How to Break Through Self-Doubt with Stephanie Gonzalez

Leave Self-Doubt in the Dust

After years of living small and worrying about what other people think, Actress , Fitness Coach, and Podcast Host Stephanie Gonzalez has broken the cycle and created her dream life. Now she wants to help others do the same by providing inspiration and information on how to push past limiting beliefs and step into their best self. 

Stephanie created the brand and podcast Show Up to Go Up to teach others how to be consistent and show up for themselves to achieve anything they want. Her message emphasizes mindset, self-love, and owning your power. 

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Stephanie says she had “a small mindset” and everyone around her growing up had one way of doing life. “They went to high school, went to college, met their significant other, got a good job, had babies. And then that was it and just live for the weekend.” 

That never felt exciting to her. From a young age, Stephanie knew she wanted to be an actress and live in Los Angeles. So, at age 22, she packed up and moved to LA to pursue a career in acting. That’s where she was introduced to fitness and personal development. When LA was no longer where she wanted to be, Stephanie moved to Atlanta, where her life has completely changed for the better. 

Transformation
 
“Last year was really a transformative year for me,” she explains. “I was going through a lot of stress and tension and I just felt really stuck. And I did this book called The Artist’s Way. It’s a 12-week book to unleashing your creativity. Through that experience, I learned so much about all of this resistance that I had inside of me, all of this self-doubt that I had inside of me, all of this fear, all of this pain, all of these things that were holding me back. And finally acknowledging them and giving them space allowed me to make that transition and to step into the life that I have always dreamed of.”
 
Actress, Fitness Coach & Podcast Host Stephanie Gonzalez
Now her focus is on being positive. “What that looks like for me is following what makes me happy and helping others to do the same. As soon as I let go, I booked my biggest acting job that I’ve ever had. As soon as I let go of all of that tension, I started the podcast. I’ve had better relationships. I met the man of my dreams, like all of these crazy things.”
 
Stephanie’s mission is to help others push past their limiting beliefs and their doubts as well.
 
Crush the Limiting Beliefs 
 
One limiting belief that she struggled with was fear of failure. “I never grew up thinking of failure as a good thing,” she says. “I’ve realized through my podcast and my personal development work, that this came from my dad always wanting me to be the best. I was a star athlete when I was younger and I had to be the best on the team, always.”
 
While her father never blatantly said I won’t love you if you’re not the best, she felt “if I failed or if I struck out then I was the worst and I wasn’t good enough.”
 
Stephanie realizes she also wasn’t taking chances. “You have to fail in order to get to where you want to go. And I wasn’t doing that because I was worried that I wasn’t enough if I did fail.”
 
She also struggled with insecurity about herself. Stephanie had difficulty in acting class because she was afraid to have other people watch her. “I was afraid to look bad. That was such a deep-seated fear of mine. I was networking, but it was very half-assed. Basically, I showed up, even though I was fearful.”
 
Although Stephanie didn’t put in a 100 percent effort, just the act of showing up was significant. “Part of the reason why my podcast is called Show Up to Go Up is because even if you show up at a half version of yourself, it’s still going to get you further than not showing up at all.”
 
Just Show Up
 
It wasn’t until she started taking risks and giving her all on auditions that she started booking parts. She has since learned that the right way to approach acting is to be true to herself. “Because you have something that’s special and what you bring to a character and a role is what is really going to set it apart and make you shine,” she explains.
 
Even if you don’t know how you’re going to do something, showing up and having the courage to do it, and trusting that you’ll figure it out and gain confidence as you go, is a big accomplishment, she says. “When I moved to LA, I didn’t know anybody. I only knew my friend, but you know, she knew a couple people and then we knew some people that knew some people. And so eventually we were able to create our own little network in LA as well.”
 
When Stephanie arrived in LA, she also found she kept comparing herself to others. “I would look at someone and I would just immediately be like, that person has that advantage. They’re so much more talented. They’re better than me with every single thing. I was already setting myself up for failure in that way.”
 
A great way to approach that issue, she says, is to pretend you have blinders on. “Be like a horse, a Budweiser horse, just look forward and do me.”
 
Invest in Yourself
 
Stephanie says she wouldn’t be where she is today if she didn’t continually invest in herself. “If you do invest in yourself, just imagine where you’ll go,” she muses. “I like having coaches that can help guide you and that believe in you, especially in the beginning. These coaches and mentors that I had, I borrowed my belief in myself from them. The first time that I ever heard ‘I am enough,’ it came from one of my mentors.”   
 
When starting out on a career path, Stephanie says having a mentor, who is on your side and knows the path, is incredibly helpful because they can guide you and believe in you.
 
For anyone who is struggling with any sort of doubts, Stephanie says it’s important to know that your voice matters. “Yes, there might be things that you want to do that are already out in the world, but they haven’t been done by you.”
 
“You have a unique perspective that only you can share with the world,” Stephanie says. “I want to encourage you to just go for it, knowing that it’ll get easier as you do it. When you challenge yourself, you grow, you gain confidence. It just starts with taking that first little bit of action.”
 
Be Unstoppable!
– Tori