5 Steps to Feel Confident About Your Hustle
Owning your own business is hard. One of the hardest parts is even admitting to yourself and others that what you work on is real. Owning that your dreams, plans and hopes for your hustle aren’t dumb or crazy is a task that some of us face on the daily (heck, even throughout the day).
Trust us when we say that every single doubt you’ve have or currently have about what you’re doing has been had by every person building their dream business or life. We have society, people at our day jobs, maybe even our own family and friends telling us that our business plans are unrealistic or won’t work so why waste the time telling that to ourselves?
Once we can pull back a bit and look at our business as the living, breathing, real thing that it is we are able to boost new confidence into how we handle things. It takes bigger steps to get there, but with little tweaks here and there we can breath new life back into our dreams.
KNOW THAT GOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH
It’s time to put down the perfectionist crown. I know as business owners it’s an easy hat to wear and it’s one of the easiest fall back excuses for not being “ready” or putting something out there. We think there is this mythical level of “ready” that we will somehow get notified when we reach it and then everything will be okay. The truth is, it doesn’t exist. Whatever you put out next year will be better than what you’re putting out now. That’s called growing. But you can’t get to the place of being able to see what changes need to be made until you have progress. We like to picture a whole crowd out there that is eyeing and judging our every move when in reality those people are just in our heads.
COME UP WITH YOUR TAGLINE
Have you ever met up with new people and you get the dreaded question, “So, what do you do?”. So you spend the next 30 seconds fumbling around to try and explain your situation and you feel super awkward, flustered and like a total fraud. Wouldn't it be better if you had your business tagline that outlines what you do, who your audience is and you were able to roll it off the tongue in less than 15 seconds? I want you to instead spend time before you get in these awkward situations and create your business tagline. Your tagline will arm you with a clear, precise sentence or two that exactly explains your title and what you do in a way that makes you seem so legit. I personally like to use Nikki Elledge Brown’s method that you can check out here.
Remember that you get to decide your title and how you want to explain what you do. Be sure to craft it in a way that is approachable and easily outlines what you do. Here’s an example of my tagline:
“I teach creative entrepreneurs the strategies of building and maintaining a thriving and profitable business with online articles, courses and workshops.”
CREATE A MANTRA
“My dreams are attainable, my hustle is strong, my ideas are worth sharing.” I wrote this down months ago in the margins of a notebook. I came across it recently as I was cleaning out my office and I got the goosebumps. A beginner hustler’s mind is so fragile that we are so easily knocked down by the simplest things. I remember this feeling so clearly of wanting it to be easier and wishing that I could just get past this hump. It’s the first hump on the long road of owning your own business that’s the hardest to get over. Sure there are humps (even cliffs) once you get past that one, but that’s the one that makes you realize that you should only move forward. Until you get past that hump you are in a constant state of “should I just quit?”, but now it would take more work for me to quit than it would to just figure this out.
Use this mantra if it resonates with you or create your own. I like to include at least three aspects, but don’t make it too long. Give yourself praise and reminders about why you’re on this crazy journey. Write it down, look at it everyday, say it to yourself when you get down. Trust me, this does wonders.
CREATE A DAILY BUSINESS ROUTINE
There’s nothing that makes me want to check more stuff off the to-do list than checking stuff off the to-do list. I like to keep it simple so I can check items off everyday. This helps me feel accomplished and ready to tackle my even bigger to-do’s. It can be as simple as responding to emails, posting on social media, mapping out your day, or tidying up your desk space. Be sure to make these business routines and not necessarily house routines so you can start to separate the two tasks. Especially in the early stages of business or when you haven’t quite seen the results of certain tasks (like daily blogging or instagramming) it can be hard to remember to do these things, but we all know that consistency is key to brand building so creating a routine will help you stay on task.
By being repetitive in these actions you will begin to see the results it has on your business and you will be that much more inclined to do them. By being present in your business in some way everyday you stay on top of its needs. There’s nothing worse than checking out for too long and not knowing what’s going on with your business or audience.
HAVE BIG GOALS
We speak with a lot of small business owners that are totally focused in on the “now”, which is definitely important, but equally as impactful is looking into your long term plans. Don’t be afraid to make (big) long term goals! These are the dreamiest of dreams that keep those small routines chugging along. Those big goals will be there to remind you what your end game is and why it’s so important for you to do the work now. We sometimes get discouraged by #allthethings but when we recognize that those big dreams are only made possible with a bagillion tiny steps we learn to value them more.
At the end of the day we want you to appreciate what you’re doing as real and once you legitimize it in your head you’ll be able to come at it full force with everything you’ve got. We believe in your dreams, your ideas and your creations. We’re in your corner.
If you feel like you might need a helping hand in setting goals and maintaining them, we’d love to chat with you!
