Confidence – How To Get More Of It In Business

Taking the action you fear the most....

I was travelling home from a seminar in London on Sunday and I was listening to one of the many local radio stations. There was a discussion on about whether positive discrimination, in favour of women is a good thing. One of the two women being interviewed (Emma) said that if women aren’t confident enough to take the top jobs, this is an issue personal to them and that they shouldn’t apply. The other woman (Julie) insisted that with the right level of support, women can achieve in exactly the same way as their male counterparts. This got me thinking about confidence….

Prior to having children, I was extremely confident and I believed that this confidence was innate and would stay with me forever. Then, I took 7 years off work to have my daughters and I was a changed person as far as the workplace was concerned. I realise now that it was a combination of worrying about the changes in both the work environment (I worked in IT) and the changes in the expectations of the workplace that affected my confidence. I was almost paralysed with fear, although I didn’t recognise it as fear, I thought I was carefully preparing myself! I planned and planned, drafted letters and generally procrastinated without actually ever applying for a job.

I ended up working for myself, on a party plan basis, for a cosmetic firm. And still I procrastinated. I bought stock, I bought “appropriate clothes”, I taught myself how to do my make up beautifully, I had a nice new diary, I practiced and practiced at giving demonstrations. I did lots of things to keep me busy and nothing at all to move my business forward.

What I have learned, over the years since then, both from personal experience and from coaching women, is that the ONLY way to increase your confidence in business is to take action. Do something – do anything - but take action.  Whatever your concern, getting out there and doing it will not only make you feel better and remove the fear, it will also take your business in the right direction.

As Susan Jefferies once said….. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!