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We are Meredith and Mishelle and together, we are flipping the script on what it means to be an IT girl. Each week we will be discussing topics and questions submitted by YOU, our audience, as we navigate life's challenges together.
Mishelle Kost (00:01)
Hey, fabulous people, I'm Meredith. And I'm Michelle. And together we're here to flip the script on what it truly means to be the It Girl. That's right. Whether you're rocking the runway or embracing the messy bun life, no matter your size, ethnicity, or state of your sweats, you are It. We're diving deep into the realness of life, celebrating the victories, navigating the failures, and sometimes not having a clue while doing it all.
We've got battle scars, heartbreaks, contagious laughs, and an unbreakable bond of love for each other. Join us every week as we unwrap different topics and answer questions brought to us by our amazing audience. That's you. Get ready for a fresh dose of perspective that'll make you think, laugh, and maybe even shed a tear. We're on this journey together, growing, crying, laughing, and fighting for one another, because that's what being an It Girl is all about.
So send us your burning topics and thought provoking questions through our website, itgirllife .com or drop us a line directly at hello at itgirllife .com. Let's make every moment count, embrace the chaos and live our best it girl lives.
Mishelle (01:02)
Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here for you today with episode 14, What's Wrong With Being Confident. We'll talk about a little bit more of what the question is here in a little bit, but we're gonna kick it off with our icebreaker. Here we go. Meredith, are you ready for this? Okay, this is a good one. What do you love most about
Meredith (01:20)
I'm ready.
I know that you say this is a good one, but it's kind of a hard one because I think that you, you kind of learn to love different aspects and hopefully love most things about yourself. I would say I love my humor, but I think my humor also hides like, insecurity at times and probably a lot of trauma wrapped up in there somewhere. But I do think that I'm very quick witted or smart assy.
Mishelle (01:30)
I know, that's why it's a good one!
Meredith (01:55)
And I like that. do think that I'm quick with the smile, but I'm also equally as quick with like RBF. I think that that's what... Yeah. My face and my mouth usually tell people how I feel. But yeah, I would say my sense of humor and just I like...
Mishelle (02:07)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. I can attest to that. I can attest to
Meredith (02:25)
that I really genuinely care about people. And that would be it. Until I don't care about you, then bye.
Mishelle (02:32)
then you're out. Then it's the RBF and you're out. Okay, I love those things about you too. Okay, so for me it would be...
Meredith (02:38)
Thanks.
Mishelle (02:45)
I love that I am fun and lighthearted in most situations and I am an optimist and I always try to look for the bright side in everything to a fault and like try to see the best in everyone. So that's me. Yeah.
Meredith (03:01)
Yeah, I can attest to that. That is you. That is you. If anybody could see this and follow us through the day, you are definitely the ray of sunshine. And I am like that one gloomy cloud that then time sprinkles in a rainbow. But you are definitely, we are opposites in that way. I'm like thunder and lightning and you're like sunshine and rainbow.
Mishelle (03:15)
Yeah.
Yeah,
And I'm like, yeah, the rainbow over the sky. I'm like, but look, it's, look at the color. And you're like, no.
Meredith (03:31)
Yeah. Yeah. The good news is we need both of us. We need both of us in this world.
Mishelle (03:36)
You too.
But I don't experience you as negative.
Meredith (03:43)
No, I would agree. I'm not typically negative. I'm just always controlling.
And how dare my emotions try to get the better of me. I need to control that. Okay, that was funny. Okay, the fun part about this next, actual revealing the question is someone wrote in, how do you empower yourself to become more confident? And I'm excited to hear about this because I think outside looking in you and I come off as very confident women. And I do think we are very confident in.
Mishelle (03:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I love it. Okay, here we go.
Meredith (04:23)
a lot of the facets that we are exposing every day. So Michelle, how do you empower yourself to become more
Mishelle (04:32)
Okay, I like this question. I like this question because I didn't always used to be confident. And I think it's definitely a, it's something you can grow and it's something that you can work on. And it's something that you have to discover and foster and all the things. So I think when I started to find my confidence was when
started understanding what my contribution to this world is. And what I mean by that is it was discovering who am I and what do I have to offer this world and what do I have to offer and bring to the table. I think a lot when I think about who I was before I was really confident or who I was when I was lacking self -confidence and self -worth and all of those things was I just didn't know who I was.
and I didn't know what I wanted. But when I got really clear about who I am and what I stand for and what my gifts are and how do I make an impact on other people, it started to click. And I think that's when I really stepped into, okay, this is who I am. This is my purpose. This is what I'm here to do. This is what I bring to the table. This is what people can expect from me.
This is what people like about me. And that's when, again, like that confidence started to come out. And it was like, okay, now I found my voice and I started showing up differently. And it's not an overnight process. It's not like you wake up one day and you're like, I think I know what my values are. Okay, instantly. He me, know, like knew me, who dis? It's not really like that. It's more like, okay, I think I'm figuring out what I...
what feels good and who I am and it just takes time. It's a process. But I think for me again, the first step was understanding, what are my strengths? So like I'm a huge StrengthsFinders fan. And when I did my top five StrengthsFinders, I just started and I read my results. I was like, fell in love with myself, which is so funny. But I was like, yeah, that is me. Yes, I do do that.
Yeah, I guess. And it just made me realize that those are strengths and those are things that people, not everybody has. And those are things that some people are weak in and that now this is something that's highlighting as a strength of mine. And that really took me to another level. And I think as simple as that one test was and as simple as like my top five strengths, which are positivity.
consistency, developer, includer, and adaptability. Like it made it really clear what I'm really good at, like how I operate and why I'm that way and why I'm wired that way. So anyways, that would be like my little one minute spiel about that, but what do you think Meredith?
Meredith (07:41)
Yeah, I agree with all of those things. think life experiences has allowed me to gain confidence mostly in the failures because I learned so much more about myself, about my resiliency, about my ability to adapt and pivot and what I was able to accomplish when I set my mind to something. So similar to you, I would say,
Mishelle (07:50)
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (08:06)
The opposite of confidence came from negative self -talk and really just talking myself out of ideas or out of things that I really wanted to challenge myself with. But then when I was faced with tackling some really difficult things early on, I had to tackle them confidently and really almost put on a front where I was overconfident because my mom's health was on the line.
doing a lot more research, doing a lot more, just empowering myself with knowledge and really gaining insight into all of my goals or what the vision of success looks like in that instance. And that continued to build on confidence. So I think knowledge and just educating myself on topics before I speak so confidently about them allowed me to continue to be.
Mishelle (08:36)
Knowledge.
Meredith (08:59)
confident and there's also lot of confidence in silence. So I knew that I became a little bit more confident or more mature when the things that are said about you or the things that are assumed didn't really impact you because you know yourself and you know your values and you know your self worth. So coming up in your 20s, your 30s,
A lot of things you don't just let roll off your back. You're really perturbed about a lot of things, but as you grow in confidence and you really understand who you are, the easier it is for you to just be like, okay, that doesn't faze me. I'm really strong in my beliefs. I'm really strong in what I bring to the table and who I'm here to become and what I am for others.
Mishelle (09:36)
Mm -hmm.
Have you always been super strong in your beliefs?
Meredith (09:50)
I have always been very strong in my core values of fairness and rightness. like a balance and a really strong viewpoint of treating others the way I wanted to be treated. so just most, most values and belief system. Yes. but others became, became more sharpened and introduced in a different light.
than probably when I was younger. What about you? Would you say that you've been very strong in your belief
Mm -hmm.
Mishelle (10:31)
No, because like I said, I spent a good portion of my life, a long portion of my life, not knowing who I was or what I wanted. So a lot of my likes, dislikes, beliefs, or just all the things that influenced my life were based on whatever boy I was dating at the time. I mean, just, that's just like, seriously, I
Everything from trying to decide what college I wanted to go to, to what major I was going to decide, to what hobby I was going to start doing. I mean, everything was based on a boy, trying to impress a boy, trying to fit in with a boy, all of that. And all of that, was rooted
just not knowing who I was or not having any value for just being myself. Like I couldn't find value in myself until this person said that they loved me. And then it was like, okay, now I have value. So it took a long time to get away from that and figure that out and figure out, okay, outside of these external factors, what does this person, Michelle, like? What does this person, Michelle, want? What does this person, Michelle, think?
Have you seen the movie Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts where she doesn't even know what types of eggs she likes? Because it just depended on whatever that particular husband or person that she was married to at the time liked. I was that person, literally that person. So yeah, no, I have not always been strong in my beliefs and I will say I am now. And it wasn't until I was probably mid thirties.
Meredith (11:50)
Mm -hmm. Yes.
Mishelle (12:16)
So for those people out there listening and you might be younger and be like, man, feeling bad about yourself or whatever, it takes time. Just know it takes so much time and everybody's on a different timeline and everyone's, and I think back to what you said, Meredith, it's about your life experiences. I think part of your life experiences garners some of that confidence and teaches you some of that as you go along and your failures, your learnings and.
you start to figure it out as you go. But I would say it took me probably until about my mid thirties for me to get really clear about my values, what's important to me, what my beliefs are about the world, about myself, about people, relationships, all of that.
Meredith (13:01)
What I really appreciate when you share your story and your background in that way is my upbringing, although I was happy and had a lot of happy memories of my childhood, my earliest memories, I remember like, I don't want to always be in this situation and these circumstances. And so I read a lot of books and my mom, know, God rest her soul.
You're the same type of personality types that you're saying where she was married five times and she would always adapt to that person and I saw that and reflected that but my my belief system even though I've dated a lot and have lived with you know got pretty serious in lot of relationships didn't really see myself as is trying to fit into the mold to
accommodate a portion of the relationship to make the other person happy. But I overachieved in the way of I needed to learn more. I needed to make more. I needed to make something of myself because of my upbringing and I know paths that I didn't want to go on. And so we may have walked very different paths growing up, but what I did recognize when my mom was in her state where she was quadriplegic and her value wasn't sent around
a person she was with because through the end she wasn't in a serious relationship. She wasn't married anymore. It was just her and that was the happiest I'd ever seen her because she really got to discover what she liked, what she wanted to do. It was such a gift that in her state where she couldn't do a lot of things physically was the happiest I've ever seen her blossom to become because she was recognizing her value and her self -worth.
Mishelle (14:35)
Yeah, such a gift.
Right?
I just got head to toe body chills from you telling me. Like that's so incredible. And it's just so true.
Meredith (14:53)
Yeah. So true. Yeah. So you learn these, you recognize and you learn that you're confident in different aspects. Like if it's work and someone asked me to do something, then I'm doing that. But if it's someone asking me to talk about myself and make myself vulnerable and emote and do all of these things, not confident in
Mishelle (15:17)
Yeah.
Meredith (15:18)
I'll do it, I'll be super uncomfortable and people will say, you looked really calm and like that didn't phase you. it phased me. And so I think that a lot of it, I'm not saying fake it till you make it, but just try. Yeah, just try.
Mishelle (15:31)
I mean, but kind of, kind of. I don't think there's anything wrong with fake it till you make it. I mean, not like be inauthentic, but there is a part of it while you're growing and learning to be a confident person and growing and learning and figuring out who you are, you can fake it till you make it. Cause it's not always going to, you're not always going to believe these thoughts about yourself right away.
Meredith (15:56)
Mm
Mishelle (15:57)
it takes time for you to like get out there. And if you're like, I am a smart individual, like I might not think that right away, but if I keep telling myself and keep showing up in that way and making choices that are aligned with being a smart person, like it will eventually get there. So there is like a short period of time where you do have to fake it till you make it, until you get there. But you're not doing it because you want to be fake. You're just doing it because.
you're in the practice of it, you're in progress. And I think there's a difference.
Meredith (16:28)
Yeah. And you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, I think is really what I want people to understand is that quote, and I think it's a quote, but it's like, I've survived all of my hardest days up until now. Were they embarrassing? Did I fail? Yes. Did I come out stronger and more knowledgeable on the other side? Also, yes. And I say a lot of stupid things a lot of times and embarrass myself a lot.
do I still worry about the things I said when I was 11 years old? Sometimes, maybe, but I still also grew from it and have become a little bit more confident to know that I won't make that mistake again. And so I think, yes, in some way faking it till you make it, but stepping out of your comfort zone and not putting yourself in this, just in this box because you have that negative self -talk. So I think that that's the first step in trying to embrace and becoming confident
quieting that negative self -talk that you're continuously doing to yourself.
Mishelle (17:29)
Yes!
Yes, identify what are those thoughts and beliefs and statements that you keep saying to yourself that are holding you back from being who you actually are. So make a list, and then make a new list of what actually do you want to believe about yourself. And then you start repeating those things to yourself over and over again until it completely replaces the other ones.
This is how you reprogram your mind and this is how you change your mindset. People are always talking about change your mindset, mindset shift or perspective change. And it's like, well, how do I do that? That's how. And as silly and as ridiculous as that sounds, like I'm just going to repeat these things to myself over and over again every day. And you're like, yes, because you want to know something that other lists that you just made. I guarantee you, you are already repeating those things to yourself over and over again, naturally. So you're just swapping them
The other thing I will say about confidence is it's like a marriage that go together. Self -acceptance. You have to go on this journey of self -acceptance because I think until you can accept yourself with all your flaws, your weaknesses, your humanity, like everything, you have to get to that place of acceptance for you to begin to love who you are.
And not from a self -conceited type way, but just a true, like, I love who I am. This is who I am for who I am, and I'm okay with that. just giving yourself grace and forgiveness and embracing that person that you are. Because part of the lack of confidence that I had for so long was because I didn't accept the way that I looked. I didn't want to be Korean.
and I want to be Asian, everybody around me was blonde hair and blue eye. I wanted to have blonde hair and blue eyes. I started putting sun in my hair when I was like 12. Okay, so like as early as 12, and even probably earlier than that, I started rejecting what I look like, where I was from, where my parents were from, why they had accents, why was I different? I don't want to be this way. I want this, I want that. The grass is always greener on the other side. I mean, every curly haired person I've ever talked to in my entire life has wanted straight hair.
Tell me right now, if you have curly hair, did you want straight hair, yes or no? Yeah, the answer is yes. And if you have straight hair, do you want, like, I have straight hair. And you wanna know what I do every morning? I freaking curl it with a curly iron.
Meredith (19:59)
Hold on, hold on, one thing. It was the 90s, everybody wanted Son -In. Just, just gonna say that. Just gonna say it.
Mishelle (19:59)
You
That's true. That's true. That was true. Except it was turning my hair orange. And then I was also that person who's walking around with blue contacts. Could I see? No. Did I think I looked good? Yes. Did I, did I somehow feel more confident because I had them in? Yes. But it was like, why? Like, why? You know, and, and I think the moment I started embracing
my ethnicity, my background, who I was, like where I came from and no longer feeling like embarrassed about it or whatever it was. It was like, okay, now that confident person can step out and there's Michelle, there she is. She owns it. Like you own your story, you own your past, you own your present, you own who you are, you own the mistakes, the failures, the screw ups, the background.
Meredith (21:00)
Mm -hmm.
Mishelle (21:02)
you like that's how you like you can give yourself that value you
Meredith (21:07)
Yeah, yeah. I think that you do bring up a really good point, even though you had put in the contacts, tried to make your appearance a little bit different, there's still something to be said about that confidence you walked around in. And if you didn't represent who you felt best in at that time, even though you learned later that, hey, I liked that version of me and who I thought that portrayed, but I'm learning to love who I truly am. I think what
want people to understand is feel comfortable in your skin. And if you show up and your posture looks confident and you're shredding and you're wearing the clothes that you want to wear because it makes you feel good and you have that smile on your face and you make direct eye contact, there's something to be said in your body language and also how you package yourself that makes you feel confident. And in this vulnerable moment, I'll be honest, I'm in
Mishelle (21:55)
Thank you.
Meredith (22:03)
chapter of my life where I have to sell myself as my job. Like I have to sell people that I'm skilled to help you and your corporation, or I'm skilled to come and speak to you in your environment and help your teams. And I'm always concerned, like I have a half sleeve tattoo, I've got a dog tattoo on my bicep. I've got like all of these things and I'm really more comfortable in a t -shirt and a ball
But you've even shared to me when you were speaking one time, and I think that you'll probably share with the others hopefully, but that's why I'm most comfortable and I don't wanna have to wear my blazer and a really presentable like white collared shirt for someone to hire me because when I show up, I can't be that every day and be confident in my skill and confident in how I'm presenting my authentic self to you and how I'm gonna help you. And so I've since learned
yeah, okay, I will still dress up a little bit because I want to be respectful of this partnership and what I'm asking people to do, but I still have to like be me and like still put like a band t -shirt under my blazer and jeans and something like that. Because there's something to be said in how confident you are in what you're wearing, how you're how you look, how you present yourself
Mishelle (23:18)
Yeah, but even in that, what I hear too is like own your style. You know, don't adapt to trying to fit in, but own your style. And then when you own your style, like more confidence comes out. The other thing I will say to build more confidence is work out. When you look good and you feel good, then you're feeling good. Like you feel, like you feel strong, you know? So I think working out is a big piece of it. And I know
Meredith (23:21)
Mm
Mishelle (23:48)
Like for me, I didn't start working out till later in life too. And so it's like, the moment I started getting stronger, I started being like, okay, I'm confident about like, yeah, I can do this. like, if the moment I started doing things that I once thought that I couldn't, I was like breaking barriers in my mind. It was like, okay, confidence like comes from that. So that would be my other hot tip is start working
Meredith (24:19)
Yes, Michelle, I think that you're absolutely correct and getting back into the gym will help you present and match how you're feeling on the inside to the outside.
Mishelle (24:30)
Anyways, that's a long list of things that you could do to grow your confidence. I think what we're trying to say is it starts with you. It starts with an internal, I think the first thing we talked about was your mindset, getting a good understanding of like, what is your negative talk? What is that belief set that you have? And then get to know what your strengths are, your values, what are your belief sets? And then as Meredith would say, go read a book, gain some skills, gain some knowledge, get out there.
Become an expert in something and start to find some confidence in your knowledge and your abilities and your skill sets. And then go to the gym and work out and get out there. Own your sense of style. And then lastly, learn to accept who you are with all your flaws and all your glory because there's really nobody else but you. So that would be
Meredith (25:24)
Mm. Yeah.
Mishelle (25:27)
full -proofed plan for how to build confidence 101. If you want to come to one of our classes, maybe Meredith and I will go on tour and take you through a whole class on that. But in the meantime, send us some more of your burning questions. These are some really fun topics that we've been going over. You can hit us up on our website, itgirllife .com, or send us an email directly at hello at itgirllife .com. So we will talk to you soon.