Have you ever felt like you don't quite belong on the path you've chosen? Do you find yourself caught in a web of self-doubt and comparison when embarking on new endeavors? Well, come join me on the One Girl Travel podcast for an episode that will surely resonate with you. Together, we'll navigate through these uncertain times. I'll be sharing personal stories about my own encounters with self-doubt, from podcasting to embarking on solo travel adventures.
Let's remember that the true beauty of this journey lies in its unpredictability. It's about embracing your authentic self, supporting yourself, and having the courage to move forward, even when doubt whispers in your ear.
In the second half of our heartfelt conversation, we'll explore the importance of compassion towards ourselves and the power of self-belief. We'll also uncover how comparison, especially fueled by the deceptive nature of social media, can have a detrimental impact on our self-esteem and distort our self-image. So, get ready for insightful tips and practical advice on overcoming self-doubt, nurturing self-belief, and cultivating compassion during your solo travel adventures. Remember, no two journeys are the same – each path, each story, is unique. Let's celebrate our individuality and support one another along the way. We're in this together!
Join the One Girl Travel Mailing List to receive the monthly newsletter and my free: 10 Tips to Begin Solo Traveling Guide as a thank you!
If you enjoyed this episode of the One Girl Travel Podcast, then I invite you to follow me on Instagram. That's where all the fun is happening! @ONE_GIRL_TRAVEL
Have you ever felt like you don't quite belong on the path you've chosen? Do you find yourself caught in a web of self-doubt and comparison when embarking on new endeavors? Well, come join me on the One Girl Travel podcast for an episode that will surely resonate with you. Together, we'll navigate through these uncertain times. I'll be sharing personal stories about my own encounters with self-doubt, from podcasting to embarking on solo travel adventures.
Let's remember that the true beauty of this journey lies in its unpredictability. It's about embracing your authentic self, supporting yourself, and having the courage to move forward, even when doubt whispers in your ear.
In the second half of our heartfelt conversation, we'll explore the importance of compassion towards ourselves and the power of self-belief. We'll also uncover how comparison, especially fueled by the deceptive nature of social media, can have a detrimental impact on our self-esteem and distort our self-image. So, get ready for insightful tips and practical advice on overcoming self-doubt, nurturing self-belief, and cultivating compassion during your solo travel adventures. Remember, no two journeys are the same – each path, each story, is unique. Let's celebrate our individuality and support one another along the way. We're in this together!
Join the One Girl Travel Mailing List to receive the monthly newsletter and my free: 10 Tips to Begin Solo Traveling Guide as a thank you!
If you enjoyed this episode of the One Girl Travel Podcast, then I invite you to follow me on Instagram. That's where all the fun is happening! @ONE_GIRL_TRAVEL
Welcome to the One Girl Travel Podcast, episode number 56.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the One Girl Travel Podcast, your passport to the world of solo travel with certified life and travel coach, Alessia Tennebruzzo. Join Alessia as she shares her own journey of self-discovery through solo travel, while also focusing on topics such as life coaching insights and travel tips along the way. Now here's your host, Alessia Tennebruzzo.
Speaker 1:
Hello, hello, my friends, welcome to the One Girl Travel Podcast, episode number 56. This episode is an important one. I feel very called to talk about this because it's something that I've personally been dealing with and it's show up as yourself. And before we get into it, I just want to say thank you so much for all the birthday love. I truly appreciate it and it means so much to me to have such a supportive community and it just means the world to me that you're here and you're listening and you're following along on my One Girl Travel journey, and I'm so excited to continue to level up and to grow and learn and keep creating more and more content that you're interested in, that excites you, that motivates you, that empowers you to go out and live the life that you desire, because ultimately, that's my goal. I'm here to be a vessel, to show you what's possible when you put yourself out there, when you try new things, when you step outside of your comfort zone and, of course, when you show up as yourself, which is today's topic, and recently I've been struggling with showing up as myself. I have been feeling anxious, overwhelmed, I've been feeling self-doubt, I have been questioning myself, I've been making up assumptions and I was judging myself, and all that did for me. All that does for me is hold me back from my goals and my desires. When you feel like you're constantly doubting yourself or you're comparing yourself to others or you're just second guessing everything you do, it can leave you in a state of just like paralysis, where you're not doing anything, that you tend to avoid what you need to do because you're telling yourself things that don't serve you. You're questioning yourself, not supporting yourself, and I'm guilty of that and I know better, I have the tools to know better, and yet it still happens. I'm only human and I'm doing something I've never done before, and the same goes for you. If you have these goals and you've never did it before, you have to support yourself on your journey, and the only way to move forward to reach your goals is to show up as yourself and not give a crap about what anybody else thinks, and I know that can be easier said than done, but it is possible and we're going to talk about that more in the episode.
Speaker 1:
But, like I said, I'm experiencing self-doubt, I'm questioning myself, I'm making up assumptions and I'm judging myself, and it's holding me back from doing the things I want to do. It held me back from creating podcast episodes and social media posts and Facebook posts for my community, because I doubt myself, because I've never done this before. Yes, I'm a year in on most of my adventures with One Girl Travel and even after a year I'm still learning. This is still new. Podcasting is still pretty new to me, even after a year. It's a journey and it can feel like a lot sometimes and you can really doubt yourself sometimes, especially when you're putting yourself out there to the public and technically, they can review, they can write reviews about you, they can leave comments about you, and it's nerve-wracking sometimes because I want to make sure I'm creating content that people will enjoy.
Speaker 1:
But the thing about that, my friends, is that I cannot control anybody's reaction to me or what I say or what I do. I can't control your thoughts. I can't control your emotions. I can't control any of it. All I can control is what I do, what I produce, what I decide to share with you, and that's on me, and sometimes we can forget about that. We can forget that the control is in our hands, not other peoples. So we have to make the decision of what's more important going after your goals or hiding because you're unsure of yourself? And, of course, the answer is go for your goals. Go for them, even if you mess up your words, like I do, or mispronounce things or take really long pauses in between words, because I have to think while I'm talking, because I don't write anything down, whatever it is. I'm being true to myself and that's what I can control. I'm showing up as myself. I'm sharing my personal life, my stories, with all of you and, yeah, that's all I can do, right.
Speaker 1:
But it also when I'm doubting myself and I'm questioning myself, when I'm making up assumptions, when I'm judging myself, when we're all doing this, it's gonna create anxiety and overwhelm. And when you feel anxious, when you feel overwhelmed, what reaction do you have to that? What do you end up doing? For me, I end up doing nothing. I get so overwhelmed that I'm like forget it. I wanna watch Gilmore Girls and not look at a computer. I wanna avoid all of it. And for you it might be different, but you need to identify when you feel anxiety. What does that do for you? How do you react to it? And then we're gonna get into how to turn it around later on.
Speaker 1:
And then comparison, comparison is one of the worst things. It's so stressful. It's really damaging to our self-image. It's damaging to what we believe about ourselves and where we should be in life, and, of course, I'm guilty of it. I try not to be, but I am. I see other creators out there. I see other life coaches, I see other travel bloggers and they look like they got their shit together and I am. I'm learning, I'm figuring it out. There's no guidebook on how to do this. I created my niche and now I'm learning how to navigate it.
Speaker 1:
And for you, think about where are you comparing yourself? Are you scrolling social media and are you looking at the moms that are wearing ballgowns to school pickup? Are you comparing your home to the Instagram homes that are just totally put together and there's no knickknacks to be found? Are you comparing your body to other people's bodies? Think about what you're comparing yourself to and why. Why are you comparing yourself to them? What does that do for you? Does it make you feel good? Most likely, the answer is no. It's not gonna make you feel good. It's gonna make you feel worse about yourself and whatever you're comparing, it doesn't help you to compare yourself. And let me remind you that social media is just a highlight reel of everybody's lives, including my own. I'm not posting, you know, when I'm crying on my couch or when I'm eating my dinner at my desk, like. I'm not posting that stuff. I'm posting the fun stuff, the stuff that I believe people wanna see, and the same goes for everybody else on social media.
Speaker 1:
These are curated images, and let me also remind you that if you're comparing yourself as a beginner to somebody that is well-established in their career or in their brand, in their business, whatever it is, that's not fair to you. It's not fair for you to be comparing your stage one to their stage 150. That's not fair. That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself as a beginner. Nobody starts anything as an expert. We all start out as beginners, and you need to accept that. You have to be open to the fact that you're gonna screw up, that you're gonna make mistakes, that you're not gonna know what to do, that you might be lost for words. You might not know how to create content. You might not know how to write the book or date, whatever it is. You're gonna learn, though, if you keep going, if you don't give up. You keep going, you keep taking those steps forward towards your dreams, because your dreams should be powerful enough for you to do anything for them, for you to be uncomfortable for those dreams, because it's worth it and you are worth it.
Speaker 1:
When I started the One Girl Travel Club, I was a part of a business mastermind and it was amazing. I had a mentor, I had a group of amazing women who helped guide me along to start my membership right. But it ended when the membership began and I had to figure out on my own how to handle a membership, how to create monthly lessons, how to build web pages, how to market myself or the membership and how to just engage my clients and be prepared with coaching, questions and all the things, create these itineraries, and I did not know what to do. I was so overwhelmed I can't even tell you I was so overwhelmed. Like what did I get myself into? What am I doing? This is so hard. I'm so uncomfortable, I'm so scared, I'm so nervous that people aren't gonna like it. And those thoughts did not help me. They did not help me at all. They made me more nervous, more anxious, more scared, more judgmental, all the things. And it made me not want to create it made me wanna hold back my truest desires, which is to teach women how to live a life of freedom and do things on their own, without waiting for anybody else.
Speaker 1:
That fear, if you allow it to, can stop you from even the most important goals of your life, and that's why you have to push through, because it's easy to give up. It's easy to say this isn't working or it isn't good, I don't know what I'm doing and I give up. That's the easy way out If this is something you truly want to do, whether it be solo travel date, get a new job, start a business, become an influencer, whatever it is. There's so many examples I can use. But whatever it is that you want to do, you have to know your why. You have to know the reason why you want to do it, because you need to pull from that. That is going to be your source of motivation, and all of you that are listening, you are my source. My community is my source of inspiration, because I want to share with you what I know, and that means that I'm going to have to feel stupid sometimes. I'm going to have to feel nervous. I'm going to have to feel uncomfortable. I'm going to have to feel all those things in order for me to share my story and my knowledge and my tips and all the things you all are.
Speaker 1:
What drive me forward. So what drives you forward? What is it that you want to do and why do you want to do it? And keep that with you. Keep that with you when you're feeling discouraged and nervous and whatever else, because you need to keep it close. You have to remind yourself every day of why you're doing it, and I recommend journaling. I was never a big journaler until recently. Finally, I got the journal bug because it has been helping me immensely, especially like mental health wise and just getting things out of my head. Writing it down. It helps so much. And if you are starting something new, if you are starting a new journey, write down every single day what your goal is and why you want to do it, until you have it just etched into your brain and you can pull from it at any moment. You're going to have to remind yourself until that happens, because it is so important, like I cannot stress it enough. Know your why and like, know your real why you got to drill down to get to the deep, deep why? Because sometimes it's not what you think. It goes a lot deeper than that. So ask yourself over and over again why do I want to do this, why do I want to do it? And until you get that, why keep going? Anyway, I digress and got off on a little tangent.
Speaker 1:
I want to share with you how to overcome these feelings of self-doubt and judging yourself and making assumptions and questioning everything that you do. And the first one, which I touched upon already, was to be okay with failure, to allow yourself to take risks, knowing that you might not be successful, and know that, even when you don't think you're being successful, if you learn something from it, that's a win. That's a win. If you learn something, even if it's okay, I know, not to do that now, that is a win. That is a step forward in the direction you want to go and you should be celebrating that, because you are brave enough to put yourself out there to try something new and learn from it.
Speaker 1:
My next tip is to show yourself compassion. When you're doing something new, there's going to be a learning curve. You have to remind yourself you're a beginner, you're trying something new. You might not know what you're doing. You're learning. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to fumble your words, it's okay to make typos. It's okay to forget to respond to an email, whatever it is. It's okay, you're going to get better. You will, I promise. If you keep at it, if you keep going, you're going to get better. You're going to reach that goal. But again, you have to be okay with being uncomfortable and you have to be kind to yourself along the way.
Speaker 1:
Pay attention to what you're telling yourself. Pay attention to how you speak about yourself to other people. Most importantly, pay attention to your thoughts. What are constant phrases that are going through your head? Is it I'm not good enough? I don't deserve this? I suck? Or is it I got this? I'm learning, this is exciting, I'm so brave? What you tell yourself makes a world of difference. So you need to practice speaking kindly to yourself. Teach yourself the way you would speak to a friend. If you would never say the things that you tell yourself to your friend, stop saying them right now.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes it's a habit to speak negatively about yourself, but you can break that habit. You get to choose what you tell yourself. You get to choose your thoughts. So you need to stop. Stop. Catch yourself. You can, you know, put a rubber band around your wrist and when you say something negative to yourself, snap the rubber band to remind yourself not to do it. You can just write it in a journal entry, write down I said this to myself and then write a new phrase that actually benefits you.
Speaker 1:
When I first started my solo travel journey, I was not nice to myself and it took a long time for me to become nice to myself, to truly love who I am. It took years, it took a lot of work and a lot of tears and a lot of turnarounds, because I would catch myself saying these horrible things to me, to myself. It wasn't nice and it didn't feel good and it didn't help me at all. Speaking negatively about yourself does nothing for you except push you down, further away from your goals. You need to be kind to yourself. Please, please, please, be kind to yourself and be kind to others as well. My next tip I already mentioned, because, again, I'm not good at writing scripts, so I just go off the cuff, but it stopped comparing yourself Again.
Speaker 1:
Everybody has their own journey, their own story, their own backgrounds. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes of what we see on social media, or what your famous mentors do or say you don't know what's happening. They're sharing what they want to share with you and everything else is their own business, and you have to mind your own business. You can't worry about what other people are doing or what they're wearing or what they're saying, or how many followers they have or how many likes they get on a post, whatever. You have to worry about you. You have to be your biggest advocate. You have to support yourself. You have to cheer yourself on because most likely, when you start a new journey and I hate to say this, but it's true when you start something new that people that know you aren't familiar with that they don't know this side of you you might not hear or feel that support all the time. It might be strangers that show up for you more than your family or your close friends, and that's fine. Nobody's obligated to support you, but you have to support yourself, and when you don't get that outside support, that's when you have to support yourself even more.
Speaker 1:
So don't worry about how many followers people have or how many likes they get on their posts, or how much money they make or how many dates they go on. Whatever it is, don't worry about it. Worry about yourself. That's it. It's like the simplest thing. Stay in your own lane, worry about yourself and keep moving forward. And if you do, look towards other people. Look for them for inspiration, look for them for encouragement, cheer them on. They're not your competition, they're your allies. Learn from them. Tell them how much they helped you.
Speaker 1:
I make it a point all the time to reach out to people that I follow that I once compared myself to, and I let them know. Thank you so much for posting this. Thank you so much for sharing this. I appreciate it. You're helping me out so much. Look to them as what you I don't even want to say what you want to be, because I don't want you to be like them. I want them to be like you. But look for them as a guide, as what's possible, and your journey is not gonna look identical to theirs. It's gonna be unique to you. But just know, the more you work on it, the more you support yourself, the faster you're gonna get there. And finally, don't assume you know what other people are thinking. This one was a big realization for me.
Speaker 1:
This past weekend, I took myself on a little solo trip. I spoke about it in episode 55. And on. Actually, I didn't get to talk about this on the podcast because it happened after the fact, but while I was away, I took myself out to dinner. I found this place right on the water, a beautiful view. I sat at the bar seafood restaurant. I mean, this was like my perfect night out. It was so good and I sat at the bar. I was there for two and a half hours by myself having dinner and I leisurely had my oysters and I had cocktails and I had an amazing dinner. I'm not gonna go into the specifics of everything I had, but it was amazing. And towards the end of my meal there was a couple sitting next to me and we chatted for a little bit and I forgot how it came up. But I mentioned solo travel and that I'm a life coach that focuses on solo travel and like that was the extent of our conversation. It was very, very quick and I wish them a good night.
Speaker 1:
And I went outside because I wanted to go take a picture of the sunset and I'm out on this long pier taking the pictures and I hear hey, hey, and I'm like this is person talking to me and it was the lady from the bar. She's waving her hand. She's like come over here, come over here. And she's like my husband and I can't get over what you told us you do. We love your business, we want to talk to you more, we want to get to know you, we want to take a picture with you. Like you should totally like share about how we met and how you meet people when you're traveling by yourself, like you're so right, I love that idea.
Speaker 1:
I meet people everywhere I go and I don't really talk about it that much because I feel intrusive to be like hey, can I take a selfie with you? Or hey, can I get you know your name and information and I can write about it. And I told her I'm like well, I didn't want to, you know, talk your ear off about my business because you guys were eating dinner. She's like no, we want to talk, we want to talk. I'm like, oh wow, like I shouldn't assume. I shouldn't assume that people would be bothered by me by speaking about solo travel. I shouldn't assume that I'm bothering anybody, which I have a habit of making, that assumption often, which I need to stop.
Speaker 1:
But, yeah, assuming, assuming that you're not interesting, or that you're boring, or you're not fun, or you're not sociable, or you're not attractive, or you're not intelligent enough, whatever. There's a huge laundry list that you can think of of all the assumptions we all think, and you know the phrase when you make an assumption. Well, when you assume what happens, you make it. Ask out of you and me. But it's true, we don't know what anybody's thinking. We can't read minds. The best thing to do is to put yourself out there and see what happens, and if somebody's not receptive to you, that's fine, no loss. Like it's not a big deal, like, look at it as fun as trying something new and Just learning. And at least you tried, right? That's so much better than not trying at all, and so they really inspired me.
Speaker 1:
Now, to you know, grow the relationships. When I do meet people, when I'm traveling solo, grab a selfie with them, ask them if it's okay if I Tag them or just write about our interaction, or have them, you know, in a video or something whatever. There's endless things that can be done. But I want you to think for yourself. Where in your life are you making up assumptions, and when you make up those assumptions, how is that affecting you? So stop assuming.
Speaker 1:
I Hope this episode Helps you in some way. I hope my, my true hope is that it inspires you to start to start. Whatever it is that you want to do, whether you want to start a Podcast, you want to start dating, you want to start solo traveling, whatever it is start, start and do it. Scared, do it confused, do it when you're tripping over your words, like I notoriously do, or mispronounce words which people like to point out, which don't do that, like I already know, I mispronounce words. You don't have to let me know. But whatever, just start, do the thing. Remind yourself of why you want to do it and Get started.
Speaker 1:
Life's too short to wait. That's my biggest message for all of you. Life's too short to wait around for other people to join you. Life's too short to speak to yourself negatively. Life's too short to hold yourself back from your dreams. Get started. What do you have to lose? Nothing, just start. All right. So hopefully, by next week's podcast, you have started and I want to know what you started. So reach out to me on social media, let me know. Let me know if this episode helped you in any way. Write a review. Leave a five-star the five-star rating, whatever it's called Let me know, because I Want all of you to succeed, I want all of you to live the life that you desire, and I want you all to do it without waiting around for anybody else to join you. You got this. I love you. I will talk to you next week. Bye.
Speaker 2:
Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the one girl travel podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts, you can find out more about your host on our website, one girl travel calm, or follow her on Instagram, facebook, pinterest and TikTok. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.