Self confidence leads to career success, which in turn leads to increased self confidence, which leads to higher levels of success.
You might be saying, “That’s great, but how do I become self confident if I’m new in my job or career and haven’t had a lot of success to bolster my self confidence?” There’s an old saying that applies here: “Fake it till you make it.” In other words, act as if you’re successful. This will help you succeed. Your success will help you build your self confidence.
How, do you “fake it, will you make it?” Begin with affirmations. If you’re in a new job, tell yourself something like, “I have the skills and desire to succeed in this job,” several times a day. If you repeat this to yourself often enough, you will begin to believe it. This will help you perform at the level necessary in order to actually succeed in your job.
Affirmations are positive self talk. The idea behind affirmations is that when you think of the things to which you aspire, like being a career success, and then tell yourself that you are a career success, you will believe that you can become successful. More importantly, you will be more likely to do the work it takes to make that aspiration come true.
These 42 rules explain my model of career and life success. This model has five points. I often use a star to depict this model. I sometimes even talk about becoming a career and life star. I like the star metaphor. Daily, I repeat the following affirmation to myself: “Bud Bilanich is a star.”
I’ve done a lot of working in making this affirmation a reality – redoing my websites, developing better promotional materials, speaking, writing books, blogging.
I’ve also done something a little unusual. A few years ago, I went to the “Name a Star” website and named a star after myself. Now I can say “Bud Bilanich is a star” and really believe it, because Bud Bilanich really is a star.
Bud Bilanich the star, is Catalog Number TYC 868-1011-1 in the constellation Leo. Bud Bilanich has a Visual Magnitude indicator of 11.2. Right Ascension is 11h 58m 21s. Declination is 11degrees, 43,’18.”
I don’t have a clue what all of these things mean, except the constellation Leo, which I chose because my birthday is August 14. But I do know one thing. Bud Bilanich is a star!
How’s that for an affirmation?
Affirmations work. And you don’t have to go to the lengths I did to make them work. Just decide what you want, visualize yourself as having it, and tell yourself you have it. Then do whatever it takes to make your affirmation come true.
Affirmations alone, however, are not enough to guarantee your career success. You have to do the work. Spend the time necessary to accomplish your goals. Volunteer for projects that will get you noticed. Become an expert on your company, its competitors, and your industry. In other words, bust your butt, and you will succeed.
Self confidence will come with this success. The self confidence → success → self confidence cycle is an upward spiral. You have to enter the cycle somewhere. Most of us don’t have a strong track record as we begin our careers, move into a new job, or start a business. Therefore, you have to “fake it till you make it” by finding ways to bolster your self confidence until you have some real successes on which you can build. Affirmations are a great tool for helping you “fake it till you make it.”
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