How to Build Self Confidence as an Entrepreneur Even if you’re a Beginner

Ever got yourself at that place where you constantly think about ways you can build self confidence because you feel you’re not just good enough?

A lot of people have been there. In fact, according to research, 79 percent of women and 62 percent of men are actually struggling with low self confidence at work.

But it doesn’t just end there. Lack of self confidence has also stopped so many from taking up opportunities, demanding for pay raise or even stepping out to achieve more success with their lives.

As a matter of fact, compared to others, a more confident entrepreneur is five times more likely to persuade clients, sway customers and land better paying gigs.

So, it’s completely okay to be anxious about finding ways to build your self confidence as an entrepreneur. But the question is, how can you get started on this journey?

As an entrepreneur who’s struggled with low self confidence at some point, in the following paragraphs. I’ll be sharing with you tips and strategies that worked for me, during this journey and how you can use these strategies to build self confidence as an entrepreneur.

These strategies have worked for many of my students too. And as you continue to read below, you will find deep insights that will empower you to build up your confidence level.

Evaluate Yourself

So, how did we get here? This is the first question you need to ask yourself as you get on the journey to build self confidence.

This is important because before you can fix the problem of low self esteem or lack of self confidence, you have to figure out exactly why you’re feeling that way.

So, to build self confidence, begin with evaluating yourself. Are you feeling less confident because you’re just a new entrepreneur without much experience? Or is it because you feel you need to skill up and garner more experience before you can become more confident?

It could be other things aside from this two reasons. Keep asking yourself prodding questions until you figure out categorically what’s responsible for the feeling of low confidence.

Separate Facts from Fiction

As soon as this is sorted out, begin to separate the fiction from the facts objectively.

For example: You could be feeling less confident as a new entrepreneur because your competition are actually far more well established and experienced than you.

It could also be due to the fact that you’re just on a lean budget with less resources to compete in the industry.

Whatever it is, identifying the main issue is the first step to fixing it. And when you figure out the issue you’ll realize that it is not about you as a person but your resources.

With this discovery, your next step is to work on building your resources to the level that that you can get to compete effectively in your industry.

Level up Your Skills

As an entrepreneur trying to build self confidence, one of the most important steps you can take is to build up your skills. This step is very important if your analysis in step one showed that the cause of your low self confidence can be linked to a low level skill set.

If this was your situation, at this point, what you need is to work on becoming more competent in your market skills.

So, doing this can take different angles…

If you’re providing services for instance, you want to work on building up your skills. This can involve attending more trainings, conferences and seminars. Or getting more certifications.

Truth about this is that these trainings will boost your competence and skills in the industry.

And the more competent you are, the more you’ll feel confident. This will also reflect in your relationship with your clients and the way you attend to your business.

Same thing applies if you’re an entrepreneur dealing with physical or digital products.

To build self confidence, work on getting yourself acquainted with the industry. Learn the nut and bolts about your products, to the point that you feel very competent and advanced in learning.

Get certifications also. While doing this will not erase that feeling of low self confidence instantly, it will boost your confidence in your abilities.

Over time, more you feel well versed and competent in these skills, the more you’ll grow your confidence and activate better results.

Garner Widespread Experience

So based on your evaluation in step 1 above, if you felt the major reason for feeling of less confident was due to your inadequate experience, work on building your experience.

Naturally, for people in the service industry, most often your widespread industry experience is one of the many factors you can leverage on to build self confidence or even land most jobs.

Unfortunately for the new entrepreneurs you may not have a lot of experience to leverage. In most cases, you may not even get the chance to create these experiences because people are not willing to give you the opportunity to work in the first place.

If you ever get to this point then the first thing you need do is to focus on creating these experiences yourself.

So how can you do this?

Leverage FREE.

For the fact you’re a beginner, you may not always be given the opportunities to try out your hand on certain kind of jobs. Especially the ones that need widespread expertise.

To get around this, you can decide to try the free routes by doing some free jobs for people, free; in exchange for reviews, industry exposure and experience.

What this does is that it gives you the experience you want, free. Gets you in the door especially where the client is reputable.

And for the fact that everybody loves FREE, it’s easier for you to get the chance to work with reputable firms and businesses that will otherwise refuse to get you paid gigs.

At the end of the day, this will afford you something to show off in your portfolio and even as social proof.

Join Like Minds

Another way to build self confidence is to join a group of like minds.

The kind of like minds I mean here are the like minds that are at the same stage of your learning. Or just a little above you.

Joining this group helps you to build more confidence especially when you get to interact with other entrepreneurs and find out what they have achieved, their struggles and growth stories.

This circle will make you realize you’re not alone. And your struggles are not just peculiar to you.

Having such a network of support will also encourage you as you will be able to grow with the group, build collaborations and also work with other like minds.

Evaluate & Reminisce on your Successes

Too many times, one of the reasons you end feeling less confident is because you’ve forgotten about who you are or the things you’ve achieved along the journey.

It’s happened to a lot of entrepreneurs. Sometimes you get so focused on what’s wrong, the challenges and every other issues so much so that you become unaware of the successes you’ve achieved.

To build self confidence as an entrepreneur, you need to work on getting an objective overview of your such.

Find out, what are the outstanding things you’ve been able to achieve since you started your journey as an entrepreneur? How did these things contribute to your success?

For some reasons, we are quick to reprove ourselves over tiny errors more than we celebrate ourselves for the tiny little successes. This has to stop.

So, you need to make every success count. Celebrate yourself for every milestone achieved. Give yourself thumbs up when you deserve some.

I’m not saying you should become conceited or stuck in mediocrity. What you’ll achieve by taking this steps will refocus your mind.

For the fact you’ve recognized the things you’ve achieve your believe in yourself will improve. And you get pumped up to achieve even more.

Do things that Make you Feel Confident

One thing you need to know is that whether you’re an entrepreneur, techie or freelancer, to build self confidence, you have to actually do the things that’ll make you more feel more confident.

It is what it is.

So, you need to begin to find out, what are the things you’d do that can naturally make you feel more confident?

Asking yourself this question will reveal to you some of the things that’s holding you back from keeping your confidence at optimal levels.

For instance, if getting yourself a particular certification is part of what’s going to make you feel more confident, then go get it. It could also be taking on some challenging aspects of your job and getting it done.

Same thing goes for entrepreneurs dealing with products.

Would working with any particular brand cut it for you? Then plan towards that. You may not have what it takes to get all in at once, create a plan and take steps.

If it’s asking for a raise or building your business to the point where you can charge a certain amount for your services then get to work on that.

It is very important you take steps to do the things that’ll make you feel more powerful and confident.

Doesn’t matter how challenging it might look like initially, the moment you take the first step without looking back, you’ll be surprised at how much you can actually get to do.

Deal with Self Doubt

You see, everything you’re reading here is built on one thing, self belief. You can stop taking any of the steps you just read but still believe in your self 100% and have you’ll have confidence grow up gradually.

But, the moment you lose that believe in yourself, it gets very difficult to build confidence.

So, what exactly I’m saying here is that you need to believe in yourself if you want to become more confident.

You can be trained in Harvard Business school, intern at Google or serve in a 5 star firm but, without a strong believe in yourself, you could be worse than a college drop out who believes in what he or she can do.

I know self doubt will always show up in your mind from time to time but you have to train your mind to replace it with good positive thoughts about yourself whenever you begin to doubt yourself.

Focus on the successes you’ve achieved. And as much as possible, put in your best to achieve even more. This will reduce any tendency to have the impostor syndrome.

Remember, even after getting through all the steps above, you still need to psych yourself up, from time to time.

Take time to focus on your growth and the things you’ve achieved.

Be kind to yourself. Sometimes we tend to be overly harsh on ourselves when we make mistakes or miss out on deadlines.

While you must always demand the best from yourself, always remember you’re human deserving of empathy too. And you’re in the best position to give this to yourself.

To build self confidence, don’t just take a walk from terrible transactions and the kind of jobs and sales that demean you or client that try to put you down, stand up for yourself. You will be proud you did this.

Final Words

As I round off this guide, I want to remind you that it’s not wrong to feel less confident at some point. And frankly, lack of self confidence has affected a lot of people, regardless of their level of achievement, so, you’re not alone.

A lot of people have moved on to achieve more with their lives after improving their confidence, and you can do so too by taking the steps you just read in this guide.

So, right now I want to ask you, are you ready to take these steps to build self confidence and reposition your success right here? The choice is yours.

And after reading this, you can take the first step to build your self confidence and achieve more as a digital entrepreneur by signing up for our Smart Content College to learn top marketing skills that will make you feel more confident.

You can also reach out to us for mentorship, to learn more about how to become a more confident entrepreneur here.

So, it’s over to you now. What’s your biggest struggles on the journey to become a more confident entrepreneur?