Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're going to learn
seven different ways that you can use to boost your self-confidence as a graphic designer and
an entrepreneur so that you can take control of your business the conversations that you have
with your clients and to get you through the tough times now being a freelancer or a graphic designer
is one of the loneliest jobs out there because we're open to criticism the work that we do we
put in front of other people and essentially we ask them to criticize our work and you can see
that in different forms and different groups with designers putting their work out there asking for
that feedback because that's what we crave as designers as in-house designers freelance
designers studio designers we're craving that feedback we want to know that our work is valued
so we put ourselves out there and it's quite understandable in those circumstances that we can
feel insecure about our work and our self-esteem can take a hit on top of that you've got different
market conditions and different market conditions means that clients come in waves sometimes you'll
have plenty of clients and plenty of jobs on one day or one week or one month and the next month
they might dry up completely now that might be because that's the way things go within the design
industry you have those feast and famine times or it might be based on market conditions something
might happen in the market or in the economy or with the global health crisis and all of a sudden
those projects that you had on just suddenly dried up so it's important to take control
of that self-confidence to really get a grasp on the work that you're doing to understand the
conditions of the industry that you're in and just accept them and just take on that idea that they
are out of your control but there are some things that you can control and your self-confidence is
one of those and this really is a deal breaker when it comes to dealing with clients as well
and freelancers go through this more so than in-house designers when you deal with clients on
a one-to-one basis they want to hear in your voice that you have a an element of self-confidence
about you that it sounds like you know what you're doing you're confident that you know
where you're going because often it's the tone of your voice and the confidence that you deliver
more so than what you say that is a deal-breaker for that client now i've been studying business
for many many years now and the more i read the more i realize how much the mind plays a role
in the success and failure of businesses and the success and failure of individuals as well
now i know that there are a lot of people out there who just look naturally self-confident and
it's as if they've been born with it and it's just it just naturally comes to them and i've
seen these people before and i've seen these people when i've been going through periods of
self-doubt as well and i look towards those and i wonder you know how did they get to that place but
anybody who is looking like they are completely self-confident like they've been born with i
guarantee you 99 of those people have gone through periods of self-doubt and the difference between
where they are now to where they where before is just simply a transition they've gone on a pathway
of overcoming that self-doubt and anybody who has self-doubt can look to those people and understand
well you know they were once uh struggling with self-confidence as well and if they can overcome
it i can overcome it as well and there's a number of different techniques that you can use to boost
your your own self-confidence and that's what we're going to go through in this video right now
number one visualize your future you now napoleon hill once famously said what the mind can conceive
and believe it can achieve and visualization is a widely accepted technique across any successful
entrepreneur or sports person and it's this idea that if you visualize your future you your future
future self your successful self then you're far more likely to get there so start to think
about who you are becoming who you want to become do you want to become
a top illustrator do you want to become a really good ux designer do you want to become a brand
strategist if so what's your life going to look like in 10 years time um who are you going to be
in 10 years time what's that person going to be what kind of aura are they going to have what way
are they going to speak what how are they going to confidently deliver their message so think of who
you're becoming think of who you're going to be in the future and then assume that role number two
put yourself outside your comfort zone now this is where you grow when you put yourself outside
your comfort zone it doesn't feel right you feel uncomfortable you feel out of your depth but trust
me that is where you grow when i was working in finance before i went overseas on holiday and when
i came back i realized i had lost my job and my my director gave me a call at the time and he told me
that the doors were closing for our business but he had got me a role in another firm now
this firm was a bit more prestigious but through his contacts he had gotten me this role and i went
straight into that role and i didn't realize they were using uh software i wasn't familiar with and
i was thrown into the deep end with these traders who traded millions of dollars and my role was as
an operator so i had to buy and sell the stock on behalf of those traders and as soon as i went
in there they start calling orders out to me and you know i just i i was making mistakes left right
and center i couldn't tell whether i was buying or selling because i didn't know how to use the
software and i was i started to lose money because i started to make mistakes i started to lose money
for the traders for the firm and i'm talking thousands and thousands of dollars here and you
know it was a really really tough time in my life and i i was going into work every day during that
period and i was shaking just in case somebody asked me to place a trade but i got through it i
i started to learn the system i started to get used to it i started to take on smaller orders
and over time the traders started to trust me again and i really look back on that period as
a defining moment in my life because i came across a challenge and i just wanted to throw the tail in
i really did i was i was so nervous coming into work every single day my palms were sweating
but when i got through it and when i started to build the trust with the traders again
and you know i i ended up becoming quite good at what i was doing and the the traders started
to turn to me as their go-to person then i look back on on where i had come and i looked back
at that journey and that gave me a huge feeling of self-confidence that i had come across this
huge challenge i was thrown into the deep end i wanted the world to swallow me up whole and
you know i just wanted to escape and run away but i didn't i stayed there i fought through it
i battled through it i showed up every day and the confidence that i get got from overcoming
that really did play a big impact in the rest of my life from that point and i always look back
to that moment so take that idea and put yourself outside of your comfort zone i'm not saying that
you need to put yourself in situations as dramatic as that but put yourself outside your comfort zone
if you're not feeling confident then chances are that you're growing you're learning something new
and that will all build your self-confidence number three silence your inner critic now
believe it or not we all have voices in our heads that talk to us and put us down now some more
extreme than others and this really depends on the experience you had growing up whether whether or
not there was someone there in your life putting you down but we all to some level have that inner
voice and i learned this about myself when i went to a self-development course and i
realized how loud the voice was within my head but i also learned how to control it as well and
the best way to control it is by acknowledging it when you hear that voice when you hear that
inner conversation telling you that you're not good at what you do telling you that
you know that you're not great there are other people that are better that you you're you're not
worth anything well then acknowledge that tell your your your inner voice i can hear you i see
you i know what you're doing and you're not going to affect me so the biggest challenge to that
is first acknowledging that voice realizing that there is a conversation going on in your head and
don't feel bad about this everybody goes through this on some level or another obviously people who
are less confident people who have self-doubt the voices louder in their head and if you're able to
consciously recognize the conversations that are going on in your head then you can start to take
control of them you can start to take control of them by having that conversation back don't just
let the voice speak to you one way turn around and have a conversation with that voice and say i hear
you i acknowledge you i know what you're doing but you're not going to put me down so take control
of that inner voice silence your inner critic and take control of that conversation number four
embrace failure now some of the most successful people of all time speak about this idea of
embracing failure everybody from winston churchill to jfk einstein to gandhi they all talk about
that idea of embracing failure that you're not going to succeed or achieve anything unless you
come across the idea of embracing failure of accepting the failure is part of success
so really take that idea into your own world i think einstein said that those who haven't failed
haven't tried something new so really embrace the idea that you're going to fail you're going
to fail at some of the things that you do and that is just part of the road to success so give
yourself a break embrace failure and accept that it's just part of the job number five learn to say
no now this is what shapes the success or failure of your career when you learn your self-worth when
you start understanding what it is that your value is in the marketplace then you're going
to come across jobs and projects and people that want you to work on a particular thing i want you
to work on a particular project and want to pay you a certain amount and it's when you understand
your value it's when you understand the role that you're playing the direction that you're going the
journey that you're on and what you're becoming in the future then you're going to learn to say no to
more of those projects and the more projects that you say no to the more you're shaping your journey
if you just say yes to everything then you're going to get sidetracked and you're never going
to be able to take the time to really focus on who you are becoming the more projects that you say
no to the more you embrace the idea of learning to say no the more time you're going to have in
your hands to really shape your own direction so embrace the idea that you need to learn
how to say no to the right projects at the right time number six be your own influencer now marilyn
monroe once said that wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are and today there are a
lot of influencers out there there are a lot of people on social media in the entrepreneurship
world who look really really successful and it's easy to look to these people and say you know wow
look at where they are at the moment and you know look at the journey they've been on but until you
start focusing on your own journey until you start focusing on where you want to go and how you're
going to get there then you're going to be wasting your time just looking at these other influencers
now they're not more deserving than you they're not better than you they're they don't have a
huge amount of skills that are vastly better than yours they just took their journey they just went
on their journey at the right time they put their head down they focused on their own journey and
they got to where they're going you need to focus on your journey not anybody else's you need to
understand the path that you're on and put your head down and start putting one foot in front of
the other and start becoming that person that you're meant to become start becoming your own
influencer and look to yourself for inspiration and finally number seven understand that this two
shall pass now we are at our lowest we're at our least confident on the back of some kind of
event maybe you've lost a client maybe you've lost a bunch of clients maybe the economy is tanking or
maybe there's a world health pandemic and we're all in lockdown it could be a bunch of different
things but the point is that after such an event it's very easy to get down on yourself it's very
easy to criticize yourself and feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel and this period
is just going to go on and on and on but like everything else these two shall pass and you
just have to embrace that idea that you know you need a little bit of perspective in this time look
at the good things within your life and you know really be thankful for what you do have and just
you know be comfortable knowing that there is going to be some kind of light at the end of
the tunnel and not to really let the world close in on you thinking that this dark period is going
to go on forever and ever and ever it's not this too shall pass so understand that embrace that
idea don't let the world get on top of you and move on quickly and keep going and moving forward
within your day now look being a freelancer a business owner a solopreneur is a lonely job and
often you don't have people to talk about often we internalize a lot of things and i've been through
a lot of this myself i've been through a lot of self-doubt i still go through a lot of self-doubt
not probably go through self-doubt in the future and if i do maybe i'll look back on this video and
just remind myself that it's not all that bad and there are things that you can you can do
to keep yourself positive and you know bring that confidence back but i would love to hear from you
what you're going through at the moment whether you've just come through some kind of event
whether you're going through an event at the moment or how that event is affecting you let
me know in the comments below if there's anything that you can take from this video and implement it
into your own life if you plan on taking any one of the steps that i've mentioned
let me know if you've got any challenges or any specific questions about something that you're
trying to overcome or something that you want to get out of your life so you can move on and kind
of bring your confidence back then let me know in the comments below if you like this video please
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you