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Emma Bryant: Hello and welcome back to the Purposeful Shift. I'm Emma Bright and I'm really glad that you're here with me today. In today's episode, I'm thinking about challenge and whether sometimes we need to be pushed slightly beyond what's comfortable to discover what we're actually capable of. And this thought process was inspired by a lyric from a Loli Young song that I really love and an experience earlier this year when I went to see her live in Manchester on my own in a city that I'd never been to before. Today, I'm going to explore what psychology tells us about how we build belief in our own abilities, why confidence doesn't always have to come before we do something, and why those moments when we're not quite sure we can do something might actually be quite important. So let's get into it. There's a song by Lola Young. that I absolutely love called Flicker of Light. And there's a line in it which has stuck with me every time, well, since I first heard the song and every time I hear it, it always stands out to me. And the line is, without the dark, the stars can't shine bright. And I think about that line all the time, every time I hear that song. And I think about what it actually means to me because obviously different people could interpret that differently. And I don't think we need bad things to happen to us. in order to grow. I'm definitely not suggesting that we should be grateful for all of the really difficult experiences in our lives because they've somehow made us stronger. I think it's something different for me. I think sometimes we need to be challenged to discover what we're actually capable of. So earlier this year, I actually got to see Lola Young live in Manchester. So my husband and my daughter were going to see The Weeknd at the Emirates Stadium. and I was having a look for something to do because I didn't have a ticket for the weekend. And I saw Lola Young was playing, but she'd sold out. And then nearer the time I checked again and there were resale tickets available. And so I booked myself just one solo ticket to go and see Lola Young. Now we'd never been to Manchester before, any of us. I'd never been to the city and I had never been to a gig on my own before either. So there were a few firsts involved in these few days that we spent away. And I know going to a gig alone isn't particularly brave in the grand scheme of things. And some people probably do that all the time and it's their absolute normal. I wasn't doing anything dramatic like climbing a mountain. I wasn't even traveling to Manchester on the train on my own. We were traveling up together and I was actually going to see somebody that I really wanted to see, but there was still something about it. that was quite daunting because I was still doing things I'd never done before. I was still traveling across the city on my own at night. I was still standing in a queue on my own and doing all of those things. So there was some apprehension around going to
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the gig in the first place. So I had an absolutely brilliant time at the gig. Actually there were a few hiccups with the women in front of me, but anyway, the gig itself was fantastic. Lola was fabulous. She was actually far better than I had expected her to be. I didn't know a huge number of her songs, but she was just a fantastic performer. And so the whole experience was wonderful, even if you didn't know how to sing along to some of the songs, which I didn't. And I remember being really struck by how openly she spoke about some of the challenges in her life, like her ADHD, and also how reflective she was for somebody so young. I think she's only in her early twenties. So something that I'd never done before, and I wasn't really that comfortable doing, going to the gig, queuing up, going to the bar, sitting on my own, I actually ended up talking to some really lovely ladies next to me and the whole thing was fine, it was a great experience. But all of these things that I wasn't comfortable doing before had suddenly become something that I now knew that I could do again in the future if I wanted to. And that's what I'd been thinking about. How do we know what we're capable of if we never have to find out? There'll be things in our lives that we do now that we don't even think twice about, but that at some point we weren't sure that we could do. perhaps for you, maybe you've had to stand up and speak in front of a room full of people, or maybe you've traveled somewhere on your own, or maybe you've walked into a networking event where you didn't know anybody, or maybe you've started a new job and spent the first few weeks wondering. whether you'd made this terrible mistake, or maybe you've had a difficult conversation that you'd actually been avoiding, or maybe you've learned to do something that initially felt completely beyond you. There was a first time for all of those things. Of course there was. And I think we sometimes assume that confidence needs to come before action. And I know I've talked about this before. We wait until we feel ready or until we're sure that we'll be able to cope with something and then we'll do that thing. And what we're looking for is that certainty that we're not going to fail. But there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that it works the other way around. so there's a psychologist that I've talked about before called Albert Bandura, and he developed this concept of self-efficacy, which is essentially our belief in our ability to do something. So one of the most important ways that we develop that belief is through what's known as mastery experiences. So in very simple terms, we do something, we get through it, and that gives us evidence that we're capable of handling it. And then we know that we can do it again in the future. And I can recognise that lots in my own life in various areas. So I used to swim competitively and there was always a certain amount of nervousness before a race. You'd be standing there waiting to swim, knowing you're about to push yourself and really not knowing exactly how that was going to go. You could train for it. You could prepare. You can know the time that you were aiming for. could swim the race in your head, but eventually you had to get on the blocks and you had to race. And if I'd only ever swum at a pace that felt comfortable, I wouldn't have known what I could actually do. And I think the same thing is happening with this podcast. So I'm pretty comfortable with planning the podcast episodes. coming up with the ideas, doing the research around them, thinking about how that applies into my own life and giving some context around the experiences that I've had in relation to the thing that I'm talking about. but eventually I have to press record. And then I have to do the bit that still feels much less comfortable for me, which is putting it. out there into the world for all of you lovely people to listen to and to decide what you think about it. And I don't think I needed to become completely confident about doing that before I started. I couldn't, I didn't know what I was doing. I had to do it to experience it, to know what it felt like, to know that I'm confident to do various elements of it. And it all gradually come together over time to produce a podcast that you're now listening to. But every time I publish an episode and nothing terrible happens, thank you for not criticizing me each week. I become more confident because I've done it repeatedly and I get that little bit more evidence that I can do it. And I think that's the bit I like about the Lola Young lyric. Maybe the dark doesn't have to mean something terrible happening to us. Maybe sometimes it's just the bit where we're not quite sure that darkness is where we're uncomfortable or where we're doing something for the first time, where we don't know how it's going to turn out. because also I don't think that we need to our entire lives pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones because sometimes comfortable is really nice and it's a place where we feel safe and where we can rest and where we can recover. And being completely overwhelmed isn't the same as being challenged. And I have learned that one fairly recently. So we don't need to make everything harder than it needs to be. just so that we can say to ourselves, do you know what? I'm growing. But I do think there's a difference between something being wrong for us and something feeling uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. And I think we should get curious about that difference. Because when we think, I can't do that, sometimes what we actually mean is, I've never done that before and therefore that's uncomfortable. And those are two really different things. So I've got a couple of questions for you to think about this week. The first is, what is something that you can do now that a previous version of you wasn't sure that she could do? And I would like to encourage you not to immediately look for the biggest, bravest thing you've done. Maybe try looking for something that's really ordinary to you now. Think about something that once made you nervous or something that you weren't sure you'd be able to handle that you now barely think about it. Maybe it's turning up to your job for the first time. Maybe it's starting a new class or a hobby and having to meet new people or try something for the first time, knowing that you're probably going to fail or suck at it to begin with, but you are going to get better. And now you're here and you love it. And it's wonderful because there's evidence there. You already know more about what you're capable of than you did before you started that thing, before you did that thing in the first place. And then I'd like you to think about whether there's something that you're avoiding at the moment because you're not sure that you can do it. And again, it's not something huge. It's not something dangerous, not something that you don't actually want to do. And not something that you need to force yourself through because somebody on a podcast, I mean, told you to get out of your comfort zone. That's not what this is. It's just something that you'd quite like to do, but which sits slightly outside of what's familiar for you. And maybe you don't need to wait until you feel completely confident about it. Maybe the confidence comes afterwards. So for me, something like this would be sea swimming. So put me in a swimming pool, like a fish, happy as Larry. Put me in the sea, nervous wreck, freaking out, all of a sudden all of those fish are there to kill me. Going to Manchester on my own Sea Lola Young didn't change my life. but I had a brilliant night and I came home knowing something about myself that I hadn't actually known before. I can go to a gig on my own, I can go somewhere unfamiliar on my own, and most importantly, I can really enjoy the experience. So I'm not going to suggest that we go looking for darkness. Life is perfectly capable of giving us challenges without us adding unnecessary challenges to our days as they stand. But I don't want you to avoid every little bit of discomfort either. if you see an opportunity to progress and to grow and to get that evidence of what you're capable of. Because sometimes I think we have to give ourselves the opportunity to find out what we are capable of. And perhaps this week you could give yourself one of those opportunities too. Thank you for listening to The Purposeful Shift. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can also join me for my weekly newsletter where I share more of the ideas, questions and things that I'm exploring. as I work out what my own purposeful chef looks like. You'll find the link to sign up to the newsletter in the show notes. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. I wish you a wonderful day and I'll see you soon.