Unstoppable Confidence

By Robyn McAlpine

Confidence. Some people are born with too much of it. Some people have little bits of it, and some let their internal voice run wild and steal it out from underneath them at the very moment they need it the most.

There is a fairly high chance that if you’re reading this you already have a solid foundational knowledge of your craft, Our industry has courses coming out of our ears these days. But what happens once you take your knowledge out of the classroom and into the treatment room. Do you actually know how and what to do with it?

One of the biggest things I’ve recognised in our industry is that we’ve never been shown HOW to integrate this knowledge and none of us know what each of us do behind closed doors. And that’s what steals our confidence!

Our bosses just say, go in there and talk to your clients about skin, sell them products and rebook them. Our bosses send us to courses and wonder why it’s not working. It’s because we don’t have the confidence and if only someone would show us, then we’d feel better about it.

Often, we’re unsure how others do it, so we think we’re doing it wrong or that someone is doing it better and we start to second guess ourselves.

It’s why I created the Skinside Out Squad, the mentorship for skin therapists- I teach therapists how to integrate their knowledge in a practical way and to feel confident while doing it.

I recently shared 3 ways to build unstoppable confidence with the group and it was so impactful that I am now sharing it with you!

Confidence can absolutely be built and grown and here are three foolproof ways to get more of it in your life!

Image by Goodthanks Media

1: REPETITION MAKES YOU A MASTER

Think about something you’re great at, that you do in your day-to-day job, pick the service that you totally rock, could do it in the dark with a blindfold and still perfectly nail it every time.

Think about how many times you’ve done that service? Probably three times a day, five days a week. By my calculations, that’s roughly 780 times per year. Minimum. Now think about how many years have you’ve been doing it? Chances are you’ve done this service over 5000 times without even cracking a sweat.

But remember how clumsy you felt at first, you couldn’t twirl the wax stick, you got tint all over the place, cleanser up noses and mask in people’s ears. Yet now can do it with perfection, with not a single hint of anxiety rash and you don’t even think twice when you see it booked in your column… That’s because you’ve done it so many times that you’ve absolutely mastered it! Repetition made you the master.

Now think about the service you feel most inadequate in (for many of us it’s the skin consultation) How many times have you explained it to a client without stumbling over your words? 5 times? Maybe 10? You almost avoid doing them because you just don’t feel confident in it.

Can you see where I am going with this? The quickest and most effective way to build your confidence is to do it one hundred times then do it one hundred more! From here on in, even if it scares you, face it head on. Do it over and over again. Make mistakes, find a different way, repeat, repeat, repeat until you become the master.

Soon you’ll be looking back and not even realising how confident you’ve become.

2: KNOWLEDGE BUILDS CONFIDENCE!

To be confident in something you need to know what you’re talking about!

So many of us here have done extra courses. Some of us haven’t touched a textbook since college. I think we can all agree greatly that the diploma training is seriously lacking in skin education. We’ve all left college feeling inadequate when it comes to some aspects of our training.

Let’s take an honest look at our foundational knowledge. Do you know enough? Have you invested in post graduate short courses? Do you read and learn outside of work? (sorry, Instagram and Tik Tok do not count as education)

Faking it until you make it will only get you so far. To truly feel confident, you must know what you are talking about, inside out and back to front. The more you know, the more resources you have to draw from and the stronger and more confident you will feel.

But where to start? There is so much to know, learn and understand. Well, you just need to make a start. It’s like eating an elephant, you simply take one bite at a time.

You don’t have to know it all yesterday. But you do need to make sure you are continually growing and learning and implementing. It’s the key to having that deep seated confidence that just flows out of you!

The more you know, the more confident you will become.

3: BE YOURSELF!

This was the absolute game changer for me! I am not the most articulate person. Often, I blurt out words before thinking and it comes out a bit jumbled and messy. But what I lack in finesse, I make up for in passion and that’s what our clients are looking for. Connection with someone they can relate to and who doesn’t make them feel inadequate.

Clients don’t want the professional *cough* condescending, beauty counter snobbery. They want it straight up real. From YOU! YOU are everything that you are ever going to need. How you show up is exactly what your clients want.

Ever heard the term “your vibe attracts your tribe”? There is nothing more authentic than being your TRUE self! If you want more clients, if you want to build strong client connections and you want to stand out from the crowd and be the LEADING skin expert your town or city has ever seen?

BE YOURSELF!!!!!

Don’t try and be what you think you’re supposed to be in this industry.

We’re told we must have a certain look, wear our hair a certain way, speak in a certain tone or it’s ‘unprofessional’.

I’m here to challenge that idea and I am giving you full permission to be yourself.

Now let me clarify something. This isn’t about oversharing your private life with your clients or turning up to work in sweats and yesterday’s T-shirt (pandemics over people… we gotta put pants on now!) I’m not talking about that level of yourself. You still need to be the best version of you.

What I am saying is that you don’t have to put on a fake persona, you don’t have to be someone you’re not in order to talk about skin to be professional.

Speak to your clients exactly the way that words come out of your mouth. Use YOUR voice. YOUR LANGUAGE and don’t worry about the big fancy words and the posh voice. Clients really don’t want the big words. They want it straight up, honest, and authentic.

Being comfortable in your own skin is the highest form of confidence one can own.

Confidence isn’t something we all get given out of the womb. I know I forgot to grab mine on the way out. I had to build my own on the way up. But the great news is that confidence is like a muscle. With time and patience and practice, you can build it up, strengthen and grow it so big that the incredible Hulk might just get jealous.

So, from here on in, I challenge you to step up to the plate and have a go. You’re going to swing and miss. I promise you; you will strike out. BUT every time you step back up and have another crack at it, you get better and better at it and your confidence will get stronger and stronger.

If you are a skin therapist looking for a pep talk, confidence boost and guidance on how to get your knowledge out of your head and into your client’s lives, come, and check out the Skinside Out Squad. It’s where I share everything I have learned and help you make it relatable in the treatment room.

robyn@skintifix.com