How often have you seen someone with incredible talent go unnoticed while someone with less talent succeeds?
Why is that? Why can you have a brilliant business idea and solid plan to bring it to fruition, and still not get anywhere?
Confidence.
That’s the only difference between success and failure. Confidence in your decisions. Confidence in your abilities. Confidence in yourself.
It’s not about being extroverted, or beautiful, or starting out rich. It’s about believing in yourself. Believing that this idea you have is worthwhile. That your services are worthwhile. That your decisions are good. No one does this perfectly. Many of those succeeding doubt themselves often. But they keep going. They are confident enough to take action forward.
Here are 3 practices to cultivate in your life to make confidence, and therefore success, a habit.
Praise yourself. Here’s the deal. You are a human. Humans need encouragement. You can either get it from the outside- by dancing around like a crazy person trying to perform for and please everyone else. Or you can generate it within. One method is exhausting and unsustainable. The other is a little boring but terribly effective. Every day add a time to your morning routine where you spend a few minutes thinking about things you do well. Wins you’ve had. Conversations and actions that you’re proud of. Compliment yourself. Write it down or speak it aloud. This will train your brain to focus on how well you’re doing- and this will fill the real need to be praised and encouraged.
Note: If someone says something to you that encourages you a ton- add that to the things you say to yourself regularly. Otherwise you’ll go perform for that person’s praise and waste your time and energy. I’ve done that more times than I’d like to admit! We all have our flavor of praise we love. Learn yours.
Work on your self worth. I don’t know what this means for you. But I know you need to figure it out. It may mean working with someone like me- getting to the root of any old beliefs keeping you feeling worthless and removing them. It may mean taking days off to read books and take naps. It may mean working with a shaman or breath-coach or business coach or taking long bike rides or surfing. I believe you’ll know what you need to do. If you feel like crap about yourself, it’s time to put on your big girl or big boy panties and deal with your stuff. In my opinion this is the ONLY thing that differentiates people who succeed from people who don’t.
We all have junk in our trunks. Those who succeed hire help to clean that sh** out. I don’t care how much is in there, you can get freedom from it. I know because that’s what I do everyday.
Trust your vision. Success is not a straight line. There are ups and downs- translation- there are times your heart is ripped out and times you feel like you’re the best that’s ever been. That’s normal. You’re right where you need to be. Life is leading you and you can’t screw this up. You can’t miss it. Your vision is there on purpose because you’re supposed to get there. When you have a crappy day, go back to step 1. If you have a crappy season, go back to step 2.
You have your dream because you’re supposed to accomplish it. That makes sense right? You don’t have the dream so you can spend years in frustrated pursuit of nothingness. So, as much as you can, enjoy the journey. Look around. Enjoy these people in your life. Enjoy your family. Your cat. Your dog. Your plants. Enjoy the view. Enjoy your wins. Enjoy what you’re learning. Enjoying your life releases feel-good chemicals that make you more confident.
Praise yourself, work on your self worth, and trust your vision. Pretty soon, you’ll realize you've reached a goal or two. You got this!