How to make space for your dreams

We all live busy lives. They’re packed full with to-dos, responsibilities, jobs, businesses, things we need to take care of on a daily basis. It’s easy to get stuck in a routine that keeps little room for change. And when dreaming big is concerned, change is what we’re after.

In my coaching practice, but also in my life in general I come across a lot of clutter that keeps so many big dreamers from achieving their dreams. The thing is, if you’re going after your big dreams you need to make room for them to come alive. And that’s where I see a lot of people get stuck.

If you dream about more free time to spend doing what you love, but you keep binging on Netflix every chance you get, you’re not making space for your dream. If your big dream is to become a writer, but your desk is so cluttered that even a post-it note won’t fit on it, you’re not giving your dream a chance. That’s why making room for your dreams to come alive is so important.

How do you make room for your dreams?

• Make space

Space is a broad concept. Sometimes for our dreams to come alive we need to make physical space for them, like in the example of the cluttered desk above. Sometimes the space we need to make is less literal, like a change in the way we spend our time, or a mental uncluttering so we can have more room to think, be creative, see things from a new perspective that will help us achieve our big dreams. If you’re not making progress on your dreams, clutter might be the culprit. So look around you, and inside of you for what might take up space and keep your dreams from blooming.

• Let go of what doesn’t serve you

Imagine you’re a bookkeeper who’s big dream is to become a chef. You’re used to finding answers to most of your questions in books, or online. So you set out to learn how to cook the same way – after all that’s how you do everything! Quickly you realize it isn’t working. It’s lonely in the kitchen with just books. Sometimes you’re lost, not sure you’re doing it right or what the result should be.

We’ve all learned to do a million things in a million particular ways. As humans that need to operate in society, keep ourselves alive, make a living, raise families this is an incredible bag of tricks to have. It usually serves us well, and makes our lives easier. The issue with all these acquired ways of thinking, seeing, and doing things is that often achieving big dreams requires a new set of skills, another approach, a different perspective.

That’s why it’s important to check in with yourself regularly, and let go of what doesn’t serve you anymore. Our bookkeeper above clearly isn’t getting anywhere by applying a strategy that worked well for other areas of her life. By checking in with herself she realizes she needs to let go of her books, and find someone to actually show her how it’s done so she signs up for a cooking class. From there she enrolls in a cooking school, earns a degree, starts her own restaurant, and achieves her big dream.

• Focus on how you want to feel

Often the room our dreams need to come alive relates to the way those dreams will eventually take shape. When we have a goal or dream in mind we have a mental picture of what our life will look like once that dream comes true. That mental picture can take up so much space, that there’s little room left for the dream to take on a shape of its own.

Someone dreaming of love, passion, and romance might be stuck on the mental picture that achieving her dream can only be within the unhappy relationship she’s in. By detaching from the outcome – infuse passion in a relationship that no longer works – and focusing on how she wants to feel instead – loved, and wanted – she’s able to let go of the mental picture that it can only happen with her current partner, and create room for a new relationship that can make her dream come true.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How Maria Jose spoke at The General Assembly of The United Nations

Marie Jose is a Mental Performance Consultant, and PhD Candidate. One day a friend of hers told her about an essay contest to speak at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Maria didn’t believe she could win or even know what she could write about, but the dream of winning an all-paid trip to New York, and to be able to speak at the UN pushed her forward. Here’s how she made her dream come true.

What was your big dream, and what inspired you to go after it?

One day a friend told me about this essay contest “Many Languages One World” to speak at the general assembly of the United Nations. This was a very cool contest since if you were selected, you would win an all-expenses paid trip to New York for a week. It did not matter where you were in the world they would fly you out to New York, and by the end of the week you would speak at the UN.

When he told me about that contest, I said, “great, you love the UN and you have a lot to say. I won’t apply because I’m not the kind of person who likes to write, I never wrote an essay in Spanish, and I’m certainly not going to write one in English”. I didn’t believe I had the skills to win, and I’m not the type of person who wins that kind of stuff anyway.

The topic of the essay was: “What does it means to be a citizen of the world?”. This only made things more difficult for me, as I did not feel like one, so I had no idea what to write.

However, days passed and the topic was on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the reasons why I didn’t feel like a citizen of the world, and why I wasn’t qualified to write that essay. Suddenly it hit me… I could write about why I DIDN’T feel like a citizen of the world.

For a month I wrote notes on my phone whenever an idea would come up. Two weeks before the deadline, I was clear on what I wanted to write, so I put all my notes together and wrote my essay. I sent it to an advisor who gave me feedback, and suggestions on where to go deeper or explain some ideas more.

The night before the essay was due I edited it one last time. It was a Saturday night, and I was sleeping on an air mattress at a friends’ house. I remember thinking, “what is the point of writing this, I could be partying with my friends, I’m not even going to win”. But there was also another voice inside of me saying “you’ll have to swallow your words soon when you win. You’ll see! And it will be proof that you and anything can achieve whatever they set their mind to“.

The thing is, the friend who motivated me to participate – and who has a UN screensaver on his computer! – never turned in or even finished his own essay.

Did you always had this dream?

No. I didn’t think it was possible to speak at the UN unless you were President Obama or someone very important like him.

What was one of the first things you did to get you started?

I started writing some ideas on my phone, and thinking about the all the reasons why I was not a citizen of the world. I believe that it’s easier to start a difficult task if you have something done already. So, I knew that if I had enough ideas written on my phone, when I sat down to actually write that essay, it would not be as daunting.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in working toward achieving your dream?

My own self doubt, saying I was not the kind of person that could win a contest like this, let alone speak in front of the United Nations.

What do you wish you would have done differently? What would you warn others about?

Believing more in myself, having more imagination about the things that I could accomplish, and at the end recognizing that I actually wanted to win, instead of listening to the voice of doubt in my head saying I didn’t care when I actually did.

So I’d say my advice is trust that you want something, that it is a valuable goal, and believe that it’s worth spending your energy, and time on to achieve it.

Would you say you’ve achieved your big dream yet?

I certainly achieved this one! But I have many other dreams that I am working on!

One of them is to build my own consulting company, and to have an online practice about mental performance. I am working on an online course for people who want to perform at their best under pressure like athletes, and musicians do.

What do you think helped you achieve it?

Believing that it was worth the effort. Focusing on the process, more than the result. Taking it as a game, having fun, and teasing my own ideas. And writing from an intimate and authentic place, not trying to show or achieve anything, but connecting with my emotions and figuring out what was important to me.

What’s the best advice you have for others who want to follow their big dreams?

Trust that they are valuable dreams, and even if you don’t think you can achieve them, just because you have the dream makes it possible. People who achieved big things are just like you and me, but they trusted their dream, and went for it!

Maria Jose Speaking at The General Assembly of The United Nations

More about Maria Jose – www.mariajoseramirez.cl

Maria José Ramirez C. is a 34 year old mental performance consultant. With her work, she supports people perform at their peak potential by providing the tools they need to overcome their mental barriers and excel in their chosen field.

After 10 years of working with athletes, musicians and business leaders from around the world, and 15 years of study around the world (Chile, Canada, UK and The United States) she developed a program specifically designed to enable people to perform at their best under pressure, while living more authentically. Maria Jose currently lives in Pennsylvania, where she’s pursuing a PhD at Penn State University.

You can view Maria Jose’s UN speech online here: https://youtu.be/N-esrD9sIjo
You can read Maria Jose’s UN essay online here: https://acei-global.blog/2016/08/12/i-am-not-a-citizen-of-the-world/

Maria Jose’s favorite quote is:

Heed these words, You who wish to probe the depths of nature: If you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it outside. In you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Know Thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods.

– Delphi Oracle

Her dream for the world is:
That we can all live a more sustainable life. We need to realize how fortunate we are. We live in paradise but it is our insecurities, our lack of connection with ourselves ,and with what is truly important that makes us live superficial lives that are detrimental to us and the environment. When we live authentic lives we are aware of what is important to us, we have a why bigger than ourselves, and it becomes easier to choose to use our skills to serve ourselves, others, and the Planet better.

If you want more inspiring stories, I’ve got great news for you! This story is part of an interview series, you can find all entries here.

How to believe your dreams are possible

Have you ever dreamt about something really, really big only to find yourself a few minutes later deciding that you’d never be able to achieve it? If you did, I want you to know that you’re not alone. I’ve been through this with my own dreams, and I’ve helped so many women that experienced the same thing with theirs.

One of the main reasons why we don’t achieve our big dreams, is that we don’t really believe we can achieve them. Of course, the dynamics at play are a bit more complicated than that, but the bottom line remains the same: we don’t pursue what we don’t believe in.

So in order to achieve our dreams, first we need to truly believe they are possible. Here are three tips that I’ve used to believe in my own dreams, and that many clients, and friends have successfully applied to believe in theirs.

How to believe in your dreams?

• Don’t censor yourself

When you dream big it’s important not to censor yourself. Don’t think about how you’re going to achieve something when you’re dreaming about it, but instead focus on what it is that you want. Planning can come later, for if you start questioning the plan at this stage, you’ll never get past your own doubts.

• Visualize yourself achieving your dreams

The bigger the dream, the harder it is to imagine yourself achieving it. One way to help you believe in your dreams is to short wire your brain into believing you’ve already achieved them. To do this you must visualise yourself already there, and keep the picture of your dreams in your mind as much as possible. I love creating vision boards on Pinterest to help me do this. Every morning I’ll do a quick browse through my boards. It helps me remember what I’m going for, and believing that I can achieve it!

• Keep track of small wins

The road to big dreams can be long. Even if you start out believing in your dreams, the longer a dream takes to achieve the bigger the chance you might lose faith along the way. That’s why it’s important to keep track of your small wins. I keep a list close by with all the tiny milestones I’ve achieved for each of my dreams. When I feel doubt creep in I take out my list and I review it. It reminds me of where I started, and how far I’ve come. This helps me to stay motivated, and to keep believing I will eventually get there.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

7 best planners to stay organized

A dream without a plan is just a dream, right? So here’s the list of my 7 top picks of planners to get organized – and achieve your goals!

When I choose a planner I’m always on the lookout for specific features, such as: great monthly, weekly, and daily overviews; space for to-do lists and notes, smooth paper to write on, enough writing space, inspirational quotes or prompts, and most importantly an interesting layout or structure that helps me to stay on track, and achieve big goals!

Based on those criteria I’ve put together a list of what I consider to be the 7 best planners to get organized.

#1 Erin Condren Life Planner

The Erin Condren Life Planner is one of my all-time favorite planners. I included it in last year’s top list, and I’m including it again this year because this planner has every feature you could ever dream of.

First, it’s a full blown planning tool. The Erin Condren Life Planner helps you set goals, get clear on what you want, and take leadership in your life.

What makes the Erin Condren Life Planner so unique is the extensive level to which you can customize it:

• You can choose between a colorful or neutral theme. You can pick a cover (floral, artistic, neutral, colorful… you name it, it’s available!), or purchase different beautiful laminated covers so you can interchange them throughout the year for more variation.

• You have 3 options for your weekly layouts: vertical, hourly, or horizontal; and you can choose between a 12 or an 18 month option. Every new month has a beautiful internal cover page to collect ideas or notes. It also comes with inspiring quotes and words.

The weekly spread runs across two pages from Monday to Sunday, with a note section on the side and below every day of the week.

The Erin Condren Life Planners comes with a set of stickers to highlight important moments throughout the year: birthdays, vacation time, days off, and so on.

The planner also comes with year-at-a-glance pages. An overview of 12 squares (one for each month of the year) that runs across two pages. This spread is perfect for writing down, and keeping track of your monthly goals.

All of this makes the Erin Condren Life Planner one of my favorite planners. I find it easy to use, very practical, and beautiful and unique at the same time!

#2 Self Journal

What I like about the Self Journal is that it combines day-to-day to-do lists with your actions goals. Another one of it’s great – and unique – features is that this planner is date independent, meaning you can start using it at any time.

Some of the features of the Self Journal that I love include:

• Space in the journal pages for daily morning and evening gratitude.

• An evening routine that helps you reflect on your daily wins, and lessons learned.

• Daily targets to help you focus on the 3 top tasks you want to accomplish that day. I’ve found that focusing on only 3 top things to accomplish everyday works wonders in achieving goals, big and small.

• Weekly prompts to reflect and track your progress.

The length of the planner also differs from most other planners: 13 weeks instead of the usual 12 or 18 months. According to the creators of the Self Journal, they’ve chosen this time frame based on the science that 13 weeks – approximately a 3-month timespan – is the ideal time frame for goal setting. This 13-week roadmap is one of the power tools of the Self Journal, and a one-of-a-kind feature that I haven’t seen in other planners!

#3 The Planner

This planner, created by Carrie Green from the Female Entrepreneur Association, is the ultimate business planner to keep you inspired, focused & dreaming big.

The Planner is a limited-edition daily planner that covers an entire year of planning, and goal setting. When you’re flipping through the soft pages of this planner, you can’t help but think it was created by someone who knows A LOT about effective goal setting, and has a great sense of style.

The Planner has a luxurious powder pink & gold foiled cover, gold accented corners, and gold wire binding. The first pages of the planner are for yearly planning, and asking yourself powerful questions about what you want to achieve.

I absolutely love the monthly calendar spread, weekly planner pages and daily pages of this planner. On the daily pages you have space to list your 3 top goals of the day, a schedule from 7am until 10pm, and a section for notes. At the bottom of each page is an inspiration quote.

All of this, together with the free online course and monthly bonuses that come with The Planner, make it one of my top picks of the year!

#4 Daily Greatness

The Daily Greatness journals, and planners remain some of my favorite planners! To me they are a beautiful mix between goal setting workbooks, to-do lists, and more common daily or monthly planners. The reason I love them so much is because they offer a ton of incredible tools to gain clarity about what you want, work on your goals, and achieve more by tracking your progress!

I particularly love the Business Planner, and the Daily Journal. The Business Planner is everything you need to be launch your business, or elevate your current one to the next level. It’s so good, that I recommend it to almost all of my business coaching clients! The Daily Journal offers the same mix of goal setting, planning, and progress tracking but for your personal life.

Daily Greatness also has a Training Journal, Wellness Journal, Yoga Journal, and Parents Journal. Worth checking out if you’re looking for more structure, and successful action-taking in your life or business.

#5 Ultimate Life Binder

The Ultimate Life Binder by Michelle from Secret OWL Society is one of the most complete, and versatile life planners available. Michelle is a multi-passionate entrepreneur who first created this binder when she discovered that she had lived the same year twice and that it had been a mediocre one.

The Ultimate Life Binder grew out of her desire to take 100% responsibility for her life and have her dreams, projects, and progress “all in one physical location”.

I’ve had the pleasure to talk to Michelle and she told me that the Ultimate Life Binder helped her to live her life on an upward spiral. She’s now at the 4th revised (extended) version of the binder and has sold more than 2500 copies all over the world.

What I love most about the Ultimate Life Binder is that it’s as if Michelle has thought about everything. And I mean – everything! Having it as a planning tool really makes you take 100% responsibility for your life, the tagline of her planner.

Within the binder you’ll find:

• Yearly overviews, goals overviews, monthly overviews, prompts to help you focus on a weekly and daily basis.

• Handy daily to-do pages with space to reflect on how you want to feel, what you’ll do to take care of yourself, and what you absolutely need.

• Fun lists for books you want to read, things you want to buy, courses you’re taking but also more practical overviews like password sheets to record your online passwords for safekeeping, goal breakdown worksheets, and even budgeting tools.

• Social media and blog post scheduling, and even travel planning sheets.

What’s so powerful about the Ultimate Life Binder is that Michelle has created a binder that addresses the important stuff, even when it’s not that sexy, like tracking your financials, or getting clear on the habits you need to build (or change) in order to be successful.

If you’re looking for the more intuitive planner, with different focus than traditional planners, it’s definitely worth checking out!

#6 Rifle Paper Co.

Rifle Paper Co. offers 12-month hardcover agendas and 17-month planners. I’m including them in this list because I still love myself a traditional agenda (call it melancholy), and because the ones from Rifle Paper Co are the perfect combination of a classic bestseller with the more contemporary take on planners we have today.

My favorite is the hardcover agenda. It’s a book cloth agenda, featuring a gold foil cover, illustrated end pages, and calendar and weekly views. It’s a classic design that never fails. At the beginning of the agenda there’s a section for important dates, organized by month. At the end of it you’ll find a contact listing (so old school, I love it!).

Each separate month comes with its own monthly overview spreading across two pages. This planner has a weekly spread format, so no daily pages here. However each day of the week has enough room for writing down your most important tasks, to-dos, and goals.

This hardcover agenda comes with an inside floral print on front and back cover pages. If you’re a fan of classic, timeless planners like I am, you want to check them out.

#7 Day Designer

The Day Designer is one of my favorite planners because it’s a real work of art. Not only is it a beautiful and intuitive planner, it’s also very spacious! My favorite look is still the classic one. How can you say no to a black, white, and gold combo?!

The Day Designer is a mix of worksheets, prompts, planning tools, and note sections. I love how the first pages of the planner offer different worksheets, each designed to help you find out your strengths, values, personal skills, vision, and passions. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that knowing yourself well helps to achieve your goals!

The Day Designer has a separate page for each day of the week, except for the weekend, where Saturday and Sunday share one page. Weekly schedules start on Monday, and every day has runs from 5am to 9pm. On the daily pages you’ll find prompts for your top 3 to-dos, inspirational quotes, a checklist, a gratitude section, space for dinner planning, and more.

The Day Designer also comes with a monthly calendar, a notes section, and space for projects and deadlines. What I like most about this planner is that it’s a little treasure chest where you can organize all of your ideas, tasks, goals, thoughts, and even memories!

Now it’s your turn. What planner are you currently using? And what do you love about it? Leave me a note in the comments below, because I’d really love to know.

How to figure out what you want (what you really, really want)

Dreaming Bigger starts with figuring out what you really want. How else will you achieve it? Of course, this is much easier said than done. I know, believe me, I’ve been there. With a million ideas swirling in my head, stopped in my tracks not knowing how to start, or what to get started with first.

That’s precisely why it’s so important to know what you really want. For indecision is a dream killer. It will keep the most ambitious, creative change makers on the side lines procrastinating instead of taking powerful action. It will make us believe that we can’t do it, that it’s not meant for us, or that we don’t really want it after all (the worst one of all!).

So to dream bigger you need to gain clarity about what you want. There are many ways to do this, some easy others not so much. Below you’ll find 3 exercises that I have my coaching clients do, and that have proven to be successful time and time again.

How to figure out what you really want?

• Write Down Your Ideal Day

Whether you’re looking to achieve big goals in your career, business or personal life write down what your ideal day for each one that is relevant to you. If you want to figure out what career path to follow for instance, think about how you want to feel when going to work, what your environment might look like, what would bring you joy. Don’t be afraid to be specific. The more detailed your ideal day, the more clarity you’ll get about what it is you really want.

• Write Down a List of Things You Don’t Want

I know this may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s often easier to identify what we don’t want instead of what we do want. The format doesn’t matter. It can be a bullet list of things, a journal entry, even a Pinterest board of things that you want less of in your life, career, or business. Once you’ve identified what you don’t want, come up with the opposites, the things you want more of. If you wrote down that you want less time commuting back and to work for example, ask yourself how you’d love to spend that extra time. This will guide you to the things that really matter to you.

• Connect With Your Feelings

The third, and perhaps most powerful tip, is to connect with your feelings. I believe that deep down we know what we want, even if we’re unaware of it. By connecting with your feelings throughout your day at work or at home you’ll get a sense of the things that light you up, and those that don’t. The more you do this, and the clearer you become about what brings you joy, and happiness, the closer you’ll be to figuring out what you really want.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

The greatest love of all to love yourself

I watched the Whitney Houston documentary on Netflix yesterday. I cried. A couple of times. Her story is sad, and tragic. Obviously I shed some tears for that. Witnessing the rise and fall of one of the most beautiful voices of our time will not leave you undisturbed.

But to be honest, mostly, I cried for me.

Over the years I’ve honed the craft to become inconsolably melancholic in a split second, especially when I’m reminded of my life through my senses: the gentle smell of coffee filling the kitchen from my childhood home, a return visit to the neighborhood I grew up in, or in this case songs I used to play over and over on my Walkman as a 15 year old.

It’s hard to imagine, knowing how much I played those songs, that I’d forgotten about the huge Whitney Houston fan I used to be. And maybe less so about the huge mistake perm I convinced my mom I needed to get in order to fit in at school. Biggest lesson of 1990: hair grows very slowly.

It’s incredible what the mind remembers. It never stops to amaze me. Given the right cues drawers of memories open up to us, giving us a chance to poke our noses into the many moments that make up our pasts. The best part is, we never know what we’re going to get. Or when it’s going to happen!

Like yesterday. As I was settling into the documentary a strange feeling of déjà vu came over me.

I couldn’t quite place it at first, but halfway through the thing it hit me: I’d seen this footage before! Not in another documentary or randomly. No, what I realized was that I was recognizing  what I was seeing.

I always get a bit weird when that happens. I also like it a lot because it brings me into a somewhat altered state of being. Perhaps it happens to you to sometimes too. You’re looking at, reading, or listening to something then all of a sudden you realize you were a witness to it before. You were present during the actual moment of creation of that thing. In other words: you were there!

Coming to this conclusion always brings me back to the limits of my own existence. Which in and of itself is a spiritual experience. That’s why I like it so much. It reminds me of what’s important.

Through the old footage, the inevitable clip from The Bodyguard – I was 17 when that movie came out and totally smitten with Kevin Costner (sadly the romance ended when he grew gills and decided to go live in the ocean) – and the many, many songs…

I remembered.

Who I used to be. My teenage years. The dreams, and goals of a 15 year old. The heartbreak that followed my first love.

The things I stood for, cared about, and believed in before I convinced myself I wasn’t good enough. That I needed to be someone else. I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that the Whitney Houston documentary is called “Can I be me?”. Is there even such a thing as coincidences?

Being taken down memory lane like that has a different effect on me depending on how I stand in my life when it happens.

Often though it will make me wonder: Where have all the years gone? Yesterday was no exception. I asked myself that question. To be honest, I’m not sure. I spent so many of those years trying to please everyone around me, trying to not have the anxious thoughts I had, trying so hard to mold myself into a perfect version of who I thought I needed to be… It’s all a little blurry.

There’s one thing I do know.

When I was 15 I was awake, in love with life.

Then at 35 I woke up again, when I finally remembered that the greatest love of all is learning to love yourself. 

3 mindset shifts for greater confidence

I have absolutely awesome clients. Not only do they achieve the most amazing things, they are my greatest teachers, offering me the most valuable lessons. Often those lessons come in the form of questions. Like the one I got from one of my business mentoring clients last week, a creative entrepreneur who will soon blow your socks off with her amazing audiovisual work.

When faced with the prospect of landing a big client, she felt a lack of confidence that made her doubt herself, as well as her capacity to do a good job. So she asked me how we can appear more confident in cases like this, you know when we don’t feel like it. I’m sure we’ve all been there. At least, I know I have. The bigger the opportunity, the smaller we feel.

I believe there are two ways of looking at this question.

The obvious one is to take on an external point of view. What can you physically or verbally do to appear more confident? After a quick search online it’s clear this is the way most people understand, and answer this question. The problem with this is that it doesn’t improve your confidence at all, it only emulates it for a limited amount of time.

I’m not a fan of fixing symptoms. I’m the kind of person that loves to dig a little deeper to fix problems. That’s why I think there’s another, more interesting way to address this question: what mindset shifts can help you be more confident in yourself? Because once you’ll feel more confident you’ll most likely appear more confident as well. So here are three mindset shifts to be more confident in yourself:

#1 People don’t see us the way we see ourselves

The way we think we behave when we lack confidence is not per definition the way others perceive us to be. We might be sweating, or feeling like our knees are made of cotton. Although that might be uncomfortable to a point that we’re unable to ignore it, it doesn’t mean that anyone else is aware of it.

Often (if not always) we feel afraid or insecure but it’s not showing at all. Keeping this in mind helps to relieve some of the stress we can experience when in an interview, a difficult meeting or important sales conversation. So remember that what you’re feeling or experiencing, even if it’s extreme anxiety, will probably not show.

#2 What type of confidence are you modelling?

This is a big one. When I started out with my first company I thought I had to appear as big, and as strong as the big boys in the industry. But of course I wasn’t. As a result I would feel less than when going into sales meetings, fearing that the potential client I was sitting in front of would see right through me.

The thing is though, there’s no rule saying a freelancer starting out, an online entrepreneur, a startup needs to be identical to bigger, well-established companies. In fact it’s quite the opposite. It took me awhile to get it, but once I figured that my differences were my strengths, I never pretended to be bigger than I was anymore, and I gained a lot of confidence from that. In other words: don’t model your confidence off anybody else’s. Instead be authentic, own who you are.

#3 Let go of the outcome

We’ve all heard this one before. Although I’m a firm believer of not clinging to the outcome of anything, in this case my take on it is a bit different. As I mentioned above, I believe our lack of confidence can come from how we think others perceive us, and how we think we should be perceived by others. Getting clear on this can help you to make powerful mindset shifts to become more confident.

There’s a third way we undermine our confidence in ourselves that I think deserves to be mentioned. It’s one that I believe is often overlooked, but that many of us deal with. It has everything to do with how we look at opportunities. In the light of opportunities it’s easy to link lack of confidence with a fear of failure. But what about big opportunities and fear of success? With the fear of success, rather than letting go of the possible big and successful outcome (which I would advice people with a fear of failure to do), my take is to downplay the outcome altogether. Hang on to the outcome if you want to, just make sure you see it for what it really is. What I mean by that is that too often we blow things out of proportion, make them so big that we can’t imagine what would happen if we actually achieved them.

But the truth is no opportunity will open all doors at once, propel you to super-stardom overnight. Big opportunities might be big wins yes, but there’s probably an even bigger road ahead of you before you get to where you think this opportunity will take you. Your life won’t change overnight, so there’s no reason to be afraid it will.

I hope these tips will help you to be more confident about yourself. In the comments below I’d love to know what your tips are, or what you’re struggling with when it comes to being confident. So let me know.