I’m just glad I bet on myself
These are words directly from a text from one of my career coaching clients. Seeing her begin to take flight and trust herself and her skills as a leader is what makes coaching such an amazing part of my life. I love to see that moment when a client trusts themself enough to take a step out from what is comfortable.
When she and I first met, we were both managing different stores for a retail chain. She and I had volunteered to help out another store that was struggling. While we were working, we took a little time to get to know each other. She was quite an accomplished person and had a background with a lot of skills. As we got to talking, I was really impressed with her background and skills. I finally asked her after we’d been working all day “You’ve got all these skills that are great leadership qualities. Why are you working here?” We talked a little more after that, and our day was done.
We always talked once a week or so as we were partners on a couple different projects and had begun a friendship. I sent her a couple leadership videos that had been helpful for me, and she knew that I was a life coach. After working together for a couple months, her boss noticed how much her leadership had changed and improved. The hard part was that despite her improvement in leadership, there was really nowhere for her to go within the company.
As part of our work, we had discussed options for looking at other places of employment, updating the resume, and really focusing on her skills in leadership. She began the process of looking for another place, and within a couple months, she found something that was closer to home, more money, and more responsibility. She managed to lock down what I call the “BIG 3” in a job search. If you’re curious on what the “BIG 3” are, you can read my blog post on it here.
Learning to bet on yourself and trust your skills is a challenging step. It’s something that I continually work on with clients and myself. The process to build that confidence is not easy. It feels clunky and difficult. It requires a step outside of what is normal and comfortable. All that being said, if you keep consistently pushing to trust yourself, it’s amazing the places you’ll go.
Here are three steps to start learning to build your own confidence and trust yourself more:
Start Small.
Rome wasn’t conquered in a day and the fear of stepping out in confidence will not happen overnight. It’s all about consistency and habit. These two words hold more meaning when trying to change than any other words on the planet. When it feels awkward, build the habit and keep the consistency. When you don’t want to, build the habit and consistency. Be disciplined and don’t quit.
Build a track record of success.
By starting small, you’re looking for ways to test what that new confidence looks like. Keep track of when you tried to trust yourself and what the result was. Over time, you’ll see that you’re decision to trust yourself paid off.
Embrace your confidence and take a bigger step.
After you’ve seen those small wins add up, and you’ve spent the time building your list of small wins, take that next step and work on something bigger. Use the track record you have built as a constant reminder of what you’re capable of and what you can do. This is the basis of empowerment.
As a life coach, I teach people how to build their confidence and be able to say “I’m just glad I bet on myself.” If you’d like to learn more about how you can be empowered to believe in yourself and break free from feeling trapped in your life or career, let's connect through a 30 minute conversation and talk about where you’re at and where you want to be.
Looking forward to meeting you.