Famed trainer, author and motivational great Dale Carnegie once said, “Believe that you will succeed. Believe it firmly, and you will then do what is necessary to bring success about.” Without absolute confidence in yourself and your ability to effectively perform at your role, it is virtually impossible to achieve the level of success needed for lasting success.
What happens when your confidence level begins to falter? What happens when you move from being “in the zone” to finding yourself in a business slump? Slumps can be very disheartening. Slumps can zap your energy level and produce false assumptions that too often disrupts your mental and physical desires. You become more tentative, less decisive and too often succumb to poor business habits. When your “guard” is down is when your competitors are most successful in taking advantage of your demise. That is why having unwavering confidence in yourself is so crucial.
When you find yourself needing to rebuild your confidence levels and get back in the business game, try these simple tips:
1) Focus on your strengths. Fill your mind with those activities that you do very well. Evaluate how you can better utilize your strengths to help you gain a more secure foothold on your business operations. Don’t dwell on the minor things you have trouble doing. Keeping a focus on your strengths will be an added value to enable you to regain your competitive spirit.
2) Don’t listen to critics. Critics are well-known for attacking you when your spirits are down. However, keep in mind that nowhere in the world has anyone ever erected a statue to a critic. Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by what you may hear others say about your demise. Your opinion of you is all that really matters.
3) Understand that you will not always win. Failure is successfully finding out what does not work. You will not succeed in every effort every time. That is ok as long as you learn from those shortfalls and understand that failure is part of the process. Failure allows you to restart but with greater knowledge. Thomas Edison experienced ten thousand failures before he succeeded. Edison did not consider himself a failure and pointed out often that he simply discovered ten thousand processes that did not achieve his success of an incandescent lamp. Don’t take failure personally nor accept comments from anyone that you are a failure. As long as you continue to get up with renewed enthusiasm and move ahead with greater knowledge and determination, you will never be a failure. Push those failures out of your mind and take charge of those new opportunities that will come.
4) Get organized. Often when you allow work to pile up on your desk or in your inbox, it can produce a stressful mindset. If left unchecked, this can propel you into a negative attitude as frustration and false assumptions begin to control your mind. The quick remedy is to focus on accomplishment. If you can organize and prioritize your work so that you are able to begin crossing off items to do, it will begin to positively impact how you feel and what you perceive as reality. If you are not a good organizer or prioritizer, then perhaps utilizing the “top drawer” process will bring the same result. This “top drawer” process demands that you take everything that has to be accomplished, put it in a prominent drawer, and begin to attack the pile by taking 1 item at a time from the drawer and work on it until its completion. Regardless of the process you follow, organization and then accomplishment will instill an improved attitude and a brighter outlook on life.
5) Act, talk and think in a positive manner. Though you truly choose how you see yourself and your situation, it is not always an easy transformation to live a positive lifestyle. Being negative takes much less effort. A positive mindset takes work; but, the work you give will bring huge dividends. Walk with a purpose. Concentrate on improving the way you even sit upright in your chair. Be enthusiastic in your dialogue; and, mentally picture yourself achieving and getting better and better each and every day. When you look in the mirror, see a winner not a whiner. You must become solution-minded not problem-praising in your focus as you navigate the waters of everyday life.
6) Educate yourself. Studies show that knowledge does improve performance. The reason for this is that you gain confidence. The more you know about your profession and role, the products or services you provide or how new techniques and processes will enable you to achieve greater results will impact your outlook and attitude. Investing your time in building a better you not only enables that to become reality but demonstrates a strong sense of achievement. It has been said that education is the light that shines in darkness. Allow that light to shine as you begin to live a more positive life.
7) Celebrate successes. There is nothing wrong with a “pat on the back” when you achieve a goal or experience a success. Celebrations help lift the spirit and energize the mind. Each encounter can become a tremendously motivating event. Be sure that the celebration results from achievement of something new and challenging that you set. This way it conveys to the mind that a job was done well. Thus, it becomes special not routine. When you experience an accomplishment that is special, satisfaction fills your spirit. A feeling of goodness and anabolic energy gains control. You realize in the final resolve that you can make it happen.
Business should be fun despite the valleys of despair that you are certain to encounter. That is what makes the experience so vital in your ongoing development. You must take you medicine if you are to effectively enjoy the cure. Next time you are in a slump and your confidence is beginning to fade, utilize the 7 tips and get yourself back on track. Remember, it is not whether you fall down but whether you get up that will be the difference in your success or setback.
