Is Lack Of Confidence Your Biggest Enemy?

by Dr. Vesna Grubacevic

Do you lack the confidence to make decisions in your business and to follow them through? Are you finding it difficult to communicate, network or promote your business? Would you like to have the confidence to start or grow the business that you are passionate about?

What is Confidence?

Confidence is a positive emotion, which reflects our level of self belief. Lack of confidence can be our biggest enemy because without confidence we can hold ourselves back from doing what we really want in order to achieve our business goals, vision and desired lifestyle. The greater our belief in ourselves, the greater is our level of confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Take a moment to sit down and consider your beliefs about people and being around people, as well as your beliefs about yourself and participating fully in business and in life. Write down all the emotions, thoughts and self talk that come to mind. Then look at this list and notice whether your emotions, thoughts and beliefs are empowering you or limiting you.

It is also useful to have more effective strategies for accessing confidence. Because all our memories have emotions attached to them, any time we want to feel a certain way all we need to do is to remember the last time we felt that way and we will feel the emotion attached to that memory. So to feel confidence right now all you need to do is to remember a time in the past when you felt confidence, and you will feel it now. This is much easier once any negative emotions and limiting beliefs are resolved.

Confidence versus Competence

Sometimes we can confuse confidence with competence. Confidence relates to the belief we have about ourselves and our abilities, while competence relates to our skills. Both confidence and competence are important for success in business and in life. One without the other may compromise our level of success.

For example, a business owner may have great competence/skills in their industry, yet their lack of confidence may prevent them from making calls, prospecting, networking or asking prospects for their business. Alternatively, a business owner may have enormous confidence and meet lots of people, yet may lack the competence to turn their prospects into customers or may spend far too much time in unproductive meetings.

Skills can be learnt, and competence can be developed, more easily when confidence is present. Highly successful business owners agree that most of their success is largely due to their strong levels of confidence and self belief.

Commitment and Confidence

The more confidence you have, the more committed you will be to yourself and your business. In the face of challenges, your confidence and self belief will assist you to conquer any challenge with determination. When faced with obstacles, rather than giving up you will see these as an opportunity to show your commitment to yourself and your business.

If you notice you have self doubts, negative self talk, putting yourself down, being indecisive, questioning your decisions, these can all reflect limiting beliefs. Left unaddressed, these limiting beliefs can sabotage business success, as we discussed in our winter edition of Business Transformations. On the other hand, if you find that you are getting frustrated by how much time you spend networking and in meetings with prospects, customers and referral partners (and with little results), it may be a sign that it is time to fine tune your people, influencing and self promotion skills.

How you too can boost your confidence and skills when promoting yourself and your business…. so you can attract more customers, grow your business, lead others to excellence and start/grow your business in helping others.