Ep 8: Clarity, Confidence & Audacity in your next level career!
29 Feb 2024 · 19 min
Emma Naylor-Weston argues that what feels like a motivation problem is usually unclear strengths and values. She walks through self-awareness, visualization, and audacious goal-setting as concrete steps to advance, then explains how to position yourself as the recognized expert in your field.
Questions this episode answers
1st of March
Foreign welcome back to the Career Chronicles Podcast with your host, me, Emma Nayla Weston, AKA the no BS Career Coach, Certified Coach and NLP Master Practitioner. This podcast is for the ambitious and motivated individuals who are looking to feel inspired to create a career that they love. Join me in conversation with those that inspire me the most, and as well as solo episodes packed with tips and tricks that will guide you to start finding the clarity and confidence to create a career that you love. Welcome back to the Career Chronicles Podcast. I am so excited about this week's episode. We are going to be talking all things clarity, audacity, and confidence. First of all, let's jump into what do these things actually mean and how do they show up in your career? I always see audacity, confidence and clarity as this real, dynamic trio of success. Audacity is about having the boldness to take the risks, to step outside of your comfort zone and to really pursue those dreams, those career dreams, relentlessly. Confidence, on the other hand, is the unwavering belief in yourself, your abilities, your worth in your career. Audacity may manifest itself as speaking up in meetings, taking on challenging projects, or even daring to start your own business. Confidence is what allows you to navigate through those setbacks, to embrace failure as a real learning opportunity, but also to keep pushing forward even when the odds seem really stacked against you. But clarity is what you actually need to make the moves. I speak to so many women who think that they have a motivation problem. They think what they're struggling with is a motivation to get up and do the things they want to do. But actually they have a clarity issue, a clarity issue on knowing what they want. They are not clear on the things that they want to be, the things that they want to do, their strengths, their passion, their values. So therefore they are feeling that there's a motivation issue. They feel that they're stuck and that they're not wanting to move forward. But the reality is they do. They want to have the audacity. They want to have the confidence. If you put the right opportunity in front of them, these women are the women that will do everything they can to get it. But they're stuck. They don't have a motivation issue. And that is you. You do not have a motivation issue. You have a clarity issue. For women in particularly, clarity, audacity and confidence are so crucial in breaking through those barriers in your career, whether it be in the corporate world, whether it be running your own business. It's really important for women to position themselves as the expert in their space, as the woman that knows how to get what they want, to have that clarity on that path, to have that recognition, that respect that they deserve while having the confidence to do it. Studies have often shown, and I'm sure this is not going to be a surprise to you, that women often underestimate their abilities and are more hesitant to take risks compared to men. But when women embrace that audacity, that confidence, and they have the clarity, they are more likely to succeed. It's a really interesting conversation and something that I've been speaking to a lot of my one to one clients around is this big clarity piece. Knowing who they are, knowing what they want to do, assessing their current situation, knowing where they want to be, getting clear as about that career path, that opportunities that align with with their strengths and their passions and their purpose and their visions and their values. But again, as I said, it's not a lack of motivation. These women know that they want it, but they don't have the clarity on what to do. So I want to talk you through a few of the things that I've been working on with some of my clients around this clarity, confidence and audacity piece. And I really hope that this is going to be helpful for you because it's really, really helped so many women in my world. Now let's get practical when it comes to getting clarity, building confidence, stepping into the most audacious version of yourself. It is like building a muscle. It is not just going to happen overnight, it's not just going to happen once where you sit down with a pen and paper and you figure out your whole life purpose and plan. It requires consistent effort and practice. It requires you to show up every single day as that next version of you. It requires you to show up even on the days when you are lacking confidence to show up as that next level version of you. So the first few things that I really want to jump into are what can you do today to start stepping in to that next version of you? And the first piece is having that self awareness to start getting clarity. Understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, your limiting beliefs. What are the things that are holding you back? What are the things that are stopping you from understanding what that next step looks like? What are the things in the thought processes that are blocking you? What's stopping you from getting clarity? What needs to happen for you to get clarity? Really start recognizing what feels good for you and what doesn't. I speak to so many women time and time again who have been in careers, have been in jobs, have climbed the corporate Ladder and go, I'm in a good career, things feel good, things feel okay, things feel fine. But I want great. But I don't know what great looks like because that's the path less traveled. Understanding what feels good for you, understanding, getting that clarity piece is going to be so important. And then that next piece is actually visualizing what success in that career looks like to you. As I said, this clarity piece is going to be so important for you to be able to visualize yourself, you know, being in that interview, receiving that promotion, excelling in your current role, stepping into that next level. But without that clarity piece, it's impossible to know what success actually looks like. The next piece is I really want you to understand and replace those negative self thoughts with those positive affirmations. So many women that I speak to hold themselves back and again, this is what stops them stepping into the most audacious version of themselves, stepping into the most confident version of themselves or even allowing them to get that clarity because they are constantly pulling themselves down and telling themselves that it's not possible before they've even done it, before they've even stepped forward. They are telling themselves it's not possible. They are saying that they are not the expert in their field, that no one is going to hire them. What's the point? They may as well just stay in this good role. No one wants fucking good. I don't want good. I want every single woman to be in a career that feels great and sets your soul on fire. But that can only happen once you've got this clarity of where you want to go. And then start stepping into that most audacious version of yourself and stepping in to that most confident version of yourself. That confidence and being audacious comes from having clarity because you know where you're going. And as women, we like to do that. Again, massive generalization. But as women, we like to have a plan, we like to have a strategy, and that's the next thing is understanding. What's that step by step action plan to get you to where you want to get to? What do you need to do? How can you position yourself as that expert in your field or in your area of knowledge and become magnetic to the people that you want to speak to, whether it is recruiters, talent manager, your current boss. If you work in sales, how do you become magnetic to those clients? If you're running your own business, how do you become the thought leader in your space and attract and be magnetic to those ideal clients? It's by having the clarity on what you're going for and what you're doing, really setting these audacious goals is the next piece. Challenging yourself to say, this is the timeline, this is what I want to do. What are the big goals that I want to pursue? What are these goals that push me outside of my comfort zone and require me to summon that inner audacity, that inner confidence piece? When I talk about confidence, a lot of people and a lot of women in my world that I speak to are very confident about things that they know. If I ask them about their topic, they know what the fuck they're talking about. If I ask them about something else that they don't know about, this other version of them comes out, this version that feels a little less confident. And I really want to invite you to learn how to fail and fail quickly. Understanding that failure is not a reflection of your worth, but actually allowing you to say, okay, fine, we tried that. That's not what I want. This is what I want. This is not what I want. To get to that clarity piece, actually failing is going to help you so much. Embracing that failure, and I say it in inverted commas, embracing that failure is necessary. It is necessary. And if you are not willing to fail, things are going to take you a hell of a lot longer. That clarity piece comes from trial and error. It comes from understanding what's missing. What do I do well, what have I tried that's not worked? What do I want to try and see if that works? This clarity, audacity and confidence piece, as I said at the beginning, are this trio that all come together to elevate you to that next level, that will allow you to get you to that next career level with that boldness. And it's going to allow you to really shape what you want. It's going to allow you to scale in your career, grow in your career, land your dream job, make more money than you've ever made before, land that role that is paying you unbelievable amounts of money with an incredible title. That feels so good. But the main things that we need to think about is what is that clarity piece Getting clear as on the ideal suitable career paths for you and opportunities and things that align with your strengths and your passions, assessing your current situation or where you want to be, establishing those big audacious goals and how the fuck you're going to get there. Knowing how to position yourself as the expert in your field to become magnetic and then creating a step by step action plan to get that whilst leveling your mindset to be that most bold, confident and unapologetic version of yourself. We can't have big, audacious goals if we're not being unapologetic, if we're not being that most confident version. Once you step into this and you have the clarity, the confidence and the audacity to go for it in your career, things get to be easy. When it comes to career change, things get to be easy. When it comes to interviewing, when it comes to attracting talent managers and recruiters, when it comes to asking your boss for a promotion, when it comes to applying for that internal pay rise and promotion, things get to be easy. I speak to so many women literally every day who are spending so much time on LinkedIn, waiting for that dream job to pop up, waiting for that dream promotion to come through there, through their door, through their inbox. And the big question I always ask them is, what is the career goal for you? And most of them don't know because they haven't done this clarity piece. Most of them think it's a motivation issue of going, well. I'm kind of okay where I am. I'm kind of looking at jobs on LinkedIn, hoping that the right thing's going to pop up. I'm spending hours and hours, but, you know, if things stayed the same, it would be okay. You know, I'm in a really good job, I make good money. I've been told that I should be okay with where I'm at in my career and, you know, one day I'll get that promotion. But these are the kind of women in my world who don't have a motivation problem because they wouldn't be looking for more. They have a clarity problem. And if you're listening to this podcast going, I want more. I've been trying to get more, but I've been stopping myself. It could be that you too have a clarity problem. So the main things are grab your pen and paper, get clear as fuck on your purpose, on your values, what feels good for you, on your passions, on your strengths or your weaknesses. Assess where you are, where do you want to be, what needs to happen for you to get there? Step into that next level version of her before you get there. Think like her. What would she be going for? What would she want? It's going to be so important for you to get to that next level in your career, but you need to get that clarity to get there. It's the most simple thing, the most simple small tweet that will change everything in your career path, in your next level. Up the tiniest tweak when it comes to you, how you position yourself, what you're going for. I've had clients literally go from spending hours and hours and hours applying messaging people crickets to tweaking their area of expertise, positioning themselves as the expert in their field on their CV, on their LinkedIn, being magnetic, being clear, applying for only a few roles and landing those interviews. Because once you start tweaking a few little bits here and there, things get to be easy. And I know it's really easy to listen into the market and go, well, jobs are really difficult and this is really difficult and this is really difficult and all the excuses and the reasons why you can't, you know, get a promotion and get a pay rise, do a 180 land that dream job, but we don't listen to that. We create a framework that works for you. If we sit in the energy of constantly, things are difficult, believe me, they will always be difficult. If you sit in the energy of things are hard, the market is not good, you guessed it, things will be hard and you will see what is going on in the market and you will fall into that trap of things are difficult, the market's not great, therefore I'm not going to allow my dream job. Or we can switch that and we can make those small tweaks that need to be made regardless of what everyone else is doing, what's going on in the market. I don't give a shit about what everyone else is doing or what's going on in the market. I care about you. You positioning yourself as the expert, you becoming magnetic. You becoming clear as fuck on who you are, what you want and how you're going to get it. Now this episode is so important for anyone who is looking at making those tweaks and I'm so excited that I have something new that is dropping very, very soon. It's a new one to one intensive where we are going to be talking about and where I will show you how to get clear as on identifying suitable career paths and opportunities that are aligned with your strengths and passions. How to assess your current situation where you want to be and establish what those big audacious goals are for you. How to position yourself as the expert in your field and become magnetic. How to create a step by step action plan with timelines and milestones. How top level your mindset to be the boldest, most confident and unapologetic version of yourself and showing you and teaching you how things get to be easy when you are making a big career change if you want to know more about that program before we officially launch. If you're listening to this after the 1st of March we will have officially launched and you can head over to my Instagram which is at Emaweston to find out more about this program. Just shoot me a dm but I'm so excited to be sharing this because I know that every single woman who is looking to uplevel and make a big career change needs to do this clarity piece before moving forward. I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode and I will see you soon. Thank you for listening to the Career Chronicles podcast. If you have enjoyed this episode please make sure to subscribe and leave a five star review. They mean the world to me. I would love to connect with you over on instagram @ I am emmanelaweston. I can't wait to connect with you further. Until next time stay BS free, clear on your goals and confident to go and get them.
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