So often on the podcast, I’m talking about the lessons I’ve learned and the confidence that I’ve built over the years, and the shifts that I’ve made. I’m really excited today to take that conversation into the future and to share with you the three big shifts that I’m going to be working on in 2026 and how the Confidence Compass has helped me identify the specific skills I need to be working on each of those areas. I’m also going to share the thoughts that I’m using that I have developed to help shift and improve my skills in those areas to accomplish those goals in 2026.

Even if your goals aren’t the same as mine, you’re going to hear at least one thought that you can just borrow straight from my brain and use to help you achieve your 2026 goals. So let’s get into it.

Welcome to UnF*ck Your Brain. I’m your host, Kara Loewentheil, Master Certified Coach and founder of The School of New Feminist Thought. I’m here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you’re truly excited to live. Let’s go.

All right, my friends, I’m really excited for this episode today. We’ve been talking so much about the Confidence Compass and about the four skills that it teaches and how to use them to grow and evolve and accomplish your goals. And so today I kind of want to put the pedal to the metal. I want to talk about what I’m going to be working on in my life and what I’ve already worked on. So I want to go over the way that I have built my confidence in the core areas of my life up until now.

And then I’m going to talk about what three goals are on my horizon for 2026 and what thoughts I’m going to be using there. The reason I want to talk about some of these past examples is that a lot of you may be closer to where I started when I was doing this work or where I was five years into doing this work. And so when I share the thoughts that I used to make the confidence shifts I’ve already made, those thoughts are going to be really helpful for you.

But then I also want to talk about where I am now and where I’m going in 2026 to give you some examples of how to use the confidence compass to identify what you want to change and how to change it.

So, let’s start with the past decade of my life. The shifts I’ve made, the thoughts that got me started, and how I see it using the Confidence Compass. Now, of course, I didn’t have this tool then, so it was all a lot more trial and error. But in retrospect, I can see like which skills of the Confidence Compass I was using and needed to use in each area.

So the first shift I want to talk about is from body insecurity to body positivity. So in this case, my relationship with my body, I was really lacking self-compassion and self-belief. So those were like the two confidence compass pillars and elements that I really needed. I was just always thinking critical thoughts about my body. It was probably the most common topic of my thoughts.

I was constantly feeling bad about how I looked, constantly having self-critical thoughts about how I looked. Every time I passed a mirror, every time I passed a window, every time I saw somebody else’s body, which in Manhattan is a lot of times a day, right? It was a huge block for me in dating. It was the first thing I thought about in any room, like the size of my body compared to everyone else in the room. I mean, it was just endlessly consuming.

And I really shifted that to a really much freer relationship with my body. It’s not perfect because perfection is never the goal and never possible, but I have such a different relationship with my body now. I appreciate it a lot more. I see it as like the home that I live in and I don’t always act perfectly in my home in real life or in my body, but I have that like level of respect for it. I don’t see it as like this object that I need to manipulate to show that I’m good enough or to make other people think a certain way about me. And I’m much more comfortable with intimacy, being naked, having sex, like allowing my body to take up space, wearing a bathing suit, like all the things that used to just be so clouded by the fear of other people’s judgment, which was of course really my own judgment.

So here are some thoughts that I used at the time when I was doing this work. So these are like the new beliefs I was using in that self-belief pillar of the Confidence Compass to shift the way I felt about my body. The first was literally just, this is a human body. There’s a way in which it’s very dehumanizing when we try to make our bodies look like some supposed perfect body or like everybody else’s bodies or we just try to force them into something they aren’t. Right? We’re like treating our body like an object. And so just this is a human body, right? It was a reminder that like it’s not an object, it’s not responsible for all my problems, right? It is a body and it’s a human body and that’s what it’s supposed to be.

Related, I use the thought, in real life, humans come in all shapes and sizes. I thought a lot about dog parks because in New York, if you have a dog, right, you don’t have a backyard generally, you take them to a dog park. And I didn’t have a dog, but you passed dog parks all the time when you’re walking around and both my parents have dogs and so been to many a dog park.

And at the dog park, you just see like there are dogs of so many different species and shapes and types, right? Like you’ve got schnauzers and great Danes. And it was an easy way of seeing like it would be so wild and bizarre to think that the schnauzer should be able to become as jacked as the great Dane, or like the great Dane should be able to diet their way down to being a schnauzer. But that’s how we approach bodies, like that there’s one right body to have and we don’t have it, and we need to somehow transform our body into the right one. So I also spent a lot of time thinking the thought, humans are like dogs. We’re supposed to all look different.

And I actually think it’s kind of a blessing to live in New York. I mean, double-edged sword. On the one hand, you’re surrounded by literal actresses and models all the time. You actually get like both things, like more evidence that there are some people who do actually look like that, but you also see so many people from so many different backgrounds and like all ages and races and ethnicities and national origins and abilities or disabilities. Like you just see so many different bodies and it’s a helpful reminder that there’s obviously no way that all these bodies could or should look the same.

So those are some thoughts that I used in the beginning on kind of my body image to like normalize that my body could be perfectly great even if it didn’t look like whatever was being held up as the ideal mainstream body.

When it came to like sex and intimacy, because this was a big piece for me, my body image stuff was really connected to all of my dating drama, which I’ll talk about in a minute. And I had this sort of like very irrational belief that even if somebody was attracted to me enough to like go on a date and then want to be intimate with me, they would somehow be like shocked and horrified when my clothes came off, which is like hilarious because first of all, they’ve seen me with my clothes on.

Second of all, I grew up in the age of the internet. Anybody who is attracted to curvy women or fat women or any kind of woman or man, any kind of body. Anybody who’s attracted to any kind of body has probably Googled it and seen it naked before. Not your specific body, but like your body type, right? And they’ve just people have seen a lot of naked bodies online at this point. So the idea that like they had no idea what would happen when I took my clothes off, like I was a shape-shifting ogre, was obviously irrational, but that’s essentially what I thought.

So the thought that I used that I still love and I still offer to a lot of my clients is, humans have been fucking for a very long time. It just makes me think about all the people throughout the history of the world who have had sex, almost none of whom looked like a fashion model or whatever is being told is like the epitome of mainstream conventional attractiveness at a given moment in time.

Lots of people who don’t look like that all over the world have been having sex. And I use this a lot on aging thoughts also because people have been having sex with other people as they get older for millennia also, right? Like there’s what happens in like the world of kind of the media and our brains. And then there’s like what actually happens in the world of fucking in reality, which is that people of every type of body get down and have been for a very long time and in all sorts of hygiene conditions that were much less pristine than we have today. I just always love that thought. It always makes me laugh and it kind of just like brings me back down to earth.

Okay, the second category was my work. And sometimes I feel like you hear online that like imposter syndrome is all made up. It doesn’t really exist. And I’m like, I don’t know who you’re talking about because I had like very literal imposter thoughts in my legal career and academic career. Like my thoughts were literally, I don’t know how I got this job.

As soon as they read this thing or I say this idea or whatever, people are going to figure out that I shouldn’t have this job. I’m different from all the other people who have this job. Like they deserve it. They’re good at it. I don’t know what I’m doing. So I really had like very classic imposter syndrome.

And then I left my legal career and I became an entrepreneur where it wasn’t really imposter syndrome. I actually literally did not know what I was doing. Like in the legal field, you could argue I did know what I was doing and I was just having brain drama. As an entrepreneur, I did not know what I was doing. So I really needed a lot of thought work here obviously. And in this area, it was really self-belief that I was really focused on. So in that body positivity example, I was really lacking self-compassion and self-belief. And in my work, it was really a lack of self-belief, like plain and simple.

And so the beliefs that I used were, they were different between academia and my legal career. So in my legal career, and even those of you who are not lawyers, I think there’s probably a way that you can adapt this. I had all of this anxiety about like getting feedback, right? So my judge having comments on a memo or a draft of an opinion, right? Or the lead litigator on a case having feedback about my pleadings, or, you know, when I was on the legal academic track, like the law professors reading my law review article, having feedback and opinions about it, or not agreeing with it. I had like so much drama about that happening and I was so afraid of that happening because I thought that was going to confirm that I was bad at my job and I didn’t know what I was doing.

And of course, that wasn’t true. And one of the thoughts I used was academia or being a clerk or whatever part of the legal job I was in, the whole point of it is that nothing is objective and everything is a matter of opinion and argument. So the idea that you could give a law review article to a bunch of other professors and that they’d have nothing to say about it, that anybody would ever just be like, perfect, no notes is completely bananas, right? The entire purpose of the profession is to disagree and argue and critique arguments because it’s all subjective opinion and interpretation and debate.

So that was one thought I used there. When I became an entrepreneur, and obviously like I cannot give or even remember all of the thoughts I used in all these areas. I’m just trying to give you guys like little samples. When I went into business, when I when I went into business, sounds very old fashioned. When I became an entrepreneur, when I started my business, there were two thoughts I used all the time.

One was I just need to keep trying things. I didn’t fully sidestep perfectionism and paralysis. I definitely had some of that, especially in the beginning. But I really absorbed and adopted the belief that I just have to try things to figure out what works. I mean, I practiced that belief a lot because I came in, of course, thinking I need to know what the right things to do are. And if I just do the right things in the right order, then I will succeed and be happy ever after and I’ll never have to fail or feel embarrassed or feel frustrated or not know what I’m doing, right? Or feel dumb or whatever else. That was not really an option. And so I really practiced the belief that all I have to do is keep trying things. If I keep trying things, I’m going to succeed.

The other thought I used, which is a little less PC is not the right word, but it’s just it’s a little edgy, was dumber people than me have figured this out. I just found that really reassuring. I think even though I had imposter syndrome, I did think that I was smart. And I used that when I took the bar exam. Like when I took the bar exam, one of my thoughts was dumber people than me have passed the bar. Whatever it is in New York, you know, 85% of people who went to an accredited law school pass on their first try. You know, and I was just like, I’m not going to be in the bottom 15%. I may not be in the top 15%, but I’m not going to be in the bottom 15%.

And so same thing in figuring out being an entrepreneur. I was just like, I have a good brain even though it’s not always reliable. I do think I’m smart and like there are people dumber than me that figured this out. So I think I can do it. And that really helped.

So, body insecurity, work. Third category was my dating and love relationships, right? I went from dating disaster to happily married. And in this area, what I was actually lacking was self-awareness. Yes, I had to change thoughts and be nice to myself, all of that. But really the core issue was self-awareness. I didn’t realize how emotionally unavailable I actually was.

I was someone who thought that I was very emotionally available, by which I meant I really wanted a partner. But I was actually totally emotionally unavailable because I didn’t want a partner in a way that was about true intimacy and supporting and loving someone else and being there for them. You know, I would say I was prepared to do all those things, but my driving motivation was that I wanted to be chosen. I wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to pick me to prove that I was valuable and worthy and good enough and that my body wasn’t wrong and bad and preventing me from love. Like I was not really available because I was so afraid of rejection and vulnerability and I was not thinking about what I could give someone. I was only thinking about what I would get.

So I was not self-aware at all, but I thought I was really self-aware. I thought that I really understood who I was and what I wanted and I was just totally wrong.

So thoughts that I used in my dating life. Some of my favorites were one of the things my brain always told me was that because of like I was a feminist and I have a strong personality and I was living, I’m living in a fat body and I’m an entrepreneur and successful and probably make more money than whoever I’m going to be with, that there just wasn’t anybody who would want like all of those bad things basically. Or like it was, it was unusual at least.

And so one of the thoughts I used was, it’s okay if what I want is rare because I just need one person. And you know, listen, some of us are non monogamous, maybe we want two or three people, but still, it’s a very small number out of all the people in the world. And people in the world are attracted to all different kinds of things. So it just wasn’t really credible to believe my brain when it said that nobody that I could possibly like would be interested in what I had to offer.

So that kind of went back to like, I just got to keep trying. Like I haven’t found that person yet, but there has to be someone. Another thought that I used was there are people with my body type who find love, right? That’s an example I’ve probably given on the podcast before. When I was really just starting this work on dating, and like I said, it was very connected to my body image, I really practiced the thought, some fat women find love, and so, you know, there are people with my body type who do find love. It’s very objective, it’s not even about me, but it’s expanding my idea of possibility.

As I evolved in this journey, the thought that I really had right before I met my husband was, I know how to love people and I am loved and there’s nothing special about romantic love, right? I’ve talked before on the podcast, I think about the big shift that led me to be able to be with my husband. It was like releasing this fixation on one certain kind of love being so different and something that was going to change my life and had to rescue me from all of my negative thoughts and feelings and like seeing how much I already was loved and how much love was in my life and like decentering really romantic love as this, you know, game-changing thing that would change everything. And then of course, that’s when I was actually able to be emotionally available, tolerate the early disappointments and confusions of early dating, right, to actually be in my relationship.

My edgiest thought on this, and this is a heterosexual thought, so you can adapt as needed for whoever you date. But this is kind of a middle thought. I would say I started with there are fat women who find love, right? I ended with like, I know how to love people. I already have so much love and romantic love is just the cherry on top. But in the middle, one of my favorite thoughts was having a penis live in my house is not going to change my fundamental experience of existence. Now, obviously, I’m not out here trying to objectify men. They are more than their body parts. My husband is more than having a penis in my house. But there was just something really funny about it that helped me see that I was like putting my entire worth, value and happiness on whether a person with a certain kind of body that was different from mine lived in my house with me. So again, like some of these like edgier thoughts, they are just that bit of like almost absurdist humor that helps you see like how you are clinging to unhelpful thoughts that are kind of ridiculous.

Okay, two more categories in terms of the work that I have done and the thoughts that I did use and then we’ll talk about 2026.

My family life. I had a lot of family drama and I didn’t understand at the time that it was because I didn’t feel confident in myself. And so the pillars that were at issue here were really self-compassion and self-awareness, both of those. So with self-awareness, I really thought my family was the problem. And I had no idea that it was actually my job to have my own back about my own opinions and decisions and needs. So I needed self-awareness. My self-awareness was lacking.

But also my self-compassion was lacking because the whole reason that I was so sensitive to everything that happened in my family interactions was that I didn’t really have my own back and my own compassion and my own support in terms of like my opinions, my decisions about how I want to live my life, my emotional desires or needs. Like I didn’t have my own back and so I was constantly easily triggered and blamed them when the truth was I really needed support from myself to feel totally allowed and permitted and justified in having my own thoughts and opinions, my own desires, my own way I wanted to live my life, my own way I wanted to have these relationships, like what I was available for, what I wasn’t available for. That was all really my job. But I needed self-compassion to accept myself in order to see that.

And then the last one I want to share from the past was financial fear, scarcity, shame, right? Moving to abundance and belief in my ability to create money. And in this area, I was lacking both self-belief and also self-actualization. So self-belief, kind of straightforward, right? I believed that I was bad with money, that I was frivolous with money, that I didn’t know how to make money, all of those kind of thoughts.

And like I think I shared in a recent newsletter, these things still occasionally come up, like we’re contemplating renovating this old farmhouse that we bought on a creek up state because it is not usable, has like only one door internally, no bedrooms with doors, which is, it turns out when you don’t have doors on bedrooms, you realize why people invented those. So it’s like things like that. Like it needs a new roof, it whatever. So we’re thinking about renovating it and I’m having like I still sometimes have thoughts about irresponsibility and money and stuff come up. This stuff doesn’t always fully go away. You just keep working on it at the next level. But in the past, I, you know, had that about everything. Like my just my whole story was that I was bad with and irresponsible with money.

And I was also lacking self-actualization because I had this very like passive idea about money and my involvement and how I got it basically, right? I just sort of I had a not self-actualized relationship with money. It’s like I didn’t even think, like I didn’t think I had any control over it. I didn’t think I had any say in whether I had it or not. It was sort of this like money happened to me, right? Outside of my control.

So thoughts I used were one of the earliest ones because I had a lot of programming having come from the social justice world about like money being bad and wanting to make money being bad, being an entrepreneur and wanting to make money and caring about making money meaning you’re a bad person, which is like all well and good unless you decide to become an entrepreneur yourself, and then that’s a problem. Those thoughts. So one of the thoughts I practiced all the time that was so helpful was money is a tool and any tool can be used in ways that help or harm.

Fire, a hammer, whatever. Like a tool can be used to build or to break. It can be used to warm or to burn down. And money is just a tool that different people use in different ways. And just because some people use it in ways that I think are harmful or don’t align with my values doesn’t mean the money itself is what’s inherently bad.

Another thought I used is that money is always flowing and always circulating in and out. Because I think the tendency is to want to either spend it all. Some people have a problem where they don’t feel comfortable holding money and so they spend whatever they have. And then some people don’t feel comfortable spending money and they hoard it to try to feel safe. Well thinking of money as always flowing and circulating in and out really made it feel less like this one pile of coins that we’re all fighting over.

One of the thoughts that I also used when I was working on this transition from like being in social justice to being an entrepreneur and I had drama about charging for my services, right? Such a good example of the brain gap because like on the one hand, intellectually I would say, of course, like I have expertise, I have hundreds, thousands hours of practice, like I should be charging for my time if this is my business. A man would do it, right? I understand that intellectually. But then I still have these other thoughts that come from women being socialized to just do everything for free, give it all away for free, especially in a helping profession, that like it’s unethical to make any money if what you do is helping people, which makes no sense really.

And so one of the thoughts I practiced there was that when women invest in improving their relationship with themselves, that’s always money well spent. And that when people are investing, when women especially are investing in improving their relationship with themselves, that usually is the money they would have spent on all the things we’re sold to try to fix or improve ourselves that don’t make us feel any better. So if somebody comes and spends her money on coaching instead of a plastic surgery treatment, again, this is not I’m not saying you’re bad if you have plastic surgery, I’m just saying like if you are getting plastic surgery because you’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s not okay to look like you age and you spend money on accepting yourself and building a relationship with yourself instead, that’s the best investment that you can make.

So just thinking about why do my clients invest in coaching? What are they getting out of it and seeing how if that’s aligned with my values and what I want to offer the world and I believe it’s in their best interest, then that is an ethical transaction.

So those are the thought shifts that I used on my journey. We’re going to take a quick break and then after that, I’m going to talk about my three goals for 2026 and the confidence compass skills and thoughts that I’m going to be using to advance those goals.

Okay, so let’s talk about three goals I’m going to be working on in 2026 and the confidence compass skills and thoughts I’m going to be using.

The first one is kind of an identity shift into being what’s called a visionary and giving up the aspects of what’s called being an integrator role because we’re hiring a COO. So we run our company on EOS, which is the entrepreneurial organization system or entrepreneurial organizational system. It’s just a way of running and structuring your business, right? And the two roles at the top of the org chart, or as they call it the accountability chart, are supposed to be visionary and integrator. And so the visionary is the ideas person, the integrator is the person who like gets it done, right? And supervises everybody else who gets it done.

I have been really in both of those roles. I’ve had wonderful support from my team, but I have really still been kind of straddling both those roles for now almost 10 years I’ve had this business. And part of that has really been because of a lack of self-belief. It has been from an identity or rather like a resistance to the identity of being a visionary because of all that social programming that women get that’s like, well, don’t think you’re too good or don’t like put yourself up there like that, right? Don’t be too big for your britches. Don’t like think too highly of yourself. Be humble, don’t be arrogant. So identifying as a visionary, like still feels uncomfortable.

But I have to build confidence in myself as a visionary and I have to allow the new COO who’s coming in to really take control of the things that are supposed to be under their control. So I’m working on this identity shift and I think it requires self-belief and self-actualization. I have to believe in this new identity, but I also need to align my actions with it. Now, obviously always our actions are always part of what we’re doing. But there are some growth areas in which we’re like really focusing on the thoughts first. There’s some areas in which we’re really focusing on the feelings first. In this area, I’m going to be really focusing on the thoughts I need to be thinking and then really kind of being accountable to myself that like is what I’m putting on my calendar matching, right? These thoughts and this commitment. Like that’s self-actualization, how I actually show up in the world. Am I getting involved in things in the business that I don’t need to be involved in, right?

So here’s thoughts I’m using. I am a visionary, just because it feels uncomfortable to say it doesn’t mean it’s not true. I have created this entire body of work and intellectual property and I do have a vision for I had a vision for how to bring intersectional feminism into the coaching world and I’ve done that. I have a vision for where my business can go next. I have a vision for my next body of work. Like that’s being a visionary. Saying I’m a visionary doesn’t mean I think I should get the Nobel Prize. But notice how I’m even like, as I’m recording this, my brain is like, make sure you qualify it. So I’m going to be working, probably in the later part of the year on not qualifying it. Right now I’m just working on that first thought, I am a visionary.

Other thoughts I’m using are, the more I’m in my zone of genius, the more the business grows. And there are people out there who can grow my business better than I can. And I mean on an operational level. This is a good example by the way of how thoughts are not one size fits all. If you’re just starting out and you need to build your confidence that you can create a business, believing, oh, everybody else out there would do it better than me or someone, I should hire someone to do this because I don’t think I can do it are terrible thoughts for you.

For me now at this stage, I’ve proven I can do it. And now what I need to believe is that someone else can do it as well or better than me so I can step out of that part of the role. And the last thought I’m using is, the more space I have, the more growth I create.

The second goal that I’m working on for 2026 is some habit change stuff around movement and chronic pain. And I’m discovering that shockingly, I have a lot of black and white thinking around it. Who would have guessed? So I have to build confidence that my brain and body can experience positive change in this area and that I can be kind of mobile and active in different ways with less pain.

And so that involves self-awareness because I need to really become more honest with myself about the black and white thinking I have and the ways in which my thinking is creating my returns in this area. But I also need to really involve the second pillar as well, which is self-compassion because my body has a lot of reaction to and gets easily activated by certain kinds of movement and sensation that was always very sensitive and has been more sensitized over time. And so beating myself up or having critical or negative thoughts about my body or myself is obviously not going to help. So those are the two pillars I’m really focusing on in this area. And so here are some of the thoughts that I’m using that I’m working on.

One is a thought that truly works for everything in the world, but also works here, which is just because everything isn’t under my control, doesn’t mean nothing is under my control. So it’s like counteracting that black and white, all or nothing thinking of like, well, I can’t control everything about my body, so I’m powerless, right? No, some stuff about my body is not under my conscious or will full control, and some things are under my control.

Another thought I’m using is I’m good at being uncomfortable. This is a thought that really everyone can use and it’s so powerful because we all have different areas where we are good at being uncomfortable and where we are really bad at being uncomfortable. And it’s really helpful to bring that kind of like growth mindset, recognition of our own strengths and try to transfer that. So it’s so different for everyone. Like for me right now, I’m working on I’m already very comfortable with emotional discomfort or mental discomfort. And so I’m like, okay, I know I can be uncomfortable. Now, how do I translate that to the physical realm?

But like yesterday in my Mission Impossible mastermind, I was coaching one of my clients who is really good at being uncomfortable when it comes to physical things like exercise, but has a harder time being uncomfortable with emotions, right? And so like she and I are doing the same work, but from inverse starting points. Like here’s where we’re already okay with being uncomfortable, willing to be uncomfortable, can tolerate it. Now, how do I build my belief in myself, right? My confidence in myself as being someone who’s good at being uncomfortable and transfer that to the area where it’s harder for me.

Another thought I’m working on from the self-compassion perspective is my body’s responses make sense. They’re not a problem, just something to understand. That’s really that self-compassion pillar.

And then the fourth thought is, I’m willing to work for improvement even if I never fully resolve the problem. This is again trying to counteract that black and white thinking, right? I’m willing to work just to see some improvement, even if it’s never going to fully resolve whatever the problem is.

And then the third goal I’m working on is creating more connection and intimacy in my family relationships. And that’s with my husband and my step kids specifically. I’ve talked about this on the podcast before. Like I have a brain that loves to solve problems. That’s where it gets its dopamine. That’s where how I have created everything I’ve created in my life. Like I love to solve problems and my brain will find a problem for me to solve at any moment. And that makes me sometimes a really powerful activator for other people, but a family is not a problem to solve or a site where I want to have constant activation. And this way of thinking obviously puts me more often in a negative mindset when I am interacting with my family members and that makes intimacy harder, right?

So in this case, what I’m really building confidence is confidence that I can become less critical and more loving. And that requires self-compassion, right? So that’s that pillar number two, self-compassion, understanding like why my brain does this, not just ironically, criticizing myself for being critical, which is what my brain wants to do.

And then pillar four, self-actualization, because this kind of behavior change requires paying attention to lots of small moments where you have to really choose to behave differently. And so here are some of the thoughts I’m using. I can tolerate the discomfort of wanting to say something and not saying it. So for me, that actually feels like physically uncomfortable, right? Like I have to have the urge to say something and not say it. And that’s partly because for me, it feels like this open loop in my brain that won’t be resolved until I close it. So one of the thoughts I’m practicing is I can close this loop in my own brain.

Like it often feels like I have to say it to close the loop, but no, I can close the loop in my own brain. I can respond to this thought in my own brain to close the loop. One of the thoughts I’m using to do that is it’s okay for my loved ones to be imperfect.

So it’s like my brain is like, here’s a problem. This thing is imperfect. And then I’m like, I’m not going to say it. I’m closing the loop in my own brain. I’m solving the problem in my own brain. And the solve is the thought, that’s okay. It’s okay for my loved ones to be imperfect. It’s okay for that person to be doing something I don’t think they should do or whatever. That’s okay. That’s not a problem.

Another thought I’m using is the reason I love this person has nothing to do with blank, whatever the issue it is, right? A child eating with their hands, someone forgotten an appointment, every cabinet door is open, like whatever it is that my brain is like problem, solve it. I’m practicing the reason I love this person has nothing to do with that, right? That helps connect me to like their humanity and take it out of seeing them as like a problem to solve.

So this has been a big episode, but as you can see, all the changes I’ve made in the past and all the changes that are coming up next for me don’t look like they’re about self-confidence necessarily, but they are. They all involve at least one element of the Confidence Compass. And it’s been so helpful as I’ve been identifying my goals for 2026 to run them through the compass and see exactly which skills I need to bring into play. It really helps me dial in to what I need to change to solve this problem. Because I don’t need more time or information or more willpower for any of these goals. I just need to be focused on the specific skills I need in the specific area.

So if that was helpful and you want to be able to diagnose exactly what skills you need for your 2026 goals, even if you aren’t sure what your goals are yet. I know that sounds impossible, but let me explain. You still have a few days to sign up for the create more confidence pop up coaching program that we’re doing. And in that program, we’re going to do both of those things. So on day one, we are going to explore what you believe confidence is, how confidence has, you know, shown up and either gotten better or worse over the course of your life. And we’re going to do a growth assessment to see where your brain is in terms of its belief in your own ability to grow, change, become more confident. We’re going to be using an evidence-based assessment to look at that.

And then in day two, I’m going to introduce you to the paradigm of the confidence compass. We’ve been talking about, but you’re going to take four evidence-based assessments on each of the skills in the confidence compass so that you know which skills you’re stronger in and which skills you need to maybe do some more work on. And then on day three, we’re actually going to envision your dream life and what that would look like in 2026 specifically, and then connect it up to which confidence compass skills you need to work on to achieve those goals.

So whether you already have those goals and you just want to figure out what you need to do to get them, to create them, or you’re not even sure what your goals are yet, this pop up program is going to solve both of those problems and it’s going to really set you up for an amazing 2026 where you don’t just go in thinking like, okay, I have some resolutions. I hope I do that. Right? Or create like a really complicated, color-coded plan that you kind of secretly know you’re not going to really follow or that you have delusional belief you’re going to perfectly follow and then you give up on. Like we’re really going to be focusing on, no, what are the skills I need to be building in order to actually get the results I want?

So it’s December 8th through 10th. You still have a couple of days to sign up. We’re starting real soon. So you can go to unfuckyourbrain.com/confident to sign up, or you can text your email to 347-997-1784 and the code word is confident. So that’s unfuckyourbrain.com/confident, or text your email to +1 347-997-1784 and the code word is confident. I cannot wait to get started. I will see y’all there.