How Your Confidence & Your Brand are Related

Whether you are job seeking, client hunting, or embarking on a new project, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and start questioning your ability; you’ve lost your mojo; you start to feel small, assume less space, and feel as if you’re not worthy. And let’s be clear: standing up in your power-pose won’t help.

The real issue is confidence.

I get it. I was humbled and sucker-punched at the beginning of the pandemic: clients on hold and speeches canceled. Who am I? What do I do? Am I even good at what I do? I had lost confidence.

Confidence is believing in you and your brand. It’s knowing that you are uniquely you and it’s time to stop comparing yourself. You don’t look like anyone else, speak like anyone else, sing like anyone else, or work like anyone else. Embracing your brand means that you love you, as your wonderful YOU!

5 Strategies for Boosting Your Confidence

If you’ve lost your confidence, here are 5 strategies for getting it back.

1. Believe – Take a breath and believe. When you believe internally, you exude externally.
   

2. Practice Your Craft - If it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, start putting in the first 1,000 hours today. Preparation is essential to mastery. It’s amazing how your confidence shines when you know you’ve done everything possible to prepare for your moment.

3. Review your work – Listen to your music, review your great designs, look at the websites you created, see your love letters from colleagues or clients, take a look at your own testimonials on LinkedIn. Step into your strength.
   

4. Focus on You – You cannot control everything which means accepting that certain things may go awry. I’ve had the pleasure of giving a speech during an earthquake and a snowstorm where the roof started to cave in and leak. What did I do? Laughed and focused on continuing to do what I do best.
   

5. Kick Naysayers to the Curb – Surrounding yourself with negative Nellies or Dan Downer is a sure-fire path to feeling inferior and insecure. Instead, keep looking for the treasured family, friends, clients, and colleagues who give you positive reinforcement. By the same token, don’t forget to also be that person who finds every opportunity to show appreciation and respect.