Empowerment for Women: Occupying Space with Intent and Confidence

Have you ever wondered how to take up more space in the world with confidence and authenticity? Have you ever wished to break free from societal constraints and fearlessly manifest your true desires? This episode could be the start of your journey towards self-discovery and empowerment.

In the first half of this transformative discussion, we'll dissect the critical task of understanding ourselves. We'll unveil how online assessments can be a tool for unearthing your unique traits and potential and why building a solid self-identity is crucial. We'll share tips to overcome conditioning and fear and guide you on taking action steps to build courage and increase competency. Let's start honoring and investing in ourselves because personal growth begins from within.

In the second part, we will focus on empowering women to occupy their space confidently. We'll explore the necessity of self-awareness and intention in liberating yourself from fear and societal bounds. We will talk about how to harness the power of confidence to manifest your true desires and why a mindset check is essential for aligning our decisions with our values. This episode is designed to help you cultivate a stronger sense of self and learn how to leverage it to claim your space in the world unapologetically.

To learn more about how you can work with Katanya, go to www.katanyanova.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:38

The kind of high level topic here I'm talking about is taking up space, because guys don't have a problem taking up space. So how can you take up space in your own way that you're honoring yourself and your power as an individual? This is part of emotional intelligence. The first part of emotional intelligence is yourself. It's about the self, self identity. Let's start with that, because we're going to build on this. And so there is a lady here that asks how I want to be a life coach. Where do I begin? It begins here. It begins with you.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Like anything else, you have to build a strong foundation for yourself first. You know the oxygen mask before you put it on someone else. So one of those things is you have to have a solid self identity. Self identity is the first foundation for you to build yourself up. How do you view yourself? Are you confident? Do you know your temperament? Do you know your personality, natural personality, traits, behavioral traits and it starts with you. So some of the things that I can share with you is take assessments online. There's quite a few assessments online that are free, and knowing who you are as a person is important in building a strong, solid identity.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Who are you? Because our conditioning told us to be something different than who we are authentically. Your parents tell you this is how you should be. Society tells you women should be this, women should be that, and it takes you away from your natural, natural gifts, your natural talents. And someone says I don't have the courage. This is exactly your starting point building a strong identity for yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So you have to ask why have I become so scared? Why have I become so scared? Because maybe other people has told you what to do and maybe you're afraid of making mistakes, you're afraid of getting rejected, you're afraid of getting embarrassed, you're afraid of being abandoned. So a lot of times people don't live out their full potential because of fear, and really it comes down to those things Fear of loss, fear of abandonment, embarrassment, rejection, et cetera, et cetera. But in reality, these are just all made up in your mind. The biggest thing, an obstacle you have to overcome, is yourself. It's no one else. There may be other people around you that has conditioned you to have fear-based and limiting-based mindsets, but what it comes down to is you have to kind of say okay, I want something different for myself and these are the things I need to start working on.

Speaker 1: 4:32

So, if you lack courage, what do you do? Put yourself out there. That's the only way to go. There's no skirting around it. But through, make mistakes, make us many mistakes. I'm not talking about you hurting another person, you putting yourself in emotional trauma. Let's even just say I want to be a public speaker.

Speaker 1: 4:59

A lot of people are afraid to speak in public because it's about the performance, it's about being perfect, it's about, again, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of embarrassment, fear of not being good enough. I'm just going to use this as an example. When I first became a public speaker over 10 years ago, oh my gosh, I put myself out there. I've had some horrible talks on stage and I just did it and I had to get over myself. I had to get over like, okay, I'm going to do this because I'm committed to myself and in this process, yes, I'm going to make a mistake, because I'm still learning, and this is about confidence, confidence, confidence. So here's another cycle about building courage, right and again, courage and what? There are so many different areas of your life that you can work on, so you need to be clear about I need courage and what Courage do I need. More confidence. Do I need more courage in doing what I want? I mean, there are so many storylines there, but you have to figure this out for yourself. You are the only barrier, you are the biggest barrier. If you're not going to face it, and okay, I'm going to take action steps towards overcoming this thing. I want to build courage, I want to build experience. So let me go back to competence confidence cycle.

Speaker 1: 6:28

When you are fearful, insecure, not sure how you're going to do it, it means you have low competency in that area of your life. Again, you identify what that is. What is that low competency area? This is why continuing education and personal and professional development is key. A lot of people don't even. They just go to work, don't learn and don't expand further than that. And this is where, again, a lot of people get stuck. A lot of people don't feel fulfilled because they're not continuing to level up. So, whatever that area in your life is of have low competency, when you have low competency in that area, it means that you have low confidence in that area, and so, of course, you're going to be more apprehensive and hesitant to step out. So what do you do Then? Learn more about that one thing that you have low competency in. This is how you're going to overcome fear. This is how you're going to overcome insecurities. This is how you're going to increase your confidence by increasing that competence in that thing that you feel insecure about.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Aaron, you just had a discussion today with your best friend about leveling up and reaching for more, and one of the things is it's not about continuing to do it and not being content. This is about your fulfillment. Okay, so when you do things to level up, just know to come from a right place of you're doing this for yourself and for no one else, because you want to become a better individual and live your life and be fulfilled. So, leveling up, you can constantly need to level up. We live in different times. Now we have more access to information. Now we have more opportunities now, and if you're not leveling up, how are you realizing those opportunities? And a lot of people are missing a lot of opportunities by not doing anything but by getting stuck and being fearful and insecure.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So you do want to level up to increase your quality of life. Absolutely, how can you increase your quality of life when you have just remained the same your entire life? So, in this area of your life where you feel insecure, fearful, this means, okay, I have low competency. This is how you're going to assess yourself. If ever you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so scared, I don't know how to do this, you go, but you do. And here's the thing Mindset check, mindset check what's really going on. This is again my coaching model. I am now going down this path of stinking thinking and I'm stopping myself of my full potential because I am fearful. How is that going to make me feel if I continue to be fearful and not going after what I want or developing myself in order for me to overcome this fear? Again, I'm talking this out with you because this is the process and then from there, you're like okay, I want to do this thing, or I'm insecure about this thing. Then I need to learn more about this so I can feel better about this.

Speaker 1: 9:36

More information, the more that you know, the more that you uncover about this thing that you are insecure about. That's right. You have to mindset check yourself. The more information that you can put language towards the things that are missing pieces for you and a lot of things that are missing pieces for a lot of people. They replace. Some would fear they replace them like I don't know, I'm not good enough, I don't know if I can learn this.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Well, my mom said, you know I should be doing this when in reality I should be doing this. Maybe I should just listen to my mom and my mom, you know, if I do what she tells me to do, then she's going to accept me and love me and I'm going to be a good daughter. You see, sort of all of the potential dialogue that someone can fill in those blank spaces when in reality, don't do any of that self-talk, when you identify okay, I'm insecure about this area of my life. I don't, I want to. I want to learn this because if I learn this, then I increase my competency. And then when you increase your competency by learning this thing that you're fearful of, it puts things into the right perspective and in the right context for you. You have more information. Then you go oh, my gosh, is that it Apply yourself.

Speaker 1: 10:53

If you need to go to class, if you need to read books, if you need to watch videos, if you need to enroll yourself in a workshop, you have to also commit to yourself in this process. You have to commit yourself in this process. You can't just say, oh, I'm fearful and I don't want to do this and I'm insecure and I don't have the courage, and okay, you've just dug yourself a grave, okay. So the way to overcome this because you have the power, remember this is about building a solid self for yourself. This is part of emotional intelligence that starts with you. You need to level up in life. This is about leveling up and this is how you do it. And so when you get to that place of learning and you apply yourself, then you have more information. You're like, oh, this is all I needed to do. And then you have to apply yourself and gain experience, because you can learn all you want, but if you're not applying yourself in real time, it's just information.

Speaker 1: 11:52

The other key thing here is applying yourself, getting experience. So that way this is what I call rubber meet the road moment how are you going to apply yourself with a new information that you learned in order for you to increase your competence? So competence and confidence go hand in hand. So low competence, low confidence, the higher the competence. And applying yourself to you know to apply the new information that you've learned, you become more confident. This is. This is how this works Competence, confidence, competence, confidence, competence, confidence. And so applying this over and over again in those areas of life that you're insecure in, then it's not such a big deal anymore.

Speaker 1: 12:46

And again, this is about self awareness, self entunement. And when you apply yourself, it's about self management, self regulation, and impulse control is sort of stopping yourself from getting in your way by doubting yourself, by being fearful. So impulse control is like no, I'm not giving up on myself. I've committed myself to leveling up and I'm going to commit to myself, however long I need to overcome this so I can feel good and I can prove to myself that I'm worthy enough, and you don't have to prove to anybody else. This is, this is sort of like you putting yourself to the test so you can start to override a lot of the conditioning that you may have picked up of not being good enough. It has to be perfect. You're going to do it wrong. You're going to, you know, fail. You're very welcome if and this is very common for women as well so if says thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 14:03

I always put family and friends before me, a lot of women. They were conditioned that way, because the conditioning is, if you work on yourself, you're selfish. How dare you Like, how dare you want things for yourself? How about us? How about us of you? And this is sort of the challenge to flip it, there's got to be a point in your life, and normally for women it's in our 40s, maybe even in our mid 30s. Okay, right, elaine. So true, wimsy, what is the best way to find my purpose in life? That's a great question Because, again, we need to take a look at the conditioning, what we have been plugged into as women. We were especially women of color and women of different cultures.

Speaker 1: 15:07

There's still some sort of conditioning that says you're a woman, so you submit, you serve, you serve and you be nice, you be kind, you serve others, and that's basically what we've been trained to do from the very beginning. And then in this process, we give, give, give, serve, serve, serve, and then we neglect ourselves and we find ourselves in this place in life. We're just like who am I? I don't even know who I am, I don't even know what to do. What's happened in my life, like, what about me? How about my needs, my happiness? And then the moment you turn the shit for yourself and sort of this is undoing cycles, by the way, and, believe me, I know how this feels and I'm sharing this. If that's how you feel and that's how a lot of people feel, and and it's not late, it's not too late.

Speaker 1: 16:07

I'm a numerologist. I tell people, actually, 40s is still really young. We're living close to 100 now. So even if you're in your 40s, you have another 40 years to go. So if you're 40, I'm just going to use that as the number you had 40 years of experience. You potentially have 40 more years of life ahead of you. So this is a great time for you to step in for yourself and say, okay, I've had my experience in serving other people. I've had my experience, you know, sacrificing myself for family, for for whatever, right, I'm going to rewrite my script. How do I do that? What do I want for myself?

Speaker 1: 16:52

Moving forward, I encourage you, women, ladies, take up space. Take up space. Guys, don't have a problem taking up space. Take space to honor yourself, to say hell, yeah, dang it Like I deserve what I want to make for my happiness, for my fulfillment. I need to level up in life. You need to be strong for yourself because you live with yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:21

24, seven, the worst place to live in is with yourself. If you are in your misery, then it gets you stuck and you're not leveling up and you're not going to find your purpose. So, someone else, how do you find your purpose? Is by applying yourself Wherever you're at right now, and I will tell you this again, I've done a lot of readings. When I tell people what their superpowers are, they I will tell you. 100% of the time you already know what you want to do.

Speaker 1: 18:00

But because of the conditioning and you have been separated from awareness and self and really stepping in for yourself and being aware and intentional of all the things that you, that you are in your life, and it just sort of like it makes you feel insecure in self. And this is why self identity is so important. Self identity is how do you view yourself? How do you value yourself? How do you respect yourself? How are you working on yourself? Do you have a strong sense of self? Can you speak authentically for yourself? Not a lot of people are comfortable doing that. If you can have, if fear is not a factor, you're super confident. Money's not a factor. Situation, socioeconomic standing in life cast out. Cast it out to decide If you can picture whatever that is for you, that you know is going to be like amazing. What is it so? What would it be? How do you just embody your power? What does that look like? Mindset check what's really going on.