Shine On Connection with Lara: Finding Confidence Through Challenge

The Shine On Connection with Lara: Feel connected to women in our global community through shared stories and experiences 

We sat down to chat with Lara, our Head of Community & Partnerships and Shine Leader to discuss what’s going on, on the ground with our fearless global community. In this article, Lara will be sharing the experience of Louise Sun and her expedition to Mount Kenya along with her own insights on what the concept challenge can do to help us thrive as women. Over to Lara….

Our digital community Shine On was created as a home for all women who have experienced Shine but primarily to build a home for women worldwide to connect and build collective confidence and influence. We provide free masterclasses every month and a safe space for women to share, discuss and grow together. By challenging each other to think differently and share experiences, we can collectively grow in confidence.

Confidence is a hot topic in our coaching discussions on Shine On. How can I be more confident? How can I deal with the inner voice that tells me I am not good enough or I don’t belong here, or I can’t? That in itself is a challenge for many of us. But challenge and challenges are actually fuel for confidence. When we get through something difficult, something we didn’t believe we could do, we grow in confidence and self-belief. The renowned Professor Ian Robertson defines confidence as the belief that you ‘can do’ and it ‘can happen’. There is no better way to build that belief than to actually ‘do’ and feel that it actually ‘happens’. Add in physicality to that challenge, and the impact of experiential learning is invaluable in building the confidence that you can do, and it can happen.

Introducing Louise Sun

One of our Shine On members, Louise Sun, is a rising star working in the civil service. She shared her experience of taking on a challenge she never believed she could do and what that has done for her confidence and influence.

“I recently climbed Mount Kenya and thought I’d share a few reflections from the five-day trek to reach almost 5000m which reminded me of the confidence masterclass on Shine On a couple of weeks before I left. Firstly, thank you to everyone on Shine On for thinking of great affirmations and positive messages. They certainly did help get me through the climb. Comments that particularly stuck with me were those around reframing challenges as performance fuel and reframing my inner voice to say ‘”you’ve got this, you are enough, aim for progress, not perfection and actually remember to enjoy it!”.

Louise’s six key reflections on building confidence through challenge are as follows:

• Whenever things seem overwhelming or too much, remember to help find ways to break it down – a literal example for a hike is just to put one step in front of the other and work through it bit by bit, and over time you’ll be able to see the result. As I have learnt, this is a technique from psychology called ‘chunking down’, which means breaking down a problem into small chunks or steps on Mount Kenya.

• It helps to breathe deeply, just like what we did in the masterclass when we consciously took deep, slow breaths to calm our nervous system and fight/ flight response. It helped me remind myself we’re not under threat. It really helps with acclimatising to the altitude too. Who would have considered breathing related to feelings of confidence!

• When approaching big scary scrambly rocks, I was scared and wobbly, and I felt I might fall. However, my boyfriend kept reminding me, ‘if you think you’re gonna fall, you’re going to fall, but if you think you can trust yourself to balance, you’ll do that.’ And what a difference it made! The more I was able to trust myself, the more I was confident that I could keep going. It’s extraordinary how powerful your mindset can be!

• Another part of our mindset that can prevent us from having the confidence to try new things is the labels we’ve been brought up with. It’s like the boxes we’ve been put in when we’re younger, and these labels take work to proactively challenge. Although walking and hiking were hobbies I started to enjoy quite late in life after university, my family were never outdoorsy and didn’t value physical challenge. I never participated in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. I wasn’t very confident at school sports (or at school in general), so I think part of the reason why I was really determined to challenge myself and find the confidence to climb Mount Kenya was to proactively break away from those narrow definitions of who I was that had become a dominant narrative for me. I was aware that those labels were unconsciously affecting how I viewed myself. I wanted to embrace a growth mindset – remembering how capable our brain is of rewiring.

• Altitude sickness, the cold and the heat, rain and snow, the steeper scrambliest bits, the extreme tiredness and no ‘home comforts (like a hot shower!) for five days were things I was worried about and the one thing I think I feared the most was a failure if I didn’t make it to the top. However, I’m really glad I didn’t talk myself out of it, as it was an incredible experience to help show that your body is incredibly capable of overcoming physical challenges and what you can achieve if you push yourself. You can still have an amazing time overall, even if some bits were better than others! After all, if it were easy and you just stuck within your comfort zone, where would the learning and growth be?!

Interestingly, Louise has been praised for her leadership, collaboration, and inclusivity since returning from Mt Kenya.

There is no doubt that the brain and body are intrinsically linked, so why should physical and mental confidence not be intrinsically linked? The experience of finding confidence through a physical challenge has impacted every area of Louise’s life and instilled in her that you can build confidence.

What challenges do you have ahead of you that you can ‘chunk’ down and take one step at a time? For example, can you set yourself a physical challenge in 2022 that allows you to experience turning ‘I can’t’ into ‘I can do’, and ‘it can happen’?

Shine On!
Lara

---

Share this article with your colleagues and the people around you and encourage a healthy discussion. And for anything else, follow us on social media or get in touch via email but remember when women thrive, men thrive, business thrives.  

Related Reading 

• Thinking Out Loud with Anna: A Guide To Gender Pay Gap Reporting
• Thinking out loud with Richard Stokes & Jen Smith: Lessons from a female founder 
• Thinking Out Loud With Priti Murthy

---

Disclaimer

The material and information contained on this website is for general information purposes only. You should not rely upon the material or information on the website as a basis for making any business, legal or any other decisions. Whilst we endeavour to keep the information up to date and correct, Shine for Women LLP makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such material is therefore strictly at your own risk. 

Shine for Women LLP will not be liable for any false, inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete information presented on the website. 

Certain links in this website will lead to websites which are not under the control of Shine for Women LLP. When you activate these, you will leave the Shine for Women LLP website. Shine for Women LLP has no control over and accepts no liability in respect of materials, products or services available on any website which is To the extent not prohibited by law, in no circumstances shall Shine4women be liable to you or any other third parties for any loss or damage (including, without limitation, damage for loss of business or loss of profits) arising directly or indirectly from your use of or inability to use, this site or any of the material contained in it.