The Confidence Conspiracy: Why Society Wants You Small (Episode 84)

What if the insecurities haunting you at 13 could still be controlling your life at 50? According to confidence coach Tamsin Broster, this isn't just possible—it's precisely what happens to countless women who never address their fundamental relationship with themselves.

Tamsin joins the MindShift Power Podcast to reveal the startling connection between teenage self-doubt and midlife crises. Drawing from her expertise working with perimenopausal women struggling with confidence, she offers a unique perspective on how young women can avoid this fate by building self-belief now.

The conversation delves into how beauty standards and diet culture—a multi-billion dollar industry targeting women—deliberately keeps us "preoccupied with other things that are not about challenging anything happening to us or around us." This systematic undermining of women's confidence crosses cultural boundaries, making it a universal issue affecting young women worldwide.

Both host Fatima and Tamsin share personal experiences about boundaries, advocating for yourself, and recognizing when your "inner critic" isn't actually your voice but rather internalized messaging from others. They offer practical strategies for building confidence when you lack support, including finding online communities and learning to "welcome yourself home" to your body—the only home you'll ever have.

This episode provides a roadmap for young women to avoid carrying insecurities into adulthood by starting the confidence-building journey today. As Tamsin powerfully notes, "Every single area of your life right now is being held back because of your lack of confidence." Don't miss this essential conversation about breaking generational cycles and reclaiming your power through self-belief.

To learn more about Tamsin Broster, please click below.

http://www.tamsinbroster.co.uk/

Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast
• 2:10 Building Confidence vs Generational Cycles
• 6:39 The Root of Women's Insecurities
• 12:19 Standing Up For Yourself
• 16:05 Setting Boundaries That Matter
• 20:57 Finding Support When You Have None
• 27:34 Final Thoughts and Mind Shifting Moment

Transcript

Fatima Bey: 0:01

Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the only international podcast focused on teens, connecting young voices and perspectives from around the world. Get ready to explore the issues that matter to today's youth and shape tomorrow's world. I'm your host, Fatima Bey the MindShifter, and welcome everyone. Today we have with us Tamsyn Brewster. She is a confidence coach and she resides out of Bristol, England. She specializes in body image and how this impacts our confidence at different stages of life. Very, very relevant to today's topic.

Tamsin Broster: 0:42

So how are you doing today, tamsyn? I'm good, thank you, thanks for having me. Did I say your last name correct? Yes, you did. I'm really impressed.

Fatima Bey: 0:51

I'm impressed with me too. Thank you, all right, so we're going to talk about young confidence versus old insecurities. By the time this episode comes out, it might not be named that, but that's the topic, so let's first start off by Tamsyn.

Tamsin Broster: 1:09

Tell us what do you do? So I run programs for women in business to create that rock solid self-belief in themselves, to be able to showcase themselves as the expert without changing themselves. So many of us think that we've got to shrink ourselves to fit in, we've got to be prettier, younger, you know, holding onto this idea of this beauty aesthetic to be successful, and I help people to see that that's not true.

Fatima Bey: 1:35

Love that you do that, because we are on the exact same page when it comes to that. And so who exactly do you serve with your services?

Tamsin Broster: 1:43

So I tend to work with women who are probably coaches or service providers in some way. But I also work with a lot of women who have careers, who have hit perimenopause. They've hit that stage of life where they are doubting themselves, they are seeing changes in their body. They don't like it, it doesn't fit what they think they should look like, and their anxiety and confidence takes a hit. So that tends to be who I work with, because I'm menopause trained and body image and a body image expert as well. So I bring like both of those things into it, depending on what people need. So there's, you know, there's a couple of different varieties of ways people work with me, but I lean into what they need, depending on, yeah, what they're going through.

Fatima Bey: 2:26

So okay, so you work with older women and this is show is for teenagers, so why the heck are you on here?

Tamsin Broster: 2:33

Because when I saw your we met inside a podcasting group and when I saw what you were saying, I, I am a really I'm so passionate about breaking generational cycles. I am a really I'm so passionate about breaking generational cycles. And when things stop with us and I've seen this firsthand with my own daughter she's 10. I've seen this firsthand. By the time I was like six, I thought my body was completely wrong, that it needed to be smaller. That was the message that I got from my grandmothers my mother constantly dieting, picking apart their bodies. And my daughter is not like that at all, because I have brought her up in a very different way, because I ended that cycle with myself and I have seen firsthand that that works.

Tamsin Broster: 3:15

Because if anyone says to my daughter, oh my gosh, you look amazing, she's like I know right, whereas I would have been like I look awful, you know, I would have berated myself and I would have really picked apart everything and thought that I just wasn't good enough, especially in sports.

Tamsin Broster: 3:30

I gave up sports quite young because I loved gymnastics and I love ballet, but I knew that my body was bigger than the other girls and I was very conscious of that really young age, six or seven and she just doesn't have that kind of same outlook and I honestly believe it's because I've ended that cycle. Yes, she's going to be exposed to it in other ways as she grows up and we can navigate that and we have navigated that. We have navigated those conversations. But it's very different. When I would have gone to my mom and said I think my body's too big, she would have gone oh okay, if you feel that way, let's go on a diet, whereas I would not say that to my child. That's not the conversation we have. We have a conversation about diversity and how different bodies are all different and how there's strength in our bodies and how we can live in the only place we get to call home forever in a peaceful way.

Fatima Bey: 4:20

Now, when you and I were talking. One of the reasons we did the show and why you're on here is simply is, in particular, because you work with older women.

Tamsin Broster: 4:29

Yeah.

Fatima Bey: 4:29

Their insecurities. You see a lot of insecurities in older women which you just you know were talking about. Where do those insecurities start?

Tamsin Broster: 4:40

Again. I think they start from when we grow up. We are socialized with media, with, now, social media, but you know, we had magazines, we had TV programs, movies. The diet industry is worth billions of pounds. The beauty and diet industry is worth billions of pounds. We spend more on beauty than we do on education and it's targeted mostly at women.

Tamsin Broster: 5:03

90% of beauty advertising and diet culture is marketed towards women and I think that's by design, because it keeps us really preoccupied with other things that are not about challenging anything that's happening to us or around us. It keeps us really busy and preoccupied, which is really really convenient for the patriarchy, and I think this is where it comes from. We watched our mothers go through all these different diets and we've repeated those cycles and it's really hard to get out of because it's not as simple as us just saying, well, we're not going to do that, we're going to do differently. Because if you're in a body that is still not accepted by society, where you maybe go to the doctor and they say, oh yeah, you'll fix your health issues if you just lose weight and maybe that is or isn't the case, but it's always the first point of call for anybody who's in a slightly larger body to be told that everything will be different if they were just thinner. And it's not actually true. We can be in our. We can be. I'm healthier now in my bigger body than I ever was in my smaller body for a million different reasons.

Tamsin Broster: 6:08

But this is the reason why it's not very easy to come out of and why I help people kind of navigate that in what I call the wild out there in the world, because it's easy to sit there and say, oh, you should love your body. But if every time you go to your doctor or your healthcare provider you're told that you should be smaller, time you go to your doctor or your healthcare provider you're told that you should be smaller, or you go and visit your family and you've got parents who are saying you should be shrinking, you should be smaller, you should look after your health, and you have all of that messaging constantly. You're constantly, you're having to deal with that on a regular basis. That's hard to do. It's hard to love yourself when people other people don't necessarily see you in the same way that you're trying to see yourself.

Fatima Bey: 6:46

And it can be challenging. I want to really point out a deeper dive into something that Tamsyn has been saying. She deals with a lot of older women with insecurity issues. Young women listen to me right now, your insecurity issues that you're dealing with right now, that you know that you have, they're not going to just end by themselves. You may be one of these women who were in their 50s, 60s and 70s who still feel like an insecure teenage, 13-year-old girl. I see it all the time when I deal with mothers of the brides. You all have heard me talk about being a bridal seamstress for years. This is something that Tamsen and I have talked about. When I look at mother of the brides, I see exactly what she sees Women who are just as insecure as the prom girls that I deal with, who were 16, 17, and 18.

Fatima Bey: 7:39

But we, as women, have to start now building our confidence, and there are many different ways of doing it, but you have to at least try. You have to make that effort and, like Tamsen just said, it can be difficult and it also depends on your culture, because what we're talking about is a universal issue, right, tamsen? Yeah, yeah, you're in England, I'm in the US, but this same exact conversation could be applicable to a girl in Zimbabwe or Japan or Korea or Guatemala. It's women around the world. It's a universal issue, and I just love that you have the same passion I do about helping women to feel better about themselves and building their confidence. But the reason I want the audience to know, the reason I specifically had Tamsen on, is because she sees what it looks like if you don't build your confidence now and how it affects your life. So, with that being said, tamsen, what does it look like when girls start building themselves right now? What does that actually look like?

Tamsin Broster: 8:46

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think for young girls, what it looks like is they are advocating for themselves, because when you are outsourcing and this is what I say to older women that I work with you're outsourcing yourself. If you are doubting that your body is not good enough or you don't look the right way, it's quite likely that you are going to be expecting somebody else or some organization or some company to tell you how to eat, how to move your body, how to do this stuff that seeps into everyday life. It will be the reason that you accept the relationship that is not good for you. It's the reason that you put up with the body shaming comments from maybe your mom, your dad, your aunties, your uncles, whatever. And it's the reason you might not call out something because you're scared to do so, because other people's opinions have been driving your behavior all this time.

Tamsin Broster: 9:38

And I think, for young women, when they start to not buy into this stuff, you're making a really big stand about against something that has, for you know, forever controlled women. You know this whole idea that we need to meet this certain set of values and certain set of um like rules across, like you say, across the world. It's all different in different cultures, but there's always these rules. But you're making that choice to say, actually, this is where that ends. I'm going to put my money and my you know, my brain and my energy and into something that's more meaningful, and I think that's when we will. We're coming home to ourselves, so we're, you know, when you know the right choice in your heart because you'll be able to believe it. But when you're constantly thinking that you can't make good decisions because you don't trust yourself, it's, it's a very it's. It's very difficult to kind of link that with food, but I see it all the time.

Tamsin Broster: 10:33

The second, that women start trusting themselves and their own decisions around food and their body and how they move their body and how that what really lights them up, it seeps into every. It's like a gateway, like it just like opens up, like, oh, hang on a minute. I don't think that friendship is doing me any good. Oh, hold on a minute. I don't think I really want this particular job for the rest of my life. Maybe I do want to go and explore something else. And it gives you that agency over yourself. That's, and I think we'll get there earlier.

Tamsin Broster: 11:01

I was in my forties when I began to have agency over my body. Maybe it's okay not to weigh myself three times a day, maybe I don't have to weigh myself at all. You know, those things helped me to make decisions on other things, bigger things, what I want to do with my life, how I want my world to be, how much of a you know what kind of person I want to be, the decisions I make about my business, my career, bringing up my children, all of those things aren't dictated by other people and there's a lot of privilege in that. That I'll acknowledge straight away. But this is where we've got to be coming home to ourselves, to have that agency as much as possible.

Fatima Bey: 11:42

Absolutely. I want to point out a couple of things that you said. I'm going to just reword them. Probably the biggest thing that you said and I asked you what does it look like when young women start to have confidence? You start sticking up for yourself, you start advocating for yourself, but basically you start sticking up for yourself, you start speaking up, you start having boundaries and standards they are all in the same cereal bowl boundaries and standards and you start standing up for yourself when you start to have confidence. That is the one of the first pieces of evidence, Because we can say that we're this and we're that, but where's the evidence? Show me how this is true. Don't just tell me it's true, Don't just give me some words, but show me how it's true. And when we start having confidence for ourselves, we do start standing up for ourselves and having standards. And when we do that, that means everybody ain't going to like it, right?

Tamsin Broster: 12:36

Yeah, yeah, people aren't going to like it, and that's boundaries is a tough one, and I think something that people struggle with most is having those boundaries. I've had plenty of clients before who have had lots of pressure from family members about their body size in particular and how they are, and again putting in those boundaries to say like I don't want my body to be a topic of discussion every time you call me or every time we meet up in person for a family gathering. And having those boundaries is hard. I've put them in myself and it's tough to suddenly, you know, and especially when you have been a person previously and if we are talking about body size here, I'm just going to take this as an example If you have always been the person to be like, okay, I'm on this diet, I'm going to change my life, I'm going to be this thin, I'm going to do all this stuff, and you have been like I was openly sharing, like every diet I was on, I would tell everyone every time I was like moving my body in a way that I thought society wanted me to, to meet the criteria that I want, that they wanted me to.

Tamsin Broster: 13:36

I was always sharing and telling everyone and I told myself it was accountability when I did that full flip and did a full 180 on that kind of stuff and I actually don't want to share that. There's nothing to do with anybody else. How I move my body is for me and me personally to enjoy my body in the way that I want to. I don't have to share with anybody how healthy or unhealthy I am being according to society's standards. I no longer have to share that.

Tamsin Broster: 14:02

People have to get used to that and they have to realize you're no longer the person who's swapping diet recipes and you're not like talking about the same things and it's the same with anything that you change in life. When you put in those boundaries and people knew you, your identity was this certain thing. They're still thinking about you with that identity that they have formed of you and they've got to have time to adjust. So this is where boundaries and being really firm on your boundaries is so important. You cannot afford to be woolly around this area. You've got to be like, really sure about what you're, what you stand for and what you don't want to talk about, and you know actually following through with the boundary. If you set a boundary and somebody crosses it. You've got to follow through with that, because otherwise they'll see it as flexible. They'll see it as not something that's that important to you.

Fatima Bey: 14:51

I always. A quote of mine that I made up years ago is people will always cross a line they do not see, and I think it's so important to set those boundaries. And I think it's so important to set those boundaries, but if you verbally set them but you don't follow through with them, otherwise, well then that's a line they cannot see, because now you've made it wobbly and blurry. And when we are growing and when we are maturing, but especially when we're growing in confidence, we are going to change ourselves, which means we're no longer going to accept some of the things we accepted before, the little snide comments that we just kind of cowered under before. We're not gonna put up with that anymore. And you know what, ladies, that means you might have to switch friends, your friends roster might actually change, and just because someone's related to you by blood doesn't mean they need to be on your close friends list either. It is okay to move around whatever you need to move around so that you have people around you who are actually supportive, right.

Tamsin Broster: 15:50

That is so true. That is so true, that is, and that is a lived experience of my own and my clients that that has happened. But what you think right now when you think of that is, oh my gosh, like I don't want to change my friends because I felt that way too, but actually what you find is you make space for even more beautiful things.

Tamsin Broster: 16:08

That really really meet you where you are and you have deeper conversations that are so enriching to your life. You didn't even know you needed them, but you've got to go through that space, that place. But it's important to understand that your boundaries can change and that your boundaries can develop with you.

Fatima Bey: 16:26

Yes, and if you have people who are mature enough and care about you enough, they'll respect your new boundaries and they'll keep chugging along with you. And that happens too. But I say that because sometimes people are like, yes, I'm going to put up new boundaries, I'm going to change, but they to be or who you've been, and they might not like change, because they just want to keep the same access to you or keep doing the same things, and you're not with that anymore, and so you move on. What I want to ask you also, tamsen, is we talk about support, and support is actually really important, but I'm also fully aware that there are a lot of young women in the world who don't have support.

Fatima Bey: 17:13

That's the reality. Their family sucks. No one actually is supportive of each other. They don't communicate, they don't show that they care, they don't show anything. All they do is insult you and walk away. That's a reality for some people. It shouldn't be, but I don't like talking about ideals. I like talking about reality, because that's where people live. So for a woman who's in that situation and she's like I need to build confidence. You're right. What does she do?

Tamsin Broster: 17:40

This again is about coming home to yourself. You are absolutely right, not everybody has this magical support network, which is why I said in the beginning that there is so much privilege attached to some of the things that I'm talking about. But if you don't have that because that is a really really good point and a really big reality for so many women it's about how you manage your own nervous system and how you manage how your body processes the things that are happening to you, the things that are said to you, the things that go against how you feel or don't make you feel good about yourself. And you know, reminding yourself that just because somebody says something to you doesn't make it true. And this is where, like you can, you will probably have those thoughts.

Tamsin Broster: 18:26

Like we know that our inner critic and that nagging voice in our head that tells us we're not good enough is actually based on other people's perceptions and the things that has been said to us all of our lives. And so many women will get into their sort of forties and fifties They've got this like nagging voice and they don't know where it comes from. When we really kind of drill down to it, it's like actually they heard that as a child that was said to them growing up and they've kind of reinforced it and it sounds like their own voice, but it's not their own voice and it's about separating that. When you watch that coming up, when you hear that voice coming up when that person's not with you but you're, you know, on your own or you're in a situation where, um, your self-doubt creeps in, it's remembering that that thought is not fact and that you know, and actually I like to call it like my shitty committee, like if that committee in your brain is gathering and it's having a little moment where it's like, yeah, not good enough, I like to argue back and I'm like, yeah, you know what, I hear what you're saying, because your inner critic really likes to be heard.

Tamsin Broster: 19:26

But then go back to it and say, but I don't agree with you, I don't agree with you, that I'm not good enough, and like, actually, you know, almost argue it like it's separate, separate it from yourself. It's not you, it's other people's opinions. And yeah, really you know. But it's always a good idea to just say I hear what you're saying because it likes to be heard, but I know you don't have to agree with it.

Fatima Bey: 19:56

That is actually one of my, my, my coaching tools. Yeah, having people talk back to the bitch in your head, oh yeah, and I have them curse them out or it depends on the person, because everybody's not the same but but they have them talk back to those negative thoughts and um, and you know, and I give them other tools along with it. It's not just that, but but that is a piece of it, and you're exactly right because it does work if you want to say, because every time you do that, you're not only stopping the voice, but you are actually building your own confidence, because you can speak back the positive things in rebuttal to it, and that matters.

Fatima Bey: 20:41

Do you also think for young women? Because I do believe that we as human beings need other humans, whether we like it or not, whether we want to believe it or not, and we all need some kind of support. I don't care who you are, I don't care how strong you are. We all need some kind of support. Do you think online communities are a good idea for a young woman who's got literally no support, has no humans that she knows she can talk to or go to? Is it a good idea for her to find an online community where she might find some support.

Tamsin Broster: 21:06

Yes, if that community feels safe to you. Yes, 100%. I have a lot of support around me and I still use online communities for, again, very specific things. I run an online community for menopause and having that safe space where people can come and ask the questions that they can't talk about with their partner, they can't talk about with their friends maybe they're not going through the same things but it's about finding the right places where you feel that you can actually be heard and supported in the right way, whatever that might be to you, and sometimes it's like about kissing a few frogs and getting it right or getting it wrong. Don't be afraid to really use that. But I really think online communities are a great way of connecting with people all over the world to sort of support yourself. A great way of connecting with people all over the world to sort of support yourself 100%. If you've got access to that, definitely I think that's a brilliant idea.

Fatima Bey: 22:00

The reason I mentioned that is that most people in the world do have access to that one form or another, even if it's just a Facebook group. You know, Facebook is not that popular anymore, but it is in certain parts of the world and it's still one of the best places for groups.

Tamsin Broster: 22:09

Yeah, I would say I would agree with that. The best places for groups?

Fatima Bey: 22:11

Yeah, I would say it's one of the best places for groups.

Fatima Bey: 22:13

So, you can always find a group of things that you like, that you can find and I'm talking to the young women that are out there right now. You can find groups of people that are like you or that you agree with, you have things in common with, or that are just supportive period. You do have to search for them. You got to play around in their comments, see what people are talking about. But even if you live in a third world country and you have limited data, a Facebook group doesn't take up that much data typically. So that's also what I'm thinking about.

Fatima Bey: 22:48

What about people who aren't in Western countries like ours? What about somebody who's in the mountains of Mongolia and she's got limited data but she really wants to reach out to somebody who might understand her, get that signal and get over there? But it's an easy way to do it if you don't have the people around you that you need, and there's always a way to find support. Sometimes, when we think there isn't, we don't try, and then that's why we don't get it. So what do you have to say to young women in the world? I want you to talk to teenage girls all around the world right now.

Tamsin Broster: 23:30

What would you like to say to them I want you to know and understand fully, like literally take a minute right now and just drop into your body, and I want you to understand, like to welcome yourself home, because we live so disconnected from our bodies.

Tamsin Broster: 23:49

We are so kind of in our head thinking about what we're going to do, what we're going to change what we should be, how we're going to make sure that it's human nature to stay part of the pack and to be included and to be the same as everybody else, because we want to make sure that we are safe. But I want you to regularly drop into your body and welcome yourself home, because this is the only home you will ever have and how you treat that home is going to be how great your life is. If you can just treat your body. Don't worry about what it looks like, not worrying about not. Everybody's body is going to feel the same. We're all born with different kind of. We're all born into like different bodies with different things. But it's just coming home to yourself and just recognizing that that is the place you get to live for your whole life. You're only going to get that one body.

Fatima Bey: 24:40

That is a very good way of looking at it, instead of trying to escape from it or doing every kind of plastic surgery or other alterations to try to make it look like something or not. It doesn't take care of the inside, which is who's really suffering.

Tamsin Broster: 24:56

So, tamsyn how do they find you? I tend to hang out on Instagram and on LinkedIn. I have a website. You can find me. Just Google my name, Tamsyn Broster. It's quite unique, so I tend to come up in the search.

Fatima Bey: 25:12

It will also be linked in the show notes.

Tamsin Broster: 25:14

Yeah, sure, yeah. That's how you find me. That's where I hang out.

Fatima Bey: 25:18

So I want to let you all know that Tamsyn only gave you a tiny, tiny, tiny, teeny, tiny, tiny drop of all that she's capable of doing and her full knowledge and what she does for other people. You only heard a teeny, teeny, tiny drop. So if you want to hear more, she has a lot more to say and she does dive into this stuff a lot deeper. We just don't. You know, we'd have to be here for about 45 years for her to expand on it all. So she does really truly go a lot deeper into these topics. So I strongly advise that you go take a look at her website and get to know her a little better. Follow her on social media, but she's got a lot to say that, I think, would really that would really help most of the women in the world if you want to take the time to listen. So thank you again, tamsen, for coming on.

Tamsin Broster: 26:06

Thank you for having me.

Fatima Bey: 26:08

And now for a mind shifting moment. Young women, old women, all women, building our self-confidence is not easy. It's easy for us to tell you that you need to be stronger, that you need to be more positive, that you need to believe in yourself stronger, that you need to be more positive, that you need to believe in yourself. Although all that's true, it's easy for us to say we do understand it's not so much easy to do, but it can be done. Both Tamsen and I care very deeply about you, young women, old women, old women, all women. We want to see you win. We want to see you win.

Fatima Bey: 26:57

Start that journey today of trying to build your self-confidence. It is not magical, it is not automatic. You just have to start trying. You can start trying today, by reaching out to Tamsen or reaching out to myself or someone near you, to start building yourself and believing in yourself. It will change your entire life. Every single area of your life right now is less than being held back because of your lack of confidence. Start working on that today. We want to see you win. We really want to see you win. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe to MindShift Power Podcast on any of our worldwide platforms, so you, too, can be a part of the conversation that's changing young lives everywhere. And always remember there's power in shifting your thinking.