You know that voice inside of you that speaks up whenever you want to try something new and a little out of your comfort zone?
The voice that says:
- “you’re not good enough”
- “what if no one likes you”
- “you have to lose 5kgs first”
- “you can’t make it work”
And all those other negative things your mind tells you, why you can’t or shouldn’t. The one that slowly takes away all the belief that you are good enough and you can do it.
This is what Melissa Ambrosini refers to as your inner ‘Mean Girl’
I believe most of us girls experience this on a very regular basis.
I want to share with you a very recent appearance of my mean girl. What triggered it, how I dealt with it and ultimately how I shut that mean girl up!
Last Friday on a lunch date with a friend, she presented me an opportunity to consider which would both grow me as a Fitness Professional and a Leader.
After she explained to me what it may look like I left feeling excited about the possibilities. But over the course of 24 hours my mean girls showed up and told me all the reasons why it would not be a good opportunity for me.
Here’s what she started to tell me:
- I’m not experienced enough
- What if the other PTs don’t like me
- I’m not in good enough shape
- What if I’m training someone and I tell them the wrong thing
- I probably can’t afford too
- I can’t be a good mum and a great trainer working a few extra hours a week
- I need to lose at least 10kgs
The list goes on.
Now I tend to process information by talking things out or writing in my journal. As I noticed my inner mean girl chatting a way I started to write a list of all the negative believes I was internalising.
As I was creating this list I realised all of this inner talk was fear of 2 things.
1) Fear of the unknown which takes me out of my comfort zone
2) Fear of failure
Once I had gotten all the negativity out of my head I began to write WHY I do what I do
- I want women to feel confident and strong
- I want to teach women to train safely and effectively so they have skills for life
- I want to demystify strength training for women
- I want women to feel safe and not afraid of training
- I want to take fear away from going the gym
- I want to help women know what they are truly capable of
- I want to be a great trainer that gives quality information
- I want women to feel in control and supported with their health
The simple act of going back to my ‘why’ I want to do more and step out of my comfort zone CRUSHED the limiting beliefs and the inner mean girl talk. They suddenly became irrelevant because my why and my purpose is so much bigger than the fear I feel.
So as a result, the mean girl has been shut down (though she does pop in from time to time) but I am looking at this opportunity with new eyes and rather than thinking about all the reasons why I can’t do it, I’m looking for all the reasons why I should.
It may work out, it may not. Sometimes it a matter of weighing up all the pros and cons but I’m not deciding no based on what my mean girl says. I’m making a choice based on whether or not the opportunity is the right one for me.
Moral of the story. Recognise the mean girl and simply say “Thanks, but I got this.”