Nel Flint Mentor

Corporate life really is just all of us speaking in weird little coded phrases pretending this is completely normal behaviour…

“ let’s park that”
“Touch base”
“Circling back”

Meanwhile, everyone knows;

The meeting should have been an email
Nobody wants a meeting about the meeting
And Dave, no one is circling back at 4:59pm on Friday

Anyway, add your worst ones on the comments because the replies to my stories have kept me entertained this week 🤍

You don’t lack confidence.
You’ve been conditioned to doubt yourself and somehow call it ‘being professional’.

You edit all your emails.
You politely wait your turn.
And every time you think ‘for f***s sake…’
You let it pass.

Meanwhile someone less qualified, less experienced thanks you is stumbling through it and getting all the credit.

👍🏼 cool.

The tweaks I teach are simple.
Not easy.

So slide in to my DMs and I’ll guide you from there.

I used to think I needed to be more confident at work.

Turns out…
I just needed to stop doing half the things on this list.

Because none of them feel like self-sabotage when you’re in it.
They feel sensible. Because we’ve heard them allllll our lives:

“Don’t interrupt”
“Just wait your turn”
“Make sure it’s right first”

👍🏻 yeah… that’ll do it.

Meanwhile Dave’s said something half-formed, completely inaccurate and somehow THAT’S the idea everyone runs with 🙄

Make it make sense.

So yeah, it’s not that you’re lacking confidence, you’re just very, very good at waiting and then wondering why you’re not being heard.

So we’re going to try this:

Say it before you’ve perfected it
Go before you’ve fully convinced yourself
Stop assuming everyone else has got it more figured out than you

Because they haven’t
they’re just quicker to open their mouth

Which one are you still doing? Tell me and I’ll DM you a tip to help you. Love you, bye.

I don’t need more time.
I don’t need more confidence.
I don’t need another “right moment”.

I needed to stop chatting absolute s**t to myself.

I’ve had a “before 50” Nel’s list floating around my head for years.
You know the one…
sounds great, makes you feel like a person with hobbies and depth… but never actually happens.

So a few weeks ago, I picked one and just got on with it.

Wild sauna. Cold plunge. Questionable life choices for a Friday night!

Confidence won’t magically appear from thinking about doing things.
It comes from doing slightly uncomfortable things
and realising you didn’t die.

Revolutionary, I know.

If you’re sat there thinking
“I’ll do that when I’ve got more time / energy / confidence…”

Respectfully… you won’t.

Not because you can’t.
Because you’ve got into the habit of not going first.

So change the habit.

Pick one thing.
Do it this week.
You don’t need a perfect plan.

Just go.
Done is better than perfect.

Love you bye 😍

Here’s a …. After 25+ years in corporate jobs you start to notice the patterns 🙄

Some are practical
Some are survival tactics
Some are the things everyone knows but nobody officially writes them down

I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
What are you going to add?

Bloody love how my brain treats a quiet Sunday morning like an organisational crisis.

Sat down with a coffee.
Brain “Excellent. Let’s review everything that has ever existed…”

Women don’t relax.
We simply relocate our stress to a horizontal position 😳

Tell me the most ridiculous thoughts you have when you try to switch off 👇🏻

Midlife corporate women don’t lack ambition.
We lack patience.

For lazy advice.
For coded language.
For being managed emotionally instead of respected professionally.

The ridiculous bit?

Most of this is still said with a straight face.

Which one have you heard most?
Let’s compare notes.

Hi. I live here again.

2026 has been QUIET on here because 👉🏻
New job = full brain consumption.
The lurgy that everyone has had on repeat 😷
Back to back swim comps (I should probably just move to the pool)

Anyway.
I’m not high maintenance.

I just want:
• to finish a sentence
• to not be the team therapist
• a pension that isn’t built on hope
• and a daily silly little overpriced coffee as compensation

See? Very calm. Very reasonable.

Add one to the list. Let’s compare notes. 👀

Most confidence advice was written
as if women enter work on a level playing field.

They don’t.

This isn’t about mindset hacks.
It’s about understanding what actually shaped your self-belief and then learning how to work with it, not fight it.

If this hit home save it.
If it stung a bit… we should probably talk 👀

You don’t wake up one day and “lose confidence”.

You get tired of nodding along to things that don’t make sense. Targets that sound impressive but aren’t realistic. Plans that come with loads of energy and very little substance.

That FFS, I can’t do this again feeling? That’s usually the moment you stop trusting your boss, not yourself.

And half the work isn’t finding better words. It’s backing yourself enough to ask the questions you’re already thinking.

If this hit, you’re not alone. And if you want support actually saying this stuff out loud (and dealing with what comes next), that’s exactly what we work on in The Confidence Collective.

Which slide felt a bit too familiar? 👀