding behind a podium. Always make sure there isn’t anything physically placed between you and your audience. Next, think about proximity. You want to place yourself as close as possible to the audience. This means standing towards the front of the stage or walking as close to the front row of the audience as you can.

For my virtual presentations and webinars, I always sit (not stand), and I make sure to position myself in the frame like a headshot — centered on screen and without my head being cropped. You’ll also want to ensure that you have good lighting, either by setting up in a space that has good natural light or by using a ring light.

Finally, I’m what I call a “mover and shaker” when I present. This means that I move around a lot. I pace slowly across the stage or the front of the room throughout my live presentations and even on Zoom webinars I’m always gesturing with my hands. It may drive videographers crazy, but it’s effective for commanding attention and keeping the audience engaged — and it helps to move my energy through the room, just like the yogis advise.

2. Body Language is Important Too

Your body is a vessel for your message, so it’s important to take body language into account. For example, although I’m tall, I’m still petite, so I need to make an effort to ensure that my physical presence is felt in the room. To do this in person, and to ground myself onstage, I call on a favorite yoga pose (which also happens to be a power pose!), tadasana (mountain pose). This pose, which involves rooting through the feet, straightening the spine, and lifting through the crown of the head, also helps me to naturally deepen my breath and improve my posture, presence, and comfort in front of the crowd. (For more on how to use power poses for better presence, watch Amy Cuddy’s legendary TED Talk.)

And as I mentioned above, I’m also big on talking with my hands. Being animated in your gestures — with your fingers, hands, arms, legs, you name it — and facial expressions creates interest for the audience and can help emphasize content, especially if you’re presenting online. For example, I use non-verbal communication to emphasize words, highlight lists, draw attention to particular points, or add humor — especially when I’m telling a story. In all my years of speaking, I’ve rarely been told that I’m not engaging, and I credit this to my lively stage presence.

Watching a presentation is, in the end, a visual experience, so next time you present, think about how you can leverage power poses and non-verbal communication to improve your presence onstage or on screen.

3. Be Mindful of Your Voice

I’ve learned to play with the elements of my voice — including pitch, tone, volume, and speed — to add variety to my presentations, and I love doing this as a way to shake things up. When you skillfully vary these elements, it makes your presentation more engaging. This is a strategy that people rarely talk about, but it’s actually quite powerful.

Volume is fundamental. Vary your volume throughout your talk, but ensure that you’re loud enough to command attention and be heard. A good microphone is absolutely vital for video presentations, and breathing deeply will help with volume and with projecting, intonating well, and speaking smoothly. When you’re not breathing deeply, your words can sound slurred or muffled. As a fast talker myself, I know it can be hard to slow down your speech, but varying your pace is important to communicate effectively.

When it comes to the words you use, ensure that you vary your language to avoid sounding repetitive. Also, nerves or lack of practice can lead to using a lot of “filler” words like “um” and uh” when you speak, which is something to avoid. As with all voice-related strategies, you can train yourself on this over time. In other words, practice, practice, practice!

4. Use Notes Strategically

Even though I know my content inside out, I always bring notes with me. It can be distracting (and, frankly, look sloppy) to bring full-sized pages with you onstage, so I’ve developed a trick: I have my notes printed out on single-sided, half-page paper, and I leave them on a podium or table while on stage or on a note stand for virtual speaking events. Then I can glance at them if needed while I’m speaking.

Rather than printing out my whole talk, I type out my notes in bullet point form, capturing the flow of ideas, concepts, and sound bites I’ll be covering. Having this framework handy helps me to stay on track, especially when I am time limited.

One warning here: Don’t script your whole talk. If you memorize it word for word, it will sound mechanical when it comes time to deliver it for real. Rather, practice explaining your concepts and ideas a few times in natural language.

Go Forth and Practice!

Now that you know a few of the tricks, it’s time for the hard part — practice. I can’t emphasize the importance of it enough. Practice helps your ideas make their way into your unconscious brain, which in turn makes them easier to recall under pressure and stress. Ultimately, practice and experience are the ingredients that separate a good presentation from a great one. Now is as good a time as any to begin.

The post 4 Tips for Taking Your Public Speaking from Good to Great — Whether in Person or by Video appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Impostor syndrome was first defined by psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Dr. Suzanne A. Imes in their 1978 study as an “internal experience of intellectual phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” In other words, those who have impostor syndrome possess a pervasive feeling of doubt and inadequacy. They believe they are where they are because of luck (which you’ll recall I don’t believe in) or chance, and not because of their own talent, qualifications, or hard work. If you have impostor syndrome you may fear that others might discover your lack of ability and that you’ll be exposed as a “fraud.”

If you do often feel this way, rest assured that you are not alone. In fact, impostor syndrome is an extremely common psychological phenomenon that approximately 70 percent of people experience at some point in their lives. (If you’re unsure whether you suffer from impostor syndrome, I recommend you do the assessment designed by Dr. Clance to help determine if you possess the common traits and to what extent.)

As I discuss in my book, The Authenticity Principle, so many of us are racked with negative narratives that reflect insecurities and fears, despite the many wins and successes we may have achieved. Everyone at one time or another can get caught up in this negative loop of self-doubt, which we often mask in order to appear stronger in the hope that our vulnerabilities will not be seen and we won’t be discovered as a fake.

While impostor syndrome can affect anyone, researchers believe that it is more prevalent among People of Color, women, and people from other diverse communities because of the link between experiencing discrimination and feeling inadequate. Dr. Valerie Young, an expert on impostor syndrome, explains that even though there is no definitive reason why impostor syndrome exists, there are multiple external factors, such as a person’s environment or institutionalized discrimination, that can contribute to them feeling like a fraud.

In addition to direct experiences with oppression, with the lack of representation of People of Color, women, and other diverse professionals as leaders in society and in mainstream media, it’s no wonder that so many of us experience inhibiting feelings of unworthiness and a sense of not belonging.

So the big question is, how do you deal with impostor syndrome and learn to not disregard your own experiences and credibility? The good news is that there are ways to address it.

Here are 4 practical tips for overcoming impostor syndrome and the negative self-talk and self-limiting beliefs that come with it.

1.     Acknowledge and Challenge the Negative Thoughts

Most of the time, when we feel like a fraud, it’s usually in relation to our idea of perfection. But it’s important to remember that perfection does not actually exist. Experiencing setbacks or failing is a difficult but normal part of life that needs to be embraced for the important lessons we can learn in the process. Simply by observing and acknowledging our limitations and the ensuing negative thoughts we have about our abilities, we can put them into perspective and question where they come from and whether they hinder or help us. Being aware of our self-doubt also allows us to be critical of it and to replace our negative self-talk with positive narratives.

2.     Use Mantras and Positive Truths

Crafting positive affirmations will help you to reinforce and remind yourself that you have achieved your successes because of the efforts you’ve put in. Whenever I doubt myself, my mantra is, “I am great. I am loved. I am worthy.” I use this affirmation in combination with positive truths: facts that help to reinforce these feelings and perceptions of ability. For example, if I am presenting in front of a big crowd and my negative narrative starts to show up, I beef up my mantra by adding evidence of my worthiness like, “I am qualified to be on this stage. I know this gig better than most! I’ve got this.” This not only helps boost my confidence but also energizes me!

3.     Write Down Your Accomplishments

Collect your wins! Keep a list of positive feedback, compliments, and nice things people have said about you and your work in a notebook and pull it out when the feelings of being an impostor start to overwhelm you. This is an easy but extremely helpful way to remind yourself of all the hard work you have put in to accomplish your goals.

4.     Find Support in Your Network

If you feel like a pretender sometimes, you are not alone. Many people suffer from impostor syndrome, from our peers to our leaders — and even high-powered and hugely successful famous people like Maya Angelou and Tina Fey, who have both openly admitted to feeling like frauds. Recognizing that impostor syndrome is a widespread experience can help us overcome our negative worries, and sharing is where this magic happens. By opening the dialogue for conversation and sharing our experiences with one another, we can build meaningful, supportive relationships that help to lift us up and reinforce positive feelings about ourselves. One way to do this is to find a safe space by joining affinity groups, online forums, or even interest groups on social media — and of course, you can lean on your clouds when you need a boost of confidence and assurance.

The next time you’re confronted with negative self-talk or self-limiting beliefs that make you question your ability or accomplishments, don’t brush them aside. I invite you to do some work to explore and challenge them. Ask yourself: Is this true? What is a positive, more accurate narrative that I can tell myself?

Overcoming your imposter syndrome will allow you to find happiness, cultivate self-confidence, learn to celebrate and own your achievements, and start thriving.

The post Do You Often Feel Like a Fraud and Question Your Successes? You May Be Experiencing Impostor Syndrome appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

Many years ago, when I decided that authenticity was going to be one of my guiding values, I started to apply what I call the “I Don’t Give an F Plan” to everything I did. The “I Don’t Give an F Plan” is very simple: it basically means that you stop worrying about what others think.

It means letting go of how others may judge you or perceive you for how you live. It means living in accordance with what makes you happy and what makes you who you are. It means feeling free to be your perfectly imperfect self, and if you want to feel free, unencumbered, and empowered then this is the plan for you!

I started living by this plan when I was writing The Authenticity Principle. In doing the deep self-reflection work required to write the book, I realized that even though I had come a long way in living authentically since my younger years, I was still holding back in certain areas because I feared the judgment of others.

But I didn’t want to hold back anymore. I wanted to live the way I wanted to live in every way possible! I wanted to stop giving an F. So I did.

In this video, I talk about what makes the “I Don’t Give an F Plan” so satisfying and give you some tips and tricks so you can learn to stop giving an F and start living your best.

Watch now!

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