Confidence, or lack of, can create internal blocks that can hold us back in all areas of our life, from career to relationships to business.
One of these areas is as an entrepreneur. We NEED that confidence to push ourselves out there, to increase our visibility and to get those sales.
So, if our confidence levels aren’t where we would like them to be, what can we do to improve them?
Here are 3 ways you can boost your self-confidence…
1) Affirmations
In the personal development field, affirmations are the bread and butter tool and rightly so. Affirmations, done over time, can not only hack our sub-conscious to believe those affirmations, they also help to re-wire the neural pathways in our brain through something called neuroplasticity.
Affirmations are phrases that are very positive. You say them to yourself each day, morning and night (and through the day too) to begin changing our sub-conscious mind. You see, our subconscious can’t differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t, that’s why we have such huge reactions when we totally get into a movie, our rational conscious mind is bypassed.
One trick when you’re creating your affirmations is to say them in a process style rather than an ‘as it is’ style. For example, instead of saying “I am confident”, use “I am becoming more each day”. This helps bypass the part of your brain that questions. If you use “I am confident” your mind could reply to itself saying “Really???”, but the process way of wording the affirmations can help stop that and become much more effective.
2) Visualisations
Once you start using affirmations you will begin noticing a difference in your confidence level but when you add visualisation to your toolbox it’ll be like your growth is on steroids!
Visualisation is used a lot in professional sports where the athletes visualise themselves performing amazingly. You’ll see this if you have ever seen the movie ‘Cool Running’. Remember the story about the Jamaican bobsled team? There’s one scene in the movie where the lead guy is sitting in the bath, eyes closed, visualising going down the bobsled track. He did this many many times so when he actually went down the track, in reality, all his movements would be automatic like having muscle-memory.
The more times you visualise these scenarios, the more confident you will become because you will be SO used to doing them.
3) Small steps
Steps 1 and 2 will boost your confidence levels SO much but you have to remember that it won’t be an overnight change, you have to take small steps.
When trying to take huge steps on your road to success, things can become overwhelming and our defence mechanisms kick in to protect us. These take the shape of fear, self-talk telling yourself how bad this is and not to do it, and procrastination.
But, when you take small steps towards your goal of increased self-confidence, those defence mechanisms hold back and don’t appear.
Remember, every journey begins with that first small step, and all of those small steps become a huge and amazing journey.
