We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stacy Gissal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stacy below.
Hi Stacy , we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
Confidence was something I struggled with for a long time & it wasn’t until I discovered the difference between confidence & personal power that I could transform the relationship I had with myself in terms of confidence & self esteem, let me explain.
Most of my life, I was insecure & while I know now that it was a much deeper wound, for most of my teens and twenties, it was how my body looked that took the brunt of the self criticism because we live in a world that tells us that if we look good, we feel good. A culture that only knows how to compliment people on how they look because we haven’t been taught to see someone for who they are beyond the surface. A culture that has inadvertently stripped us of our personal power & led us to believe that what other people think of us will always be more important than how we feel about ourselves. I figured that as long as I looked a certain way, weighed a certain amount, & checked all the boxes in that area that I would feel better about myself. Only that proved to be completely false. It didn’t matter how much lean I was, it didn’t matter that I had a six pack. It didn’t matter that people told me how great I looked, it didn’t matter how much I weighed, it didn’t matter how accurate I was tracking every bit of food I ate, or how much time I spent in the gym; I didn’t feel better about myself, I felt worse than ever. This led me to believe there must be something wrong with me when in reality I was at war with myself. I wasn’t doing all of this because I loved myself, I was doing it because I needed everyone else to love me. Needing everyone else to love you leads to confidence, loving yourself without condition is where we activate our personal power. Let’s break it down…
Confidence is surface level, it’s determined by your external circumstances & how you are perceived by the people around you. Because it is driven by pride & determined by forces outside of you, your confidence can be stripped from you in a moments notice. You lose your job, your confidence dissipates. You get rejected by someone, there goes your confidence. You gain 10 pounds, confidence gone. You don’t reach your goal, wave your confidence goodbye. Confidence is rooted in comparison. if you can convince yourself that you are better than someone else. However if you feel less than someone else, insecurity takes over & start trying to prove yourself. Confidence is a tricky son of a gun because when everything is going your way & you feel confident, it feels really fricken good, but when the thing that is giving you the confidence is taken from you, you end up feeling worse than ever. This is why most people are resistant to the self discovery process. Self discovery is guaranteed to bring your insecurities & character flaws to the surface & that is going to threaten your pride. Your pride would rather sit in denial than have to come face to face with the fact that it might not be as great as it thinks it is & just maybe everyone else isn’t the problem 😳 In my experience, the more self awareness someone has, the less confident they feel, & while this can feel horrible (and cause a lot of people to stop the inner work), it’s actually a good thing, because when you allow your pride to fall, you give your personal power room to rise.
Personal power is different, it has nothing to do with your external circumstances & everything to do with your internal landscape. It comes from loving yourself without condition by honoring your strengths & being willing to see your weaknesses. Personal power is having the vulnerably to ask others for help because you don’t see yourself above or below anyone. Personal power is rooted in mutual respect, not comparison, you honor all but bowing to none. Personal power is not driven by the need to look or act a certain way for someone else, it’s driven by a devotion to be the absolute best version of yourself regardless of how uncomfortable it might get. Personal power comes from having the courage to step beyond your pride, strip away all of the different personalities you’ve created because live your life knowing authenticity is more important than acceptance. Personal power is being yourself regardless of who’s around or what room your in.
While confidence can be easily stripped from you by the opinions of others, personal power can’t be taken from you unless you choose to give it away.
Making the transition from “wanting confidence” to “developing personal power” transformed my life completely. I hope it does the same for you ❤️
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
At Evolve Beyond Limits, we understand your deep desire for strong and harmonious relationships. Whether it’s with yourself, your partner, your family, or business associates, we recognize the essential criteria needed to make these connections thrive.
1. Understanding Yourself: The Key to Powerful Relationships
To build meaningful relationships, you must first have a profound understanding of yourself. Knowing what drives you, your unique gifts, how you make decisions, and your life path is crucial. This self-awareness lays the foundation for cultivating genuine connections with others.
2. Build Something Extraordinary Together: Honor Your Differences
To create relationships built on mutual respect, awareness, & unconditional love, you must begin to cultivate a deep appreciation and understanding how the people around you are uniquely designed as well! This allows you to learn from them, recognize & correct your tension points, and create a harmonious synergy in your relationships.
3. Courage: Be Willing To Do Something Different
Building extraordinary relationships often requires taking unconventional steps. It takes courage to challenge conditioned defenses and explore new ways of connecting with others.
We are here to give you REAL solutions to REAL life struggles. The work we do is dedicated to using Human Design, ancient teachings, and DNA Activation to elevate your relationship with both yourself & the people around you.
We have one job…to help you create massive transformation by analyzing your unique Human Design blueprint & understanding the specific limiting beliefs & behavior patterns that are getting in your way in order to pinpoint exactly where you are living out of alignment & why you are making life harder than it needs to be 😉
Using a pragmatic approach combined with intuitive guidance we place our focus on whatever needs immediate attention so you can begin taking real life, practical action towards coming back into alignment, leading you to reaching your goals, strengthening your relationships, & living a more fulfilled life.
Get a taste of our process by booking a complimentary mini session by visiting the website! I can’t wait to meet you!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Resilience – “making it” as an entrepreneur is no joke. There were so many times that I could have given up on my dreams, but I didn’t. Sometimes I say that I allow my optimism to override reality or common sense (and while this has bit me in the a$$ a few times, the benefits have far outweighed the blunders,) and I believe it’s this ability to see what’s possible & refusal to quit that has allowed me to stick it out when times got tough. One of my mentors, Chris Harder, says all the time, “the only way to fail is to stop trying,” and this is advice that I live by so I choose to see every challenge, failure, or pivot as an opportunity to get better instead of an excuse to quit.
2. Being willing to go first – So many people are waiting for someone else to give them permission to do the thing they want to do or make the change they want to make. I see this in business and especially in relationships, we are afraid to make the first move, so instead of creating a life we love, we remain stuck in the same patterns that created our suffering in the first place. From my experience you can either choose to do the uncomfortable thing, lead the way, & live life with everything you have or you can take the path of least resistance, stay comfortable, sit in your suffering, and wonder what could have been…I will choose option 1 every. single. time.
3. Human Design – Understanding the depths of my Human Design completely changed my life. So many things I thought were character flaws were actually some of my greatest gifts, I just had no fricken clue how to use them! My entire relationship with myself & the people around me changed when I started to integrate my Human Design Blueprint into my life. Instead of trying to fight my way up stream, I learned how to turn my unicorn floaty around and let life do the heavy lifting. 🦄
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
My husband, Andrew Gissal, has truly been my biggest teacher in this life thus far. We have been through the ringer in our 14 years of marriage and despite all of it, we are better than we’ve ever been. Our relationship has taught me that great relationships don’t just happen because you want them to, they are created when two people are willing to take uncomfortable action, learn to love without condition, & build something great together. As a generator in Human Design, he teaches me what it means to be a team player & what partnership truly means.
Andrew is the strategy behind the vision. He teaches me the importance of focusing my energy to make the biggest impact in 1 or 2 areas rather than focusing on everything at once and making a small amount of progress in a bunch of different areas. He has taught me that even though freedom is experienced in the surrender, it is created in the discipline. I could go on and on, but we would be here all day 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: www.evolvebeyondlimits.com
- Instagram: @Stacy_Gissal
