3 top tips to boost your confidence

Nicola Semple

Nicola helps the busy, stressed and overwhelmed get clarity on their own vision of a good life well lived, supporting them to develop the unshakeable confidence they need to take action and make their vision a reality.

Confidence. One word. Eleven Letters. An imperative if you want to build a successful business and brand. Your product or service may be world class, but the world needs to know about it. And that takes confidence.

There is good news though. Whilst some people seem to be born exuding confidence. It is a skill that you can develop with practice.

Here are my three top tips to help YOU boost YOUR confidence:

1. Take action

Taking action is one, if not the most powerful, way that you can increase your confidence. Talking about something is not the same as doing it.

Whether you want to grow your revenue, write a book or build your network, take that first step. I call it the 1% nudge.

Small actions repeated consistently will move you closer to your goal. They will also allow you to prove to yourself that you can do this and allow your confidence to grow.

For example; if you want to build your network take that first step today. Do a little research and locate a networking group in your local area. Then book a ticket to one of the events. Then turn up and chat to at least three people at the event. Finally, follow up with an email or (even better) a phone call with at least one person that you met at the event.

Lather, rinse, repeat and slowly but surely you will build your network.

Attend more events, connect with more people and follow up consistently. Before you know it, you will be a consummate networker.

It all starts with that first step.

2. Start before you are ready

If you wait until you feel ready to take action, then you will never start.

When I started The Good Life Well Lived podcast, I knew nothing about podcasting. Reflecting back, the first batch of episodes are not very good. But as Ernest Hemmingway said, ‘the first draft of anything is sh#t’. It's important to get that first draft out into the world as quickly as possible.

Once I released the first few episodes of my podcast, I knew that the only way was up. The more action I took, the better I got at interviewing and producing the show and my confidence grew. The result was that I felt more comfortable approaching higher profile guests. And as the production quality improved, I promoted the podcast more and was able to gain a bigger audience.

If I had waited until I was ready, then I would still be waiting to get started.

3. Keep your eyes in your own lane

It often feels like everybody else has their act together and is doing a much better job than you. They haven’t and they aren’t. You have a full access behind the scenes pass to your own life. Yet you only get a glimpse of the edited highlight reel of other people’s lives.

The easiest way to keep the faith in your own abilities is to keep you head down and block out the noise from round about you. In our world of 24/7 social media this can be challenging but it is an excellent discipline to adopt. Stop looking at what everybody else is doing. This will leave you infinitely more time to take action on the things that you want to achieve.

And remember; the more action you take, the more your confidence will grow.

Here’s to confident, capable business women building amazing brands. Chin, chin!

For inspiration, strategies and advice on having the confidence to build your own version of a good life well lived, Visit Nicola’s website and get your free copy of The Good Life Well Lived Playbook