Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you believe something has to be a certain way?

Sometimes the “rules” we live by have been with us for so long that we don’t even recognize them as rules anymore. They just feel like facts. This is how success works. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is what someone like me can (or can’t) do.

But… who made that rule?

That question came up in my conversation with SL Gillespie, and honestly, I love it. Because this conversation may have started with golf and confidence, but it quickly became about something much bigger: the stories we carry, the way fear influences our choices, and what can happen when we start questioning the beliefs we’ve accepted as truth.

You Can't Criticize Yourself Into Confidence

One of the things SL and I kept coming back to is the way women talk to ourselves. We can be incredibly supportive and encouraging to the women around us and, at the same time, ruthless with ourselves.

And if criticism were really the secret to success, wouldn’t we all be millionaires by now?

Confidence doesn't come from beating ourselves up until we finally get everything right. It grows when we start noticing what we're telling ourselves, questioning whether it's actually true, and giving ourselves room to try, learn, adjust, and try again.

When Fear Sounds Like Common Sense

Fear isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it sounds incredibly reasonable.

Maybe I should wait. Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I need to know more first. Maybe someone else is better qualified. Maybe this just isn't something people like me do.

That's what makes those old beliefs so powerful. We can mistake them for logic instead of recognizing that fear may be quietly making the decision.

SL sees this play out on the golf course, where women can feel intimidated before they ever swing a club. But the confidence women build there doesn't stay on the course. Learning to take up space, try something new, recover from a bad shot, and keep going can ripple into business, relationships, and the rest of our lives.

Changing More Than the Thought

We also talked about EFT, commonly called tapping, which SL uses in her coaching. It's a tool designed to help calm the nervous system while working with the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that may be keeping us stuck.

I especially loved this part of our conversation because sometimes we KNOW something intellectually and still can't seem to act on it. Our brains may understand that we're safe, capable, and ready, while another part of us is still responding to an old story.

That's why changing the words in our heads isn't always enough.

This conversation went in all kinds of wonderful directions... golf, intuition, joy, confidence, success, fear, tapping, and the rules we've picked up along the way. But I think so much of it comes back to one beautifully simple question:

Who made that rule?

And maybe, once we realize the answer isn't us, we get to make a new one.