Recently at my Lighthearted Women online Business Success Group, we had a discussion around managing a difficult situation at work. One of the members described a situation that happened to her that was unexpected and on a “normal” day would have left most running for the hills! But on that particular day, she was in front of a customer and needed to respond to the situation in that moment. When she explained what she did and how she did it, there was a cheer around the zoom room!
To summarize the story, she was questioned on the end price on the invoice that she had sent to her customer. Now this is not uncommon for business owners but how we respond can be very different on each day depending on our levels of energy and confidence. Imagine when you are starting out in business, highly capable professional stepping out on your own and having to navigate pricing and value and a million other new concepts. It can be a daunting experience if you do not have full confidence in your value or how to communicate it to others. Women in particular can experience Imposter Syndrome, where they doubt their value and expertise and can undermine themselves in life and business. This can hit us at various moments of our lives, usually when we are just a little bit out of our comfort zone.
The trick is to be aware of it and work on managing your inner critic every day, challenge the truth of what those little unhelpful thoughts are saying, inject a few new truths in to your mind by using mantras, have a little chat with yourself on a regular basis on what is good for you and your business. In this instance, this woman stepped in to her power, reminded herself that she had done a good job, she didn’t overcharge, she brought real value to the work and deserved the recognition for her hard work. When she had reassured herself of this (this takes milliseconds in your mind), she felt confident enough to have the conversation with her client and resolve any doubts her client had.
Another way to help you have that instant confidence is to imagine yourself putting on your “business hat”, “big girl pants” or as I call them “Business Knickers”! You can call it anything you want; it can be any piece of clothing that you want. The reasoning behind it is that when you put on this item and you are wearing it like an armour- you are stepping in to a role, a state of being when you need to. I bet that there is an item of clothing in your wardrobe right now that puts you in a different mindset, be it a pair of heels, a dress, a jacket or it could be a red lipstick that gives you a little boost of confidence. The idea behind the “business knickers” is that they can be real or imagined but that once you call on them, you can embody the mind of a businesswoman. It gives you permission to step up and into your power. All too often we can fall in to a “nice person” role and can do a bit too much people pleasing and feel compromised afterwards. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could call on this “Business hat” any time you needed rather than avoiding those challenging parts of running a business?
So the next time that you have a task ahead of you, what are you going to be wearing??
