The world of business can seem incredibly harsh to those who are new to it, and to an extent, it is. Everyone is always trying to get ahead leading to crushed dreams and hurt feelings for people who are not prepared. One of the most valuable traits you can have as someone new entering the business world is confidence. If you can learn to act like you know what you are doing even when you do not, you will be an intimidating presence to those around you. However, you cannot simply start acting confident with no preparation. You need to believe in yourself before you start exuding confidence. Your self-esteem is the root of your success in business. High self-esteem opens doors for you to become successful, while low self-esteem does the opposite. Here are twelve ways to boost both your confidence and self-esteem to help you through the world of business.
1. Hone Your Skills
It is difficult to believe in yourself if you genuinely think that you are not worth believing in. To show yourself that you have the potential to become successful, you need to hone your skills. The ways you can accomplish this will be explored later, but for now, you need to get out of the negative headspace you might be in. You might think that you are young and inexperienced, but everyone else started right where you are now. You are just as capable of achieving everything you want as they were when they were young.
2. Gain Experience
One of the best ways to master any skill, not just those relating to business, is by immersing yourself in experiences. Take everything you are doing seriously, and do not blow something off because you perceive it as unimportant. Everything you do when you start out could teach you a valuable lesson that you will use later. Many employers value experience above anything else, so several years of experience can be helpful in that regard as well. Experience is knowledge, knowledge translates to skill, and skill allows you to effectively hone your sales skills.
3. Take Every Opportunity
If you are offered an opportunity you should always take it unless you have a rock-solid reason not to. Get in the habit of saying yes, even if you think it is something you will not enjoy. As mentioned above, experiences are vital. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is a statement that almost universally rings true, and accepting a variety of opportunities is sure to introduce you to many new people. These people can then both help you along or even offer further opportunities in the future.
4. Take Care of Yourself
You have chosen one of the most stressful fields in the world, and for better or worse, that will have an effect on your health, both physical and mental. To combat this, you need to let yourself relax every so often. No matter how much of a workaholic you are, you need to take some time away from your work. In terms of your physical health, follow the general advice you get from your doctor. Your job likely puts excess stress on your heart, which is not healthy, so eating right and exercising is more important than ever for you.
5. Dress Right
For some people, the way they look boosts their confidence more than anything else. Buying yourself professional clothing is one way to indulge in this. People begin forming their first impressions as soon as they see you, which means that they will often form an opinion about you before even talking to you. So, not only will dressing professionally likely increase your own self-esteem and confidence, but it will increase others’ perceptions of you as well. Fashion can be difficult because it is full of detailed rules, so make sure you know what you are doing when dressing professionally.
6. Learn To Accept Failure
Sometimes, people fail. This does not mean that they are worthless or incompetent, it is simply a harsh reality of life. There is no sense in beating yourself up when you fail; that accomplishes nothing. Instead, you should learn from your mistakes so that you do not continue to fail in the future. Sometimes, you should even take risks that you assume will result in failure to desensitize yourself to it. Once you learn to accept failure instead of feeling bad about it, you will begin being more confident in yourself, even when you make mistakes.
7. Ask For Help
It can be easy to slip into a prideful mental state that is overly reliant on independence. While some amount of independence is a good thing, you should never be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Asking for help does not mean you are weak, it means you are ambitious and willing to learn. When you are in the business field and you are constantly surrounded by incredibly successful superiors, you need to take advantage of their knowledge. Chances are, they will be willing to answer your questions and help you get ahead.
8. Set Goals
If you want to incentivize yourself to do the best you can do, you should set goals for yourself and create a timeline for achieving those goals. These goals can be anything you want them to be from getting the raise you think you deserve to finishing the project you have been working on or anything in between. It can be helpful to set long-term goals as well for those who like to plan for the future. Seeing yourself achieve these goals can be the self-esteem boost you need to increase your overall confidence in yourself.
9. Take Risks
Returning to a few points mentioned earlier, taking risks can often lead to a massive payout. However, it can also lead to failure, which is why you need to learn to accept failure as addressed earlier. Chances are, even if you do fail a few times, some of the risks you take will end in success, and there is no great boost to self-confidence than when a risk you take pays off. This is not to say that you should take every risk you are presented with. Carefully weigh your options and decide based on the specific circumstance.
10. Define Success
The word success has appeared quite a few times here, but what does it actually mean? Success does not mean the same thing for everyone. Some people define success as the ultimate end goal of their lives that they will not accomplish for many years. Others say it is earning a healthy living to support yourself and your family. Neither of these answers is objectively correct, but either of them could be based on your perspective. Figure out what success means to you before you start chasing it so that you know what you are after.
11. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
A moderate level of competition can be healthy for your ambition, but constantly comparing yourself to others and putting yourself down when you do not match up to them is not a healthy practice. Much of the time, the standards that you hold others to are fabricated in your mind anyway. The success of others has no bearing on how much your success means. Think of yourself as a closed system. You can observe others, but ultimately, you can only affect yourself, so there is no point in wasting energy comparing yourself to others.
12. Hold Yourself Accountable
To some, the suggestions listed above might come across as weak, and maybe those people are correct. However, if you follow them in moderation, they can be healthy. As long as you hold yourself accountable for the mistakes you make and do not play the victim or blame others for your problems, there is nothing weak about keeping yourself in a healthy mental state. There is sometimes a legitimate reason for criticizing yourself, but as long as you do not let that take over your attitude, it can be a healthy practice that can help you improve in the future.
The stigma around mental health has been slowly disintegrating all around the world, but many of the toxic ideas of the past are still prevalent today in professional settings. There is still this idea that you should live to work instead of working to live, and that works for some people, but others want to have a happy life and a successful career instead of having to choose one. This list is only the beginning of all the tips that you could follow to boost your self-esteem and confidence not only in your professional life but also in other areas of your life. Unfortunately, you may have to sacrifice some of these things if you hope to rise significantly in the ranks of business due to the nature of how it operates. However, people like you have the ability to change that by making the world of business more comfortable to exist within.
