Ep #244: 4 Steps to Creating Your Badassery Manifesto

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach, and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives. And now I want to help you.

Hey, runners. All right, this week, we are going to talk about something super important for your running life, and that is confidence, or as I like to call it badassery. Now, badassery is that kind of confidence that gives you a little bit of swagger. Like a little bit of, yeah, I know I’m 100% that bitch, you got something to say about it?

And you don’t actually have to have a long list of running accomplishments to have that kind of confidence. In fact, you can be a brand new runner and still access your badassery because it comes from how you think about yourself and not what you’ve done. But you might be asking yourself, well, why is badassery such an important quality to create for yourself?

Think about it this way, has anyone ever complimented you on something, and maybe it’s your hair, or your clothes, or the race that you just finished? And you say, thank you, but I’m just having a good hair day, this isn’t normal. Like, oh, I rarely wear these pants because they make my butt look big. Or well, yeah, maybe I did the race, but I had to walk part of it. So I’m not really a runner, I’m more of a wogger. Right?

So somebody gives you a compliment and you basically argue with them. Why the fuck do we do this, right? Well, partly, it’s because we’re taught from a young age, not to brag or boast about ourselves, especially women. Actually, mostly women, we’re socialized that way. And then somehow that gets twisted into I need to argue with people when they tell me I’m awesome.

And also, I think it’s partly because if we admit that maybe, just maybe we are totally fabulous, other people might feel less good about themselves. Or, I don’t know, other people might disagree with us because they think we suck. Or, you know, we might have to just keep on being a rock star, which is going to take a lot of effort, you know? Or, who knows, I know I’ve thought this a lot, maybe I’m just wrong and delusional and everybody is laughing at me behind my back, right?

Does this sound familiar to you? Why is this shit so freakin hard? Cultivating confidence, or badassery as I like to call it, means you are addressing the voice inside you that says you’re not good enough. And that voice can get really, really loud because you have been taught to think that way. You have been handed these beliefs, probably from your family of origin, but then it gets reinforced by your peers, by your coworkers, with every fucking weight loss or beauty product ad that you see.

You know, driving to work, seeing billboards of people getting plastic surgery, we see before and after pictures of people who lost the weight and now they have perfect lives, right? People Magazine, for example, every six months or so at the grocery store it’s our look who lost 100 pounds edition. And I mean, that’s all fine and good for those folks. But what it does to you when you’re constantly seeing it is it’s this subtle messaging that you should be trying to be better than you are. Okay?

So that adds up over time and it is no wonder that we don’t actually want to own our badassery when we are being low key told all the time you’re not quite good enough the way you are. And you’ve also been taught that nice girls are modest and humble, and they don’t take credit for anything. And that means even your amazing accomplishments, you’re like, I don’t know, not so much. It’s not so great.

So let’s think about this. Think about it, I’m going to give you an example that’s going to resonate with you. Do you know any men that won’t accept a compliment? Right, neither do I. Imagine that you have a male partner and you tell him that his butt looks really hot in those jeans. Does he say, “Oh, thanks, baby” and then grab you for a kiss? Or does he say, “Oh, do you think so? Because I thought my butt looked a little saggy this morning.” Right?

I have never met a man that chose option B. Men are just not conditioned to be humble and modest. If you pay them a compliment, they will happily agree with you. And this is not a dis on men, by the way. Because the reason most men have high opinions of themselves is the exact same conditioning that causes women to have low opinions. It is the patriarchal belief system and society that we are all steeped in, that we have all been part of our entire lives. We’ve all been raised on it and we’re all playing our parts.

So I want to help you stop playing your part. And I’m going to introduce you to a fun concept today that I call the badassery manifesto. And this is where you start to create a new script about yourself that does not include being humble and modest all the fucking time. Okay, so basically a manifesto, every time I think manifesto I think about serial killers who create a manifesto and do all kinds of crazy shit. This is a different kind of manifesto.

But a manifesto is simply a statement of ideals and intentions, okay? It’s your personal belief system. And you know that most of your current belief system has been handed down to you from other people. Probably your mom and maybe your dad, probably both of your parents, right? Your teachers at school, your friends, the media, all of those things, right? It’s like constant messaging that we’re getting. But a big chunk of it comes from our family of origin.

And my manifesto used to include the statement, I need to be thin to be lovable. Okay, that’s one I got from my mom. I actually did not get that from my dad, my dad was like I don’t care what you weigh, I love you, you’re awesome. But my mom, very clear messaging that you got to be thin or you’re not lovable.

And the reason why she handed me that belief system was because it was part of her own. That’s what she believed about herself, so of course she taught it to me. I found out later on it didn’t really work for me. So I have replaced it with I’m a cutie pie and very, very lovable. And that one is working out great for me, in case you’re wondering.

But the thing about belief systems is that they’re always operating in our brains, driving everything we do. And we’re very often not even aware of them. Which kind of sort of puts you at the mercy of them, especially if it’s something you’ve been handed and not your choice. But you do have that option of recreating your belief systems on purpose. And I mean, I kind of think, well, they’re going to be there one way or the other, so I might as well make them work for me.

So what is a badassery manifesto? It’s basically a written statement of your personal beliefs about yourself that make you feel like a badass. And you know, if you don’t like the word badass, you can use a different one. You can use confidence manifesto, or swagger manifesto, or 100% that bitch manifesto, whatever you want. It’s basically a mission statement, though. And it helps you focus your thinking so that you are creating the results you want in your life.

So owning your badassery means you decide on purpose what beliefs you want to have about yourself as an athlete, as a runner, as a human, right? And then you practice them and you practice accepting compliments about your accomplishments. You practice, you know, telling people how awesome you are once in a while.

So I’m going to teach you the four steps to creating your own badassery manifesto. They’re very simple, you may feel a little bit uncomfortable as you’re going through this process, you may feel a lot uncomfortable as you’re going through this process. And that’s because it’s banging up against your belief system that you’re supposed to be humble and modest and, you know, that you’re not quite as good as you could be.

So I just want to plant the seed right now that believing you should be humble, believing you should be modest, believing that you shouldn’t brag, believing that you always should be working on yourself and getting a little bit better. All of that is just conditioning that you’ve received from the rest of society. And you can decide if those beliefs are working for you or not. But while we’re creating the badassery manifesto I want you to take those beliefs and set them aside, okay? And just almost pretend you don’t have them for a little while.

So what is step number one? Step number one is to think about people you know that you’re like, “Oh, she’s such a badass.” How do you think she feels? When you observe other people, especially women that you think are absolutely amazing, what emotions do you think they have about themselves, right?

And I mean emotions, right? I don’t mean what thoughts do they have about themselves. Thoughts are sentences that we speak in our mind. Emotions are single words, right? Proud, confident, calm, excited, accomplished, motivated, those are emotions, right? So I want you to think about women you know that you would consider a total badass. And I want you to think, what emotions do you think she has?

Write down at least five of them, okay? And I forgot to tell you get out a piece of paper for this. And then write down at least five emotions that you think other women that you would qualify as a badass might feel on a regular basis. Examples: proud, confident, determined, committed, tenacious, audacious, bold, there’s all kinds of emotions.

That’s step one. Step two, you’re going to start writing down thoughts that you think you’d need to be thinking to have those emotions. Okay, so if you are like, “Okay, a badass feels proud.” What would you need to be thinking about yourself to feel proud? If you believe that a badass feels confident, what would you need to be thinking to feel confident?

And a great way to do this is actually to brainstorm all of the things you’d love to believe about yourself someday. And you could even find some badasses that you know and ask them and say, “Hey, what do you think about yourself on a regular basis? What emotions do those generate for you?”

But what I want you to do is give yourself a really large selection of thoughts to shop from. I’m going to talk about it like imagine that you are at the mall, and you’re shopping for new thoughts to think. And so you go into a store, you go into the badass store, you grab a whole bunch of different thoughts off of all the racks and you bring them into the dressing room and you try them on.

And you’re like, “Okay, this thought fits pretty good. I’m going to put this one on the keep pile.” And then you try on another thought and you’re like, “Whoa, this is not good. This one does not fit at all.” And so you put that on the discard pile, right? So give yourself a large selection of thoughts to shop from, write them down, brainstorm.

Give yourself maybe 10 minutes, fill the page with all the possible thoughts. And then the ones that fit best, some of them are going to fit great, some of them are not going to fit great, that’s okay. The ones that fit the best, you’re going to highlight those. But the ones that fit the best are the ones that give you the emotions that you named earlier in step one.

And so here are some example thoughts just to get you started. I am an athlete. I am a runner. I am proud of what I accomplished. I am an example of what is possible. I talk about my running to others because I want to be an example of what is possible. I’m learning how to own my runner identity. Being a runner is something I love sharing with others. I have done some courageous shit in my life. I love testing my own boundaries and finding out how powerful I am.

So those are just a sampling of things that you can use to get yourself started. But when you think those thoughts, right, when I think the thought, “I am an athlete,” I feel confident and powerful, right? That is a thought that creates a feeling in me that is, you know, really unstoppable. For you, that thought might not create the same feeling. So write down at least 20 thoughts and then go shopping. Go shopping in the dressing room of your paper.

Okay, number three, once you’ve written them all down and tried them all on, you might even want to write the emotion next to each thought that that thought creates for you. Once you’ve done all that, take the ones that fit best and create your manifesto. Like write them down on paper, or maybe put them in a note on your phone, or make a Word document. Wherever you want to keep it, maybe you want to keep it in multiple places. But actually create a physical manifesto for yourself that you can look at.

And then step four is to practice. And when I say practice, I mean literally think these thoughts on purpose over and over. Say them to yourself in your mind, say them out loud. Read them over, and over, and over again. That’s how we install new belief systems, right? Creating new habits happens through repetition, and a belief system is simply a habitual thought pattern.

And it might feel kind of weird and awkward at first, that’s okay. Keep at it, because when you started running, it did not feel easy and effortless. It took repetitive, consistent practice to make it feel normal, and your thoughts work the same way. The key to implementing your new beliefs is to practice them as much as possible.

And your current belief system worked because you had the thoughts over and over until they became automatic. So changing them works the same way. You’re going to decide what you want to think in your manifesto, and then you’re going to think it over and over again until it starts to feel more automatic.

Okay, so how are you going to practice? I’m going to give you some ideas, but what I want you to do is decide how are you going to practice? Create a system with reminders so you don’t forget. And so ideas are reading your manifesto in the morning and the evening. Rewriting your manifesto daily in your journal. Repeating those thoughts to yourself while you run. Writing them on post it notes that you hang around the house.

Get creative with it, but those are some ideas. I want you to pick some, decide how you’re going to do it, and then literally create a reminder system for yourself so that you remember to do it because you won’t. You won’t, you’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to do this twice today.” And then if you don’t put it in your calendar you’re totally going to forget.

The other part of the practice, and this is probably going to feel super uncomfortable because it involves other people, is I want you to start practicing responding to compliments without arguing. Okay? So for example, a friend says to you, “I’m so impressed with how you’ve been running lately, you’re doing great. You’re really inspiring me.”

And you say, “Thank you for noticing.” Or, “I know, right?” Or, “Thank you, I’ve been working really hard and I feel like it’s finally paying off.” Or, “Thank you, I’m really proud of myself.” Or simply, “Thank you.” Right? And then just shut the fuck up. No arguing.

Responding to compliments, like the skill of just saying thank you, or thank you for noticing, thank you I’m really proud of myself. The skill of acknowledging somebody else gave me a compliment and I’m not going to disagree with it, I’m going to either say thank you, or I’m going to agree and say, “Yeah, you’re absolutely right, I am kind of a badass.” That’s going to help you reinforce your manifesto.

So it’s going to take a little bit of time, right? It might feel really uncomfortable. But the more you do it, the easier it’s going to get. And then someday you’re just going to wake up and be like, I am kind of a badass. Oh my god, everybody needs to know about this.

So once you’ve got your manifesto created, here’s what I want you to do with it, in addition to all of the practice and everything. I want you to share it in the Not Your Average Runner podcast Facebook group. And if you’re not a member of that group, please go to the episode website for this episode, we’ll have a link there. Or you can go to facebook.com/groups/notyouraveragerunner. So if you’re not a member, please join.

But I want to see your manifesto. I want to see what you came up with. I would love to see all of you sharing them with each other and kind of like crowdsourcing your manifestos because this is powerful stuff, it really, really is. And I hope that you create one and I hope that it works for you.

Okay, runners, what did you think of today’s episode? If this has been a helpful one for you, I would love it if you would share it on Instagram and let people know. All right, until next week. I love you, stay safe and get your ass out there and run.

Hey, real quick before you go, if you enjoyed listening to this episode you have got to check out Up And Running. It’s my 30 day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you have always wanted to be. Head on over to notyouraveragerunner.com/upandrunning to join. I would love to be a part of your journey.