Forcing Yourself to Believe in Yourself

March 11, 2015 by Christine

Have you ever felt like you aren’t qualified or capable of running a successful business? Throughout my career I’ve seen so many business owners that could have achieved even greater levels of success if they’d just had a little bit more confidence in their abilities.

The thing is, none of us start off a business feeling like we’re completely capable of turning it into a success — it’s just something you sort of pick up along the way. The ones that do succeed, though, understand that there are ways you can set yourself up for success so that believing in yourself becomes a whole lot easier.

Here are a few ways you can overcome your self-doubt as an entrepreneur:

• Adjust your mindset. Fear and excitement tend to produce the same kind of physical reaction. The jitters, the butterflies in your stomach — rather than
  

  At Viral Solutions, we understand the trials and tribulations that many new owners of small businesses face in the early going. The commitment of time and resources that is necessary at the outset can leave many business owners frustrated or exhausted. We’ve experienced this ourselves in our own business operations, so we know just how unpleasant it is and how it can come close to crushing the motivation you had that led you to start the business in the first place.

  interpreting that as fear, think of it as excitement instead. It becomes a whole lot easier to prepare yourself to tackle the challenges in front of you with a more positive mindset.

• Keep expectations reasonable. One of the biggest problems with people who feel incapable as leaders is that they’ve set standards for themselves that are practically impossible to achieve. While it’s good that you hold yourself to a high standard, those standards should always be reasonable. That way, when you find yourself meeting those standards even after it’s been somewhat of a challenge to attain them, you’ll get a huge boost in your confidence.

• Move on from failure. People who lack belief in themselves tend to have a big problem with accepting and moving on from failure. There’s this innate belief that many people have that if they were truly competent, they wouldn’t have failed. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If you want to get better with failure, you can practice it in small ways through new hobbies or honing new skills.

• Fake it ‘til you make it. Sometimes when you act as though you have belief in yourself for long enough, you truly begin to develop that confidence for real. That advice might seem overly simplistic, but give it a shot!

Attitude is everything in the business world, and a lack of self-confidence can be crippling to your potential for success. See if you can work on these ways to force yourself to believe in yourself, and watch how that affects the way your business works.

 
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC

Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.

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