Women in business are growing at a rapid rate.  Starting a business is not that difficult; however, maintaining the vision for a business in your mind and heart is needed to keep you motivated towards your goal.  A vision is a mental picture of how you want things to be.  For instance, you would carry a mental picture of what being a success means to you. 

• You can see people coming to you saying “Yes” I want what you have to offer.   
• You see your products or services being purchased and your cash register full of cash.  

But keeping a vision alive is not the first step to building a successful venture.  The first step is to ask the most important question you will have to answer prior to being a success. That question is, Why? 

• Why are you doing what you do (or want to do) in business?  
• Why have you chosen (or will choose) to focus on a particular field, discipline, idea, etc.? 

It’s important to know why you intend to do something as intense as operating a business. A woman can start a business based on the wishes and dreams of others or based on the traditions within her family. Perhaps, like other, you grew up in a family business and felt obligated to carry it on. But now, you might feel discouraged and unmotivated.  The business could have great potential but your lack of enthusiasm makes the marketing lackluster or almost non-existent.  When, you think about why you are in this particular business, its not because of your personal passion but because of the dreams of others. 

Working in a business because of the expectations of others is not always enough to motivate you to go through the ups and downs of business. You must have a passion for what you do.  It’s when you love the work, and want to do the business, that you are in the right field. 

This brings you back to why answering the question “Why” is an important first step to create a vision for your business. 

• Why do you even want to serve a certain target community, locally or online, in this manner?  
• Is this something you would choose to do on your own, or do you feel forced to go into this business or service?  
• Do you know that this business is the best use of your talents and skills?  
• Are you honoring your personal and business values through this business?

Answer the why and you’re on your way to understanding what you need to be doing in your life through business. 

Take time to find your true heart’s desire in business and pursue your true dreams. Then you will be a business woman who is ready to continue building your business in a way that enhances your quality of life and motivates you to continue on to success, no matter what obstacles you will inevitably face along the way.

Live events are one of the best ways to market your business to people from diverse background.  Organizing a live event takes skill and attention to detail.  Everyone may not have the patience or ability to put on a live event. With the growth of the Internet, many Internet business professional are doing virtual events instead.  But a live event can bring your prestige and increase your reputation as the expert in your industry. There are certain key factors that make an event successful.  Here are seven top factors for you to consider as you start organization your event. 

1. Details. Event planning means paying attention to details.  That means staying on top of all of the plans, even if you delegate some of the arrangements to team members. Be sure to plan everything including all of the contingencies that could happen. 

2. Backup Plan. Speaking of the unexpected, you can be sure that you will encounter some unexpected situations when you do events.  Have backup plans in place based on the situation you might face since you won’t have time to panic once the event starts.  Think about weather situations, a speaker stuck in an airport, food that’s spoiled or wrong information printed on a thousand invitations.  It happens but facing problems just makes you a better event planner as you go along. 

3. Organize Plans. By the time you get to your event, you will have a lot of information and papers with the details you need.  Start off by getting everything organized in files, binders and on the computer.  You don’t want to be looking for important information at the last minute and fail to find it.  Keep all of your receipts, invoices and orders.  Always have a copy of the contracts you’ve made with any vendors including speakers, entertainers and food services where you can easily reach them.   

4. Location. Selecting an appropriate venue is a key factor for event success. Estimate possible attendance, event theme and purpose.  Make sure the location is easy for guests to find and that there is adequate parking. The right venue can make or break an event. 

5. Theme.  A successful event has a theme. Select a theme to express your event goals and intended outcomes.  The theme helps to get all of the other detail coordinated including decorations, invitations and even the program. In fact, the theme helps to define everything else about the event. 

6. Drinks. Following the theme for the event, start thinking of the basic amenities your guests might need.  Even if this isn’t a formal sit-down dinner event, consider having water, coffee, and tea at the least.  People can get dehydrated even sitting in a seminar or workshop. Instead of having them walk out during a presentation or even feel ill, provide the basics. Also, think about the other types of drinks. You may not want to offer a cash bar or open bar with alcoholic drinks or maybe you will. Both can be expensive in their own ways, however, you can limit your budget by only offering certain drinks such as a bottle of wine per table and leaving other drinks in an open bar. 

7. Food. Of course, if you’re keeping people in a room all day, think about food.  If you’re doing an actual food event, such as a breakfast, lunch or dinner, you have more details and costs to consider.  Start early looking for food vendors or caterers. You might have a location that has its own kitchen and insists that you use their facilities.  Food will be remembered even if the speakers or workshops are not.  This can literally make or break your event. With bad food come bad ratings. Sample the food so you feel confident about what the people will get.   

Live events take a lot of work and planning.  These are just seven beginning tips to get your started on the way to a successful event.

Tomorrow never comes; once tomorrow gets here it’s today. Waiting for tomorrow to do what you should have started long ago is only going to keep you from ever succeeding.

It’s so easy to get into the habit of saying “Wait” or “I’ll do that later” instead of taking up the mantel of responsibility and just getting on with living life fully today. This isn’t saying you have to ignore the facts:

• Yes, the timing must be right to pursue your dreams.
• Yes, you have to get the right obligations out of the way, like taking care of family, children, elderly parents, if that’s what you are supposed to do.
• Yes, you may have to finish the fight on the hard challenge that have come your way.

But once those have gone and you know the time is now, you have to get started on living the true purpose of your life.

• Do you ever wonder why certain people have a yearning in the heart to do something big?
• Do you think this is a universal yearning or do you think some people are content to be where they are in life?

It seems that for some the yearning is stronger or more real than others. I believe everyone is born with a purpose to fulfill in life that will leave the world a better place as a result. That task may be small or only touch one single life. But touching that life will cause a ripple effect that will reach out to places unknown.

I also believe that some people refuse to do what is on their heart. Knowing that there is a great thing to do, they refuse to answer that life calling and ignore it until life is over for them.

• You know in your heart that you are supposed to be doing more.
• You know you are supposed to be doing greater things.

I believe a life purpose is set in the heart of every person at birth. When you refuse to heed the persistence of that life calling, you live a life unfulfilled.

• Are you denying the call of your life purpose?
• Are you letting the past, or your fears, or unforgiveness, or confusion keep you from identifying what is great about you so you can start sharing it with the world?

I’ve been in settings where the most unlikely person got up and made a presentation that changed the direction of everyone in the room. Through very simple words or a brief exercise or by sharing a piece of art or playing a simple arpeggio, lives were changed.

What are you supposed to be doing with your life? When will you start doing it?

Are you ready to give up the 9 to 5 “rat race” and think about starting your own home based business or Internet marketing business? You might be ready to become an entrepreneur home based business professional and you have the self-confidence to do it. So why shouldn’t you profit from your ideas instead of profiting another company owner?

Financially, you know you’ll never reach your desired goals unless you take the risk of being an independent business owner. But the question remains, what business would you start if you could? You can feel in your heart that tug that tells you to take the risk to do an independent business. Before you pack in that weekly paycheck, take time to evaluate yourself and your future with some real honesty. Take time to pray and hear the calling of your heart towards the right business for your life. You want to change your life for the better, so let’s start.

You Can Do It:  Do you know that you have the potential to do and be anything you want? You are created in the image of God so you have the ability to be creative in your life. Some of this creativity can be used to build a unique business that is really needed in the world. Most women have different perceptions of what is the ideal business life; and that ideal can range from owning a retail store operation to setting up a regular income from a web based membership site. Unfortunately, many women fail to reach their aspirations because they can’t get a solid, clear picture in their mind of what they want to do with their talents.

Search for Your Heart Desire:  Take the next few days and embark on a fact-finding journey that will be a life-changing experience for you. First, sit down and pray about exactly what you want in as an independent business owner. Be specific about identifying your passions so you can focus all your efforts on that particular desire. To reach real success in a business effort, seek the true desires of your heart and be ready to recognize the type of home based, internet marketing or retail business you want to spend time doing.

Seven Questions to Help You Know:  The woman who always changes her mind or who gives up easily when the going gets tough, will never get anywhere. If you’re a bit confused and aren’t sure what you really want in life take time to answer these questions:

1. What makes your heart beat with excitement?
2. What makes you happy?
3. What are you constantly thinking of day and night?
4. What do you want to do with the rest of your life?
5. What do you enjoy doing?
6. What are your obsessions?
7. What things make you jump for joy?

Write down all your possible answers to the above questions. Write down everything, no matter how silly or unimportant it seems. Put all your desires on paper that answers any of the above questions.

When you complete responding to the questions, go back, study your answers and circle five to seven items that interest you the most from your list. Then, without taking a lot of time, evaluate and choose with your heart (emotions or intuition), not your mind, the one and only thing worthy to spend all your time and resources on and that brings out the best in you.

How to Make Anything Possible:  Now, what if you know you want to work in an area that might not be right for you because of your personal circumstances? For instance, what if you want to be the next star of a woman’s basketball team? If you’re over 20 years old and never played basketball, you’d have to realize that this is not a reasonable choice. But if you have a love for the sport, you can always think of something related to basketball or sports. How about starting a women’s basketball publication and interview stars of the game? Or perhaps a site that features women’s basketball sporting goods or a basketball memorabilia business?

Listen to Your Heart:  The most important thing to remember, no matter how impossible your idea seems to be, is to listen to your heart. Even if other people disagree with you, be firm with what you really want. Others may offer comments or advice, but the final decision is always yours to make as you are the one to live with growing and nurturing your business. Concentrate on what you want, not what others want.

Get Started:  Many business women are very successful in businesses that others tried to talk them out of doing. Some have Internet based businesses on a particular topic or have built membership sites to coach others.  These women followed the leading of their hearts. They spent time in studying their idea and planned the  direction that they were to pursue in their business.

Too many women live lives in quiet desperation, waiting until a perfect time to take the time to do what they really want to do in life. You can be feeling that type of desperation to and fear that time will pass you by before you realize your true calling in life. You will surely feel this way if you know you are supposed to start working on your dream and you keep hesitating out of doubt or fear.

Take the time now, to search your heart and decide what you really want in life more than anything else. Do the exercise above and be honest with yourself. You don’t have to share the information with anyone else yet. Just sit quietly and think about your responses. Keep your pen and paper nearby as ideas begin to come to you and write them down without judgment. You are getting ideas from your deepest understanding that you can use to form your future business plan; in fact, the more outrageous your ideas, the better. That means your original creativity is coming out and you are starting to really focus on what’s uniquely yours to do in life.

Begin honoring each moment in every day of your life. Live life, remembering, that you don’t know everything that’s ahead for you. Don’t take for granted the life that you have. Live every day as if it were the last day you had and stop leaving your dreams to be started next week, next month, or next year.

If you are a woman in leadership, it might be time to take a new look at what you might have always perceived as failure. What if you could learn why you should look forward to failure, and how it can help you ultimately get where you want to go? For instance, when you read this statement, what’s your reaction? “There is no such thing as failure.”  Do you think it’s true? Maybe it makes sense to others but not to you. 

But what if you learned that you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a “failure” or not, changing your whole idea about failure?  In fact, some highly successful people have already learned to look at the word failure in a very different way than others.  Let’s talk about why.

Why Others Watch a Leader Handle Failure 

Doing something that seems to be a failure shows the fact that you are only human. People watch how a woman of stature handles a mistake and how she recovers from it. Watching isn’t to be cruel, but it gives others hope that they too could recover from a mistake. 

Mistake making takes on a whole new form when a person sees how a leader faces and overcomes a problem. Everyone can have a failure or a setback but not everyone knows what to do about it. Making a successful comeback after a failure can increase your reputation, build confidence and show you as a person of integrity. The comeback doesn’t even have to be huge or earth shaking. It just has to happen. 

When “Failure” is Feedback 

What if starting today, the idea of failure took a radical change in your vocabulary? What if failure really meant a form of success? How could you acknowledge your success, even as you speak the word “failure”? Well, you can point out these ideas:  

• That everything you learned in the process of getting to where you are now is not going to get thrown out — you learned good things to keep along with the stuff that didn’t work.
•  That simply being able to recognize everything hasn’t gone according to plan, or achieved the desired outcome (i.e. “failed”), is in itself a positive outcome
• That even if the specific method you used this time around wasn’t the right one for this situation, you can surely use bits and pieces and parts from what you learned in another project or idea.
• That you can eliminate and not repeat the same behaviors the next time a similar situation arises. Failing to achieve a goal in one way just increases your creative understanding of what works for a situation, project, or idea or what doesn’t.
• That you’ll know to do things differently in the future. You will create in a new way to approach a problem and your creating will be quicker and more confident as a result of knowing what not to do? 
• That the experience has enabled you to grow in some way. Adversities, set backs, failures, hard times — all of these things only make you a stronger and more confident person. 

Failure can simply be a great way to get you to pause in the midst of your process, and get some critical information to indicate that you may need to change directions, try something new, continue your learning, or shift your focus. 

Imagine what would happen if you didn’t get that feedback, and continued endlessly along the wrong path, towards the wrong goal, or without ever learning a new approach? It not a pretty thought. Therefore, make time to rethink the idea of failure. Failure can really be seen as positive feedback, providing information that gets you back on the right track! Without feedback you would surely be lost. The key is to quickly identify what isn’t working so you can change direction, try something new, or shift your focus. 

How would thinking of failure as a welcome invitation to understanding a better way to pursue you life dream change your thinking? Here are some tips: 

• Always have a clear idea of where you want to go and continue to re-evaluate it as you move forward
• Identify specific milestones or markers along the way, to let you know you’re on the right track and celebrate each success
• If something doesn’t appear to be working, or working fast enough, don’t hesitate to try something new
• Continually learn from others. These can be people you work with, experts in your field, mentors, or leaders that have travelled a similar road.

And always remember: 

You don’t have to stay where you are in life. If things are not working in the direction you are headed, stop and go another way. If you tried something one way, make a change in your activity until you find out what really works. Life is a series of starts and stops. Just think of how much experience you have in different areas of life when you try something and learn new things from that experience.

Keep trying new things; never plan to stop learning, trying, experimenting, and creating. This gives a women in leadership the confidence needed to succeed. Consider the idea of rethinking failure as a way to reach success and strengthen your leadership skills instead of a way to set you back. You will take more risks, try more challenges and increase your overall successes.

 Do you believe you can be a successful woman in a start up business? Woman spend millions of dollars each year reading about business, trying to learn new “systems”, taking workshops or even earning academic degrees to understand how to start a business.  All of this is done in order to be successful in an independent business. 

But not everyone is successful in starting a business, including the brightest women of all.  Overall, three out of five small businesses fail before their second year in business. This is a large figure and gives the chances of failure a better percentage of happening than the chances for success. You can help your chances of success by following a few simple ideas for start up business success: 

1. Put what you learn into practice. 

All of the information in the world will do you no good if you don’t apply it to real world situations of building your business. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of information in front of you. Take one or two ideas at a time and focus on developing those into actionable steps. Don’t move on until you apply those concepts. When the new idea is comfortable, get ready to find another new idea. Of course, this means that you have to put the ideas into priority order so that it makes sense to apply these steps in order. 

2. Seek new ideas 

Even though you have a lot of information already, don’t stop looking for new ideas that keep you on the cutting edge of your industry. Subscribe to business oriented newsletters or ezines online. You can find these by the dozens by searching on words like, “business start-up, entrepreneurs, how to start a business.” With each newsletter, find at least one idea to put into action as quickly as possible. This is a way to take a positive step to making your business dream come true. If you get a newsletter that fails to provide at least one new idea for you within a few months, unsubscribe to that newsletter and find another instead. 

3. Drop ideas that don’t work 

Every suggestion you find may not be appropriate for you and your business. Be smart about selecting the right opportunities for you. For example, a suggestion might be to send direct mail postcards to your customers. But if your customers only like to receive information by email, you will only waste time and money using a direct mail techniques and end up frustrated. That means you have to really understand your business and customers before putting ideas into practice. Not every idea will work for you. Knowing your true target market and what your goals are will help you eliminate good things that are not good for you. 

These three ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of ideas of what you can do to have a successful start up business. The main idea is that business start up success is absolutely possible for you. Take time to put good ideas into practice. Learn from the successes of others and start with one or two ideas at a time. You could soon find yourself heading straight towards business start up success and be the business woman others come to admire.

When doing a study on women’s leadership, I found it necessary to conduct extensive interviews with women in leadership positions. To do this, a research survey was designed to ask focused questions on what gives a woman her unique leadership ability.  Still, when the women leaders were asked to answer these questions about their leadership skills, many of them couldn’t find a way to identify exactly what it was that gave her the ability to be a leader.  

Being a leader was so entrenched in these women’s very being that separating out the activities of leadership didn’t seem possible.  They just did what came naturally without thinking about it.  So it was necessary to take a different approach. Instead of asking the women to name the skills that made them a leader, they were asked to simply talk about their story as a leader. Having the chance to talk about their leadership stories was the key to finding the most important lessons from women leaders.  

The lessons were in the story.   

As the women simply talked about their leadership experiences, exciting stories began to emerge. 

One woman told the story of how she had decided to lead the fight for quality education in her community. With a group of other parents, she went to the City Hall to talk to the Councilperson about doing something to bring better educational opportunities to the schools in their community. When the group arrived at City Hall, everyone turned to her to be their spokesperson. That was her moment of becoming a leader.  

Another professional woman related how the leaders in her company needed some innovative ideas to help market a new line of educational products to an adult population. She knew how to work with this target group because she had taught adult education for years in a past job. So even though she was not in a leadership position with the company she decided to offer her suggestions.  As a result, her ideas created strategies that brought in a significant increase in sales for the company. This led to her being promoted to a leadership position in a new division in the company. 

Describing Behaviors is Not Always Easy 

Sometimes it is not easy to describe certain behaviors, such as leadership. But when you hear the stories behind the situation or event, you can find the lessons of the behaviors in that story. 

Finding and sharing lessons in stories can provide a way to mentor others, particularly to mentor other women, something that doesn’t happen enough. Within the words of a story, you can share the steps you taken, the insights gained, and the wisdom you use to put steps into action. 

Women can be great storytellers. Have you thought about how you can use your storytelling ability to share your leadership lessons, or other lessons with others? Think of how effective you could be when you learn how to find the lessons in your story and use them to mentor others.

Everyone has certain fears.  To say you don’t is denying being human.  A fear that most people deal with from the biggest celebrity to the woman next door is the fear of failure.  No one wants to fail, no matter how small the potential failure might be. Fear of failure can keep you up at night and keep you from trying new things. A fear of failure is the major reason most women never reach their full potential. 

One  huge difference between women who achieve the life they want to live and other women is that they learn to face their fears and control them.  They refuse to let the fear of failure control them or hold them back. Decide to stop letting the fear of failure steal the goodness you deserve and desire in life.  Here are a few keys to get fear under control. 

1. Keep the Big Picture in View. Stop looking at the little picture in a situation. Instead, step back and look at the big picture.  In the whole scheme of things, in the whole of your life, how big is the situation that you really fear? Are you trying to get a job and afraid you won’t?  What’s the worse that can happen?  Are you trying a new business and afraid it won’t work out?  What can you do to be sure that it will work out instead?  Stepping back to take a bigger look at the situation takes away a lot of fear because you realize exactly how the situation fits into a bigger picture. 

2. Take a Positive Outlook. One reason fear can set in and stifle your actions is because you start off thinking negative.  If all you think about is how awful something is going to be, of course you’re going to have fear.  In fact, that means you start to create the foundation for the failure to happen.  Remember, what you concentrate on you draw to you. If you really think you are going to fail, the likelihood is that you will.  As bad as it sounds, you usually get the desire of your heart in life. 

You might not think that you are drawing failure to yourself but thinking only negative is doing just that.  Adjust your thinking.  Start thinking about how wonderful it will be when you have a positive outcome instead. Say a prayer, recite positive affirmations and do positive visualizations of the best outcome possible. 

3. Stop and Breathe.  Does fear seem to overtake you sometimes?  Does it make you feel like you can’t even breathe?  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a few moments throughout the day when needed to step back, take a few deep breathes and stop feeling overwhelmed by the fear.  Often, fears are built up in the mind more than the actual reality of them. 

That’s not to negate that sometimes you really might have some terrible things to fear. That’s a whole different story.  But the majority of time, things are not as bad as you  make them out to be.  When you start to feel the panic of fear taking control of you and your decisions or reactions, step back, recognize the fear, become conscious of it, and assess it. Define the reason you’re afraid, analyze it and decide what you’re going to do about it. Take control of the emotion instead of letting the emotion take control of you.

4. What’s the Real Issue?  Fear is often about something that is hidden from your immediate thoughts.  In other words, you might think you’re afraid of one thing when it’s really another.  For example, say you get invited to a networking event that would be great to grow your business.  At first, it sounds great, but then you start to get afraid. You might think it’s because you don’t want to meet new people or that you won’t have anything appropriate to wear.

Instead of stopping to think about what you’re afraid of you allow an unconscious fear to keep you from something you really need to.   Stop to analyze what your feelings.  Perhaps you know that people at that networking event will have to make a short introduction of themselves and their business.  The idea of speaking in front of others is what you really fear. When you analyze a situation, take control of it.  Plan your presentation well ahead of time.  Practice it until you feel comfortable. Instead of letting an unconscious fear keep you back, figure out what you’re afraid of and do something about the fear.

5. Prepare Yourself Better. Fear of failure is often based on not feeling prepared to meet new challenges that confront you either in an expected or unexpected way. When you don’t feel equipped to meet challenges you become afraid to get caught unprepared.  But you will always feel that way if you run from challenges instead of meeting them head on. 

The only thing to do is get prepared.  If necessary, take courses to improve your knowledge in a certain area. Get coaching or mentoring from someone with a lot of experience in the areas you want to learn. Go to museums, take trips and meet new people. Listen to opinions, read books, and watch movies in another language. Your mind is yours to grow so take control of what you know and increase your knowledge to overcome fear of failing in new areas.

When it comes to fear, you have two choices – control your fear or let it control you. Accept that feeling fear is simply a part of being human. The choice is yours to learn how to control your fears so you can succeed anyway.

You can have a level of self-esteem needed to gain the successes life has to offer. Don’t sit around feeling powerless to change yourself into the confident person you deserve to be.  Instead use easy strategies to boost your self confidence and get on with a better life.

1.  Get Real. Be realistic about setting goals that you can actually achieve in your life. If you continually set goals that are out of reach or not realistic according to your lifestyle, your motivation and self confidence will decrease.  It’s important to know what it feels like to reach your stated goals to have great confidence. Adjust your goals and expectations until you are pushing yourself to higher levels but still to a point that is possible. Once you get into the habit of accomplishing your goals, you can set higher goals because you know you can achieve whatever you set out to do.

2. Get New Friends. Well, you don’t really have to get all new friends but you do need to surround yourself with positive people that support the goals you want to achieve.  These people should have a contagious, positive energy that lifts you up and encourages you. If the people who surround you tend to be negative, bring you down and destroy your confidence, that’s when it’s time to get new friends. You build confidence by hanging around with positive people who make expect you to reach your goals and support you while you work on them.

3. Develop Skills. It takes realistic skills and talents to achieve goals.  If you don’t feel sure about your abilities to reach a goal, your self-confidence will suffer. Like everyone else, you have certain skills that showcase certain talents.  It might take a while to figure out exactly what these are if you haven’t been using them. Keep working at these talents so you develop the confidence to know that you excel in specific areas then use those areas to start moving towards your goals.

4. Take Your Own Side.  Something you might not think about is the need to stand up for yourself when you have been wrongly accused or not treated well.  When others speak out against you, remember that those words are simply their opinion and that opinion doesn’t have to be accepted.  If you have been wrongly treated, you have the right to speak up about the situation.  Your opinions are important. When you do what you know is right for you, you will feel more confident regardless of how others may feel about the situation.

5. Take Care of Yourself. Be sure to keep physically fit.  Staying healthy and finding a way to exercise can calm your nerves, help manage stress and provide many other benefits to your self –care.  Engage in regular exercise to feel more upbeat which in turn makes you feel better about yourself as well.

6. Reward Yourself. When you’ve reached your goals or met other accomplishments, whether big or small, it’s important to take time to reward yourself. You don’t’ have to wait for others to reward you.  Select something you want to purchase for yourself, give yourself a day off or do something you’ve never done before. Choose whatever it is that you feel is a reward and provide this for yourself to recognize your achievement. When you go out of your way to make yourself happy, you’ll feed your drive to persevere and succeed.  

7. Be Positive.  Use positive affirmations to change how you think about things in your life.  You have control over your mind and practicing positive affirmations can feed your mind with thoughts that led to positive outcomes. Positive affirmations communicate with your subconscious mind which strengthens your confidence one thought at a time. Check out your local bookstore or online for some effective confidence-building affirmations.

Put these techniques into practice and they will soon become habits that lift your spirits to new heights. As you grow in self confidence you’ll start to pursue new goals with more commitment. Although personal changes may not happen overnight, if you apply these strategies consistently, you’ll be able to build up your self-confidence a little more each day. Make it a point to implement at least one confidence-boosting technique every day.

Having confidence in yourself is a first step towards success.  Without true confidence you might get some hit and miss successes but sustained success will be difficult to achieve. Here are a few tips to help you gain the confidence to succeed.

1. Check Your Thoughts. Surely you’ve heard about positive thinking but have you heard about the importance of applying this to yourself. Have you ever stopped to think about how you think about yourself?  If you hold negative thoughts about yourself on a regular basis you won’t be able to build your confidence. Think positive self-thoughts to start on the road to building lasting self-confidence.

2. Forgive and Forget. Everyone messes up in life but self-forgiveness is one of the toughest things to do.  You don’t have to live in regret for mistakes you’ve made for the rest of your life.  Forgive yourself and do what you can to make what was wrong, right again.  Then move on and turn what happened into a life lesson that lets you know what not to do again.  Forget about the mistake but remember the lesson learned.

3. Respect Your Purpose.  Everyone is born with a purpose in life.  That means you have something to share with the world. The part of the world you might affect could be just one other person; but that is still necessary to do.  Stop worrying just about yourself and your own position. Think about the bigger picture of why you’re here and your confidence will start to grow again because you’re focused on helping others.  

4. Enhance Your Image. Do you have concerns about your appearance? Does how you look steal your confidence away?  Then do something about your image.  Go to a store and ask for help in selecting styles that are fashionable and look good on you. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on an outfit; just find out your style. You can find pieces for a wardrobe in different places even consignment or thrift stores to start.  Learn to select quality, style and a good fit.  That’s a great start to building a more confident image.

5. Don’t Take it Personally.  Things happen that might hurt your feelings; but it’s important to not take things personally all of the time.  Some things are going to occur if you’re around or not.  You might feel slighted but if you hadn’t been there, would the same thing have happened to someone else?  If so, don’t take the situation personally.  Learning that it’s not always about you is important to be able to get over problems and move on to the next life event.

6. Say “No” to a Bad Day.  Don’t let other people spoil your day. When you let others have control over whether or not you will have a good day, you give them the power over your emotions.  For instance, what if a person walks into your workplace in a bad mood?   That’s not your problem unless you allow that person to affect your mood.  Don’t let that person’s attitude provoke you into saying or doing something you’ll regret.  Just think in a positive way and consider how you can deal with the situation in a way that will make things better for everyone involved.  

7. Keep Going. Sure things get tough. That’s a part of life.  In fact, it is true that the more you learn to deal with in life the more you will face even more difficult issues.  This increases your skills, life lessons and abilities to take a lead in decision making and in your life.  You can only get to this level if you keep going and don’t give up with the going gets tough.  Get the mentoring you need to go through tough times. Find out how others have made hard decisions and seek the wisdom of mentors to help you grow.  Just keep going until you reach your goals and you will find that you have the confidence to succeed.