Confidence: A necessary skill for entrepreneurs _ Part 3

This is a 3-part series on building confidence for entrepreneurs. In this last article in the serie, I share with you the third step in building your confidence. 

At this stage, you may be convinced at the necessity to build and grow your confidence for the sake of yourself and your business. Or, you may still be wondering why building confidence is so important for entrepreneurs.

Allow me to summarize, confidence is what allows you to risk more, to boldly pitch your business to a doubtful crowd, to courageously walk up to anyone to introduce yourself, to lead and influence others with conviction and assertiveness, to price your offer (services and ∕or products) at a price that represents your true value, to close that business deal, to stand up for yourself during hard negotiations... Need I go on?

A word of caution: do not confuse confidence with cockiness, selfishness and a lack of compassion or empathy. 

If I haven’t been able to sway you on the importance of confidence with the first two parts of this serie, maybe this third and last part will.

In the first article of this serie, I offered you the first step into building confidence: developing self-discipline. In this second article, I presented you with the second step: accountability. In this third article, we’re talking about habits.

Habits are more than a buzzword

Habits is a very popular buzzword and the number of books published on the subject proves the need for people to not only understand “habits” but to also learn to reap the benefits from implementing them.

Because let’s face it: if you’re going to put in the effort of building a new habit, you want it to stick but most importantly, you want it to deliver the desired results.

What would be the point of getting into the habit of working out and eating healthy if you don’t look and feel better?

But habits are more than a buzzword. Habits are rituals and behaviors that we perform automatically, without giving them much thought.

This gets interesting when we consider that according to Duke University researchers, 40% of what we do is out of habit. 

Astounding.

If you think about it (no pun intended), 40% of your daily actions, you don’t even think about, you simply do them. 

Habits are powerful because they dictate almost half of your decisions.

If you want to control the outcome of your business, if you want better results, if you want to increase your sales and if you want to become a better leader, then you need to pay close attention to your habits.

Habits that build confidence 

Since habits are crucial to our success, I’m sharing with you the top 3 habits I recommend all my clients implement to build a strong foundation of confidence to reach their business and leadership goals.

Habit 1: Self-assessment

One of the reasons people lose confidence in themselves or lose trust in their ability to achieve certain goals and milestones is they lose sight of their skills and their strengths.

Understanding your strengths, your weaknesses and your vision will help you establish a solid foundation for your confidence to grow.

If we’re being honest, how much do you know about yourself?

You might know what your food preferences are and the kind of people you like to hang around with but can you accurately make a list of all your strengths, abilities, skills and weaknesses?

Developing a strong habit of self-assessment will allow you to operate from a place of confidence as you will be relying on what you know is true for you. 

I encourage you to self-assess once a week, say on Friday at the end of your workday or Saturday morning as you sit quietly with a cup of coffee or tea.

Take out a piece of paper and list all your strengths, abilities, skills and weaknesses then proceed to reviewing your week.

Take note of what you’ve accomplished and where you may have fallen short. 

Subjectively look at how you used your strengths, skills and abilities to succeed at certain tasks.

If you are not satisfied with the assessment of your week, do not beat yourself up. Simply make a plan of action for the following week. 

By acknowledging your strengths, your abilities and your skills, you are less likely to fall prey to the imposter syndrome because you’ll know exactly what you are capable of.

Habit 2: choose different thoughts

The second habit I encourage you to develop is the habit of choosing a different thought.

What eats away at our confidence is most often what you think of yourself and how you judge yourself.

Whenever you catch yourself saying something negative or unhelpful, or when you are putting yourself down, change that thought right away.

Here are some examples:

When you catch yourself saying:

• I’ll never figure this out!
• There is no good solution here
• People will never buy from me. I suck at sales.

Instead say:

• Who could help me figure this out
• What are all my options here? 
• How could I improve my sales’ skills?

Changing how you speak to yourself will allow you to see opportunities where before, it was bleak.

You can’t do anything with a statement such as “I suck at sales”. But you can do alot with “How can I improve my sales skills”.

This opens up a world of possibilities: improving your marketing skills, your online selling skills, your cold calling or cold emailing skills, your pitching skills or even your offer itself. 

Habit 3 _ Just say no

One thing very successful and confident people are good at is saying no!

They say no to everything and anything that doesn’t fall into their priority categories. 

They value their time, their money and their resources and they only spend those valuable assets on what benefits them and is aligned with what they value.

Everything else is a no.

There are lots of reasons why we say yes but most of them have to do with the fact that most of us were brought up believing that saying no was rude. 

Yes, feels nice. It is pleasant. It is agreeable. And everyone likes a yes.

A no, is not as popular.

Here are 3 tips that will help you develop the habit of saying no:

1. Know why you are saying no.

Saying no just for the sake of being disagreeable won’t get you closer to your goal or build your confidence. Know why you are saying no.

2. Share your goals with those who make the greatest requests on your time and energy.

Let people know what you are up to, what you are working on and why it’s important for you to be doing this work. Ask for their help in reaching those goals. 

3. Remember that you teach people how to treat you

If you don’t value your time, your energy and your resources, no one else will.

As you implement these new habits, pay close attention to how they impact your level of confidence.

Notice how the habit of self-assessment allows you to acknowledge all that you are good at, regardless of exterior circumstances; notice how the habit of choosing different thoughts allows you to see opportunities instead of dead ends; notice how the habit of saying no allows you to set boundaries and manage your priorities.

If you want to learn how to build your confidence so you can double your business, lead others with influence and walk into any situation with assertiveness then join my online training course THE CONFIDENCE LAB. Click HERE to read the reviews from other entrepreneurs who joined the LAB.

To your success

Elo?se