5 Strategies To Release Self-Doubt
Every entrepreneur has areas of weakness. For women there can be an added stress to rise above stereotypes and gender bias – to show no weakness and strive for perfection. The pressure to succeed can be overwhelming – especially with real-world concerns to complicate the mix, like maintaining a roof over your head and balancing family responsibilities.
Moments of self-doubt are a natural part of the journey. The key is to ensure these feelings don’t undermine your business and get you completely off-track. I call them the 3 distractions – 1) worry, 2) doubt and 3) fear. It’s important to cultivate an approach to these feelings that you can use when they arise.
Here are a 5 strategies to help keep you on-track:
Be honest. Ask yourself if what you’re worrying about is true in this moment. Differentiate between what’s real and what thoughts you have merely been holding onto to support an underlying fear.
Face all that you have been avoiding. Open ALL of your mail. Follow-up on all leads and return calls. A business is a living, breathing entity, just as we are. Both require positive and dedicated attention. The energy of moving things forward can be a powerful, game-changing force.
Address your weaknesses. Continuously seek out new resources and opportunities to strengthen your game in those areas where you need to grow. Find a mentor, take a class, hire a coach. Make sure you get the help you need. Invest in your success.
Reward yourself with activities that replenish your energy. All work and no play make Jane a dull, burned-out girl. Rest and renew yourself, then you’ll have the creative energy and brain-power to get back to work and generate new ideas.
Don’t be discouraged simply because it’s hard. Remember the saying about the stone cutter who hammered away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it split in two. It was not the last blow that did it, but all that had come before. So never give up.
The beauty of entrepreneurship is we often are engaged in something no one has done before – at least not the way we do it. We are trend-setters and innovators. And being a woman entrepreneur, in some fields we may find ourselves as the “first” or one of few in our midsts. So when thoughts or feelings arise that cause you to feel overwhelmed, take a deep breath, exhale, then label them as a distractions, stand in the power of your vision, and continue with your day.
I wish you much peace and success on your journey.
Sheila Dianne Jackson is a Writer-Producer and Entrepreneur.