Clear Your Doubts, Clear Your Path to Success

Clear Your Doubts, Clear Your Path to Success

Marci G. Fox, Ph.D. and Leslie Sokol, Ph.D. are authors of “Think Confident, Be Confident.” http://www.thinkconfidentbeconfident.com/

Overcoming doubt and strengthening confidence is an essential ingredient to business success. Doubt is that nasty name you call yourself that causes you to stop believing in you. With doubt you forget that you are your own greatest resource.  Instead, doubt bombards you with self-criticism, second-guessing and negative thoughts. Doubt can lead you to feel fear, anxiety, sadness, or irritability and typically escalates these emotions to a level that are out of proportion to the given situation. To make matters worse, doubt often leads you to take ineffective action. In effect, you sabotage yourself.

The most effective way to conquer doubt is to identify its source. The foundation of doubt comes from questioning our capability and/or desirability. Assumptions, faulty perceptions and inaccurate interpretations have no place in business and they certainly have no place in your personal life. That’s why it’s so important to remind yourself to stick to the facts so that doubt doesn’t color how you think, how you feel and how you act. By sticking to the data you’re able to see each situation in a more objective way without attaching meanings to yourself and figure out the most effective strategies to use so that the rocks on the road to business success seem more like a nuisance than a roadblock.

Confidence is vital to business success. With confidence you can face any situation knowing that you can effectively handle it. Acknowledging you are capable means that you have the knowledge, skills, ability or the smarts to deal directly with the situation or the expertise to find the right people or the right information or learn the right skills to help you. Acknowledging you are desirable means that you recognize that you are a decent, likable, attractive person. Once you stop questioning your capability and/or desirability, you can confidently face any task or social situation. The key is to truly believe in you.

Try out some of these confidence-building tips to grow your confidence and truly experience business success. Pay attention to your resources that you carry within you and don’t get caught up focusing on your short-comings. Accept that none of us are perfect so you are better able to acknowledge your weaknesses and not let them define you or get in your way. Set realistic business goals. Don’t set unrealistic goals trying to compensate for your doubt. Break down each goal into smaller, specific, measurable pieces. As you check off each step you take, give yourself credit. Keep in mind each step is an accomplishment moving you closer to the overall goal. Make a daily feel-good-about-yourself list. Record at least five things that you have done that you can give yourself credit for. Reminding yourself of the positives will keep you from minimizing, disqualifying or ignoring the facts to grow your confidence. In addition, remember there is ebb and flow to business.

Think of your business success like a movie. Realistic information about it comes from playing it from beginning to end rather than hitting the pause button to highlight one or several moments in time. Remember that situational, global and economical factors also play a role. Be careful not to take unnecessary blame. The last tip is balance. Don’t forget to schedule in time for pleasure, mastery, exercise and socializing. Too much of anything can burn you out. Now it’s time to dream, plan and pave your own way to business success.