Confidence: we all think we don’t have it, and we’re not born with confidence. So, what is it, where does it come from and why do we worry about it so much? Think about this: if you didn’t know what confidence is, or the word did not exist, how would you know you were not confident? How would you think about feeling unconfident?
Confusing, I know, but if we actually took away the feeling or the name of confidence, where would you feel right now and how would you feel?
So, what is confidence? It’s an emotion, it’s a feeling. Let’s look a bit deeper.
Firstly, you know you can do anything you want to, if you put your mind to it.
Secondly, we listen to others: we listen to others and what they say and that’s where, sometimes, your confidence level drops or diminishes, because we start to have limiting beliefs, and then limiting beliefs set in and that’s when fear and anxiety set in.
What you need to do is focus on what you want and try not to think about what others are doing and what others are saying to you. People love to tell you you cannot do something. People fear you being successful, and that’s their limiting beliefs. So, you must, MUST start listening to yourself, your inner self: not your head sometimes – that can cause all sorts of chaos – you must listen to your heart and your heart’s centre, and what you really think about what you want to do.
How do we gain confidence? First of all, you have to be excellent in your skillset. You have to master your own skill. You have to master your feelings. It’s like a muscle in the brain. We train our muscles in our body so why do we not train the muscles in our brain. So, we want to train our brain to become outstanding. There’s no such thing as confidence – it’s just a word.
So, how do we train our brain to be anxious-free, limitless and outstanding? You work at it, the same as you do at picking up weights. You work at it daily.
A lot of you will be saying, ‘I don’t understand. How does she do this?’ By training, skills and mastering your life and taking massive action to become a better you.
Let’s talk about where you are in your beauty business. What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? How do you see yourself in the future? Usually the first thing people say is, ‘I want to be confident.’ You’re confident enough to read this and you’re confident enough to believe in yourself. So, you’re on the way. That’s great, right? You’re on your way to a better you.
Secondly, you need to master your skills. For instance, say you’re going to be doing a set of nails for a client and you feel nervous. Think about why you feel nervous, what’s caused that. Limiting beliefs? You can’t do it? But if you’ve mastered your skill and you have practised enough, what’s stopping you being outstanding? What’s stopping you in your tracks? Your ego is telling you not to go ahead because it’s keeping you safe, right?
Mastering your skills and becoming confident is all part of our new Boss it in Beauty workshop, coming soon. There will be no stopping you. You are limitless. It’s all about understanding that confidence is just a feeling.
What are you going to do if someone comes along and says, ‘Oh no, my nails didn’t suit me that day,’ or, ‘They’ve chipped,’ or ‘Yeah, it wasn’t right for me’? I know exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to quit because you think you can’t cope: ‘I’ve lost all my confidence. She doesn’t like me.’ You will be awash with negative feelings and this is going to stop you from becoming limitless and outstanding: just because you have had one knock against that word ‘confidence’.
Now, what you could do, if this happened, is turn it around. Obviously, you’d explain to the client, ‘I’m deeply sorry,’ and so on, but you also need to think about how can I make her experience better? Why did it fail and why was she not happy? And then you can work out what you can do to build your confidence even more, because you have worked out different directions to become outstanding. Maybe you did chip her nails. Maybe she didn’t have the best experience. But that will be down to you and you only. Maybe you didn’t put enough product on. Maybe you weren’t in a great mood when you went there so your energy didn’t flow. Maybe you felt unconfident. We need to make sure that you are always confident when you arrive at someone’s house.
First and foremost, is plan your treatment through your mind, exactly what you’re going to do. Start like this: I’m going to enter this lady’s house; I’m going to smile; I’m going to bring this word ‘confidence’ to the room; I’m going to set up; I’m going to make sure I put my product on as I was taught; I’m not going to slip through the net and do it my way; I’m going to do it the right way; I’m going to talk about her day; I’m going to listen. Listening is key to success when it comes to beauty – your clients want to be heard: they want to be noticed and they want you to give them that 100% satisfaction of being there. You are their server for that hour. You are letting them become boss for one hour and you are doing your best to serve your client. So, you’re oozing confidence, you’re oozing knowing and you’re oozing bossing it, because you can and you’re taught that way.
If you go wrong and they complain, ask yourself what did you do to make that happen. Sometimes negative thoughts will creep into your head, such as, ‘Oh, I don’t like her. I’m not going back to her ever again!’ That’s because you don’t want to accept that you might have failed in some respect. You’re not failing in life generally but you might have failed in that particular treatment. So, where was your confidence and where was your knowledge? What happened? You need to analyse this. This is all about analysing your day. Confidence comes from analysing. Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently or better? Why wasn’t I confident and why did I not give 100% satisfaction?
Another example might concern going to somebody’s house: you’ve never been there before and yet you’ve talked yourself out of it. ‘No, I’m not going. I just feel it’s not right for me.’ Oh, you feel it’s not right for you? Why do you feel it’s not right for you? Having a bad day? Having an argument at home maybe? Kids are playing up? Lazy, can’t be bothered? Sleepy or just woken up? ‘Think I’m going to cancel my client.’
No. Work out what it is. Talk yourself through the journey. ‘Mmm, I don’t want to go there because I felt something wasn’t right.’ So explore why you’re having this intuition. Explore it enough to give yourself the answer to why you don’t want to go. That’s really important. Once you’ve explored your journey and had your journey in your mind, you’ve visualised it already, it’s going to be better.
Let’s say you don’t want to go to this lady’s house: this is always happening, right? And this happens in life: you don’t want to go somewhere – you dread it, you dread it, you DREAD it! You don’t want to go but you end up going. ‘Oh my God,’ you’ve gone. ‘Oh, it was fantastic. It was the best experience I’ve ever had.’ So, work out why you didn’t want to go there in the first place because it’s down to you and your lack of self-confidence, and that is your limiting belief. And that is your anxiety and that is your ego which doesn’t want to take you out of your comfort zone and keeps you nice and safe, tucked up in bed, away from the world.
So, with The Health Fairy, obviously you know we all aspire to be confident and we all aspire to be outstanding. And no, we don’t get those days where we feel anxious about people unless there’s a reason: there’s a reason behind it. There might have been a slip-up in the past. There might have been someone who’s been moody on a text. It might have been someone who’s not paid you on time. It might be someone who you don’t know, or you worry because it’s someone you do know: it’s a friend and you feel a bit nervous. There’s always a puzzle. There’s always a reason you’re not feeling that amazing. So, work it out: that’s really important.
If you are asking yourself the question below, get in touch about our Boss it in Beauty course and we will help you work through any doubts or anxieties you may have with practical advice, tips and strategies developed by Sarah from her experience of running a successful business in the beauty industry:
WHY ARE YOU NOT CONFIDENT ABOUT STARTING YOUR BEAUTY BUSINESS?
Get in touch to find out more about our Boss it in Beauty course.