This is a guest post written by Rich Schefren. You can connect with him and get more strategic business tips like this on facebook.
If you exuded confidence…
Could you make more sales?
Could you get more strategic partners?
Could you have better relationships?
Personally, I’ve never met a successful entrepreneur or guru in the market who didn’t have self-confidence. And if you don’t feel like the most confident person in the world, then you need to work on at least appearing self-confident.
All of the most successful marketers and entrepreneurs that I know personally share one thing in common. That includes Jay Abraham… Michael Masterson… Clayton Makepeace… Dan Kennedy… John Carlton… and myself.
It’s such a vital component to your success in your business that I encourage you to take some time to work on this.
I’m talking about self-confidence and I have three simple, but highly effective, techniques that can help.
These are important to do because when you’re operating with a healthy sense of self-confidence, it gives you an incredible edge in your business. It makes you more attractive in all your relationships. It creates a better overall feeling in your life.
So let’s dive in and get to it…
The “Greatest Hits” of… YOU!
The first technique I’m going to tell you about is extremely powerful. But it takes a little persistence and work.
I want you to start what’s called a “Victory Journal.”
If you’re already keeping a journal, you don’t need a separate one. Maybe put these entries in a separate color ink or different color font or note them with a highlighter so that you can spot them easily.
What do you write in your victory journal? Quite a bit.
- Any time you have done something well (not perfectly – in fact, if you’re prone to procrastination, you may want to note any progress you’ve made on any project you’ve been procrastinating on)…
- Any time you’ve done something for the first time…
- Any time you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone…
Anytime you do any of these you should record it and congratulate yourself for it in your journal. The longer you do that, the more confidence you will build because you’re constantly reminding yourself that you actually are better than you’re giving yourself credit for.
Now you could add to those entries by going back in time and recalling certain times and places where you’ve had specific successes in the past.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s related to business or not. They could have to do with education; your career, family, hobbies and sports; learning new things – whatever.
Write them in your journal.
Listing out successes so that you can quickly review them from time to time is a really powerful thing. That’s because most of us experience many more successes than we can call to our mind at any given moment.
And when you’re feeling like a failure, you usually can’t recall any past successes.
So if we collect these stories about our triumphs, they can be extremely powerful as concrete reminders of what we’re truly capable of doing.
Take Your Past To Rockstar Rehab
Another place you can start working to build self-confidence is with your memories.
There are memories that you carry around with you like emotional baggage. You pick them up and lug them with you everywhere you go.
These are usually memories from your past when things didn’t go right… when problems happened, etc.
And you keep dragging them around like a ton of bricks for no other reason than you never thought the fact through that they really don’t serve you.
Realize that your memory is not really designed to take accurate depictions of the past. That’s not what the human memory is for.
You have the ability to go back in time and “reframe” what past incidents really meant. You can consciously decide they didn’t mean whatever you originally assigned to them. Whatever meaning that’s now preventing you, blocking you, hurting your confidence in yourself.
One of the most basic examples is reframing a failure as a learning opportunity (assuming, of course, you took some positive feedback away from it.)
If you were late for an appointment, it might have been because you were helping a friend who needed you at the moment. There can always be a positive associated with a negative. So basically, reframing past misses is a powerful way of clearing out the baggage.
Now You Can Make Swagger A Habit
Taking action and making it a habit is the last technique I want to share. This one is not easy but it’s very powerful.
Make it a habit to do something each day that you would prefer not to do.
It might be picking up the phone and having that difficult conversation with someone.
It might be taking an action inside your business that you’ve been putting off.
It might be shutting off the Internet or television for an hour or two a day while you focus on doing something important.
Whatever it is, it should be something that – left to your own devices – you probably wouldn’t do.
My biggest concern is that there might be some of you reading right now who think that you’re not affected by a lack of self-confidence. That this conversation doesn’t apply to you. I am positive that it does.
The reason I am positive, is because a lack of confidence affects everybody in different ways. Every successful entrepreneur has had to overcome these feelings and self-doubts.
It’s not as if you succeed at something once and suddenly they all go away. In fact, for some entrepreneurs, success can be just as dangerous. They taste some small amount of success then get so scared of losing it that they shift from confident to a lack of confidence.
I truly believe it would be of great value to every one of you to think about this. Really start to explore deep-down your level of confidence. Explore it, in your ability to succeed in the business you’re growing and the goals you’re pursuing.
Lack Of Self Confidence Is Costing You
Understand that any twinges of doubt are costing you more than you realize. They’re costing you in terms of your performance. They’re costing you in your ability to get others to believe in you and work with you and help you succeed.
They cost you in your willingness to jump in and get things done. They cost you in so many ways.
After reading this, you now have two important things going for you.
- First you understand the costs associated with a lack of self-confidence.
- And second you have the tools you need to counteract them and boost your self-confidence.
Here’s Your Roadmap To Rockstar Confidence
1. Start to record your victories (and even going back and writing down some of your past victories)
2. Reframe any memories in the past you think may really be dragging you down
3. Step outside your comfort zone on a daily basis.
Don’t wait! Take action right now and start building your rockstar self-confidence.
Tell me one victory you did today in the comments below.
About the author: Rich Schefren is the Rockstar behind Strategic Profits and has built three other multi-million dollar businesses over the past 20 years. If you got something out of this article… check out Rich’s blog at StrategicProfits.com
