To be a successful business owner, your talents, skills and hard work aren’t enough. You also need to be confident and believe in what you’re doing.
When you lack confidence, you’re more likely to wait for the perfect time to do something. The perfect time to launch a new product, the perfect time to reach out to potential customers, the perfect time to raise your prices. Unfortunately, we’ve got some bad news for you. Perfect time doesn’t exist.
Confident business owners understand the value they offer and trust that others will recognise that value too. They don’t play safe and aren’t scared of making mistakes.
If you’re wondering how to be more confident, we’ve got some tips for you.
Find out the root cause of your insecurities
Lack of confidence and self-doubt don’t come out of the blue. There are many factors that can contribute to insecurities, including traumatic events, recent experiences of failure or rejection, critical family members or friends or even perfectionism. Once you know the root cause of your insecurities, it’s so much easier to address them.
For example, if a recent failure or rejection is making you feel unworthy, you might simply need some time to heal, evaluate the situation and explore the ways you can overcome that feeling. If anyone who’s close to you is very critical towards you, including your appearance, personality or what you do (whether it’s your business, hobby or any other decision you make), it could be a great idea to rethink your relationships. Remember, you need to put your well-being first, even if it means distancing yourself from a family member or a friend. And if your insecurities are caused by some past traumas, it’s best you consider therapy. It can be a difficult step to take, but working with a professional is way more beneficial than trying to heal on your own.
Stop comparing yourself to others
You might be looking at other business owners and how much they’ve already achieved even though you started around the same time. This can definitely make you feel insecure and wonder what you’re doing wrong.
However, everyone’s situation is different and you can’t see what is happening behind the scenes of their business. Someone who launched their business at the same time as you might have been working on it for many years before the launch. Someone might live with parents and have all the time in their hands while you have to take care of your family and run a business on the side of your full-time job before you earn enough money to quit.
Also, there isn’t one right way to run a business. What worked for someone else, might not work for you. This means you need to find your own strategy, even if it comes with making some mistakes along the way.
Comparing yourself to others won’t get you anywhere. Compare your current self to your past self. This will actually help you see how much you have achieved.
Take a moment to celebrate your achievements
Sometimes we get so busy trying to achieve our goals that we forget to look back at what we’ve already accomplished. However, if you don’t take that time to evaluate yourself, you might not even notice how much you’ve done and how much you’ve grown since the beginning of your journey.
Taking a moment to celebrate those achievements can help you realise how proud you should be and boost your confidence as a business owner.
Focus on the future
Thinking about the past and the mistakes you’ve made earlier on in your journey can not only be time-consuming but also make you more insecure. It’s important to let go of those mistakes and simply think of them as lessons that helped you improve.
The best way of doing this is to focus on the future. Create a plan, set achievable goals and work towards them. For many people having a plan gives a feeling of security and comfort. Knowing where you want to be in the future and what exactly you need to do helps you concentrate on things that are actually important instead of overthinking the mistakes you’ve made in the past.
Continue to grow and improve
The more you know, the more confident you become! Lack of knowledge and experience can make you shy and insecure or even lead to imposter syndrome (by the way, did you know that 85% of British workers suffer from it?!)
While you do learn a lot while running a business, sometimes you need to take time to improve yourself even further. Attending industry events, working with a business advisor or taking some courses are all great ways to gain important skills needed to take your business to the next level as well as achieve personal growth. Once you gain that knowledge, you will feel way more confident facing challenges.
So why don’t you check our courses? Our Growth Programme is perfect for those who want to make a difference to their organisation by developing a new route to market, identifying your goals, maximising your marketing and more. Find out more here. If you have a team you need to manage or planning on expanding in the future, you will benefit from out Leadership & Management Programme. Discover the key concepts and aims associated with leadership and develop techniques and strategies to empower, steward and support highly engaged teams.
Network with other business owners
Attending networking events has many different benefits. It allows you to meet new like-minded people, find potential clients, partners or suppliers. It also lets you exchange ideas, feel inspired and gather some industry news. If that wasn’t enough, it also helps you boost your confidence!
If you’re only starting up or even if you’ve been trading for a while, you might feel shy when meeting new people or even try to avoid social situations. The best way to change it is by putting yourself out there. By networking regularly and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you can ‘learn’ how to enjoy meeting new people and feel more confident.
Moreover, having conversations with other business owners will help you realise that everyone has their own challenges. No matter how much someone’s achieved, there is a lot of hard work, mistakes and lessons hiding behind that success.
