Everybody can build confidence!
Practical tips on how to overcome self-doubts and build confidence with Bryony Williams.
I am excited to share my Insta Live interview with the amazing Bryony Williams—a confidence and career coach, HR consultant, and founder of The Glass Female—where we discuss overcoming self-doubt and building personal brand confidence. Her passion lies in empowering women to embody confidence, visibility, and inner calm. She helps them achieve clarity, build confidence, and communicate with impact, connecting them to their calling.
Fear of judgement from family, friends, or even strangers online can hold people back from getting started. How do you coach them to overcome this challenge?
I think firstly, it’s okay to acknowledge that we all have some self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and inner critics. Everybody at some point, particularly women, experiences that, and especially when we have to start sharing parts of ourselves online. So, you teach us, like, share your story, what’s your essence, and put yourself out there, because it’s what helps people connect with you. But that’s also the scariest part, because you feel vulnerable. Practically speaking, some of the best things that you can do are, firstly, when you really think about it and name it, that can really help you regulate those emotions. So, naming both the positive and the negative emotions that you feel can help you regulate them.
My second tip would be to really just slow it down, break down the things that you’re thinking about sharing, and then ask yourself, What’s the worst thing that could happen? Because it’s probably not going to break the internet.
Thirdly, get some support. So, your best cheerleaders, maybe it’s your brand mentor, maybe it’s your best friend, maybe it’s your partner, and really just share that you’re feeling vulnerable and get some support, because nine times out of ten, that person will say, No, go for it. You’re going to be amazing, and I’m going to support you. I’m going to come and like and comment and post and share your stuff.
What’s one common piece of bad advice about confidence that you frequently encounter and wish women would ignore?
I don’t think don’t listen to it. What I often say, what most good coaches will tell you, is to question why you think it’s important to you. We have so much external noise, there are so many opinions, and we’re surrounded by information 24/7. Actually, a massive, really good trick is to turn everything off, all the distractions, and just write down what that advice was and what it means for you. So, is it something that you believe? Firstly, if you do believe that it would be impactful, or it works, or it’s good advice, then what is it that you want to take from that advice that that feels good for you and check with your body, notice in your body, does it feel good? If I were to take that advice and do it, how does it feel? Is it right for me? Because the biggest thing we can do for ourselves on learning to be confident is to know ourselves, and what feels good for us? Because I think we women are often natural nurturers. We want to please people, take care of them, and so we instantly kind of go; maybe that’s something I should do, is it? Is it something that feels good for you?
Some women might find it difficult to put themselves out there due to fear of vulnerability. How can they can overcome that?
I think the good news is everybody can build confidence.
One of the biggest things I took from working with you was to learn what felt authentic for me in sharing or not sharing. And that’s grown over time. It doesn’t happen overnight. What we see on social media is all the things that the algorithm has treated us to, which is the finished article. What we don’t see is the build that it takes. So, take it gently, take baby steps, look, and see if it feels good. I think the core components of confidence are how you think, how you breathe, and how you move. How strong do you feel? How confident do you feel in what you’re putting out there? So how you think is a quick one to practice. Practice saying really nice, nourishing thoughts to yourself. If you were coming to me and saying, I’m not sure about whether I should share this, and I said to you, you should go for it. It’s amazing. It’s really lovely. What about if you said that to yourself? Show yourself some compassion. So, speak to yourself as if you were speaking to your best friend. That’s always a really lovely one to fall back on, because those little inner doubts can really kind of stop us from making progress. They’re often what get us stuck. The other really great trick is, I often say, you’ve got an inner critic and you’ve got an inner coach, and what happens is the inner critic we’ve learned to be really negative because women are surrounded by this is what you should be all the time. So, if you want to kind of work on your inner critic and get better at your inner coach, think about the things that your inner coach would say to your inner critic and give your inner critic a name. If you name it, you start to kind of regulate. It’s just a kind of person with some stuff that’s coming into my head, and you can start to move a little bit away from it. Breathing slowly is really good for that too. Just slow down your decision making. Notice if your inner critic is starting to come in, and you can practice the tools that you would learn or through videos like this to really coach yourself out of that space. And it takes practice—consistent practice.
In your experience, how can women overcome setbacks in personal branding without letting it affect their confidence?
So, the way, I mean, the way that we think and we operate is the sum of all the things that we’ve experienced and learned. And everybody has different lived experiences, right? And we all have negative experiences that have happened to us. There’s lots of different ways that you can work on that. And I do think it can be quite personal, depending on what works for you. There’s lots of therapeutic ways to move forward. So, for instance, a really great one is tapping, and it essentially rests on acupuncture, but it means that you can shift the energy that you feel about that memory right so then you can learn consistently to get better at dealing with the emotion that comes up when something similar happens. Another great one, and I keep talking about it, is breath work. So if you feel in your body that that anxiety is rising up, just really slowing down, connecting with your body, there’s an abbreviation called FOFBOC, which is feet on floor, F, O, F, bum on chair, B, O, C, and literally just grounding yourself into that space and taking a moment to acknowledge that you’re feeling, perhaps a little bit unconfident, noticing it and saying, I’ve got this. I can do this. I’m worthy of this space.
What would you say about the word “should,” how often we use it?
When we say we should do something, we already have a negative connotation. We’re already putting pressure on ourselves. So, you can practice changing from I love this actually about, like, negative doubts and stuff. So, when you say, I don’t think I can do that, if you can notice it first. So, number one, notice that you’re doing it. And number two, you could change think, can I change that to, I would like to do it. I want to try. And literally just switching, flipping the narrative. I recently saw a celebrity saying that you could say that this devastating thing happened to me, but when you flip it to, well, it taught me to do this, or it made me stronger. Positive toxicity is a new phrase that’s trending at the moment, but I think if you can just notice some of those things, and then really, once you’ve noticed it, you’ve got the power and the choice to nourish those voices.
If you’re seeking a confidence and career coach, Bryony is a must-follow. She’s dedicated to helping women cultivate genuine confidence, visibility, and calm by clearing away inner barriers and limiting beliefs. Below are links to her social media profiles:
Insta link: @bryonywilliams_theglassfemale
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/company/the-glass-female
