TBBVA 058: Stretching Beyond What’s Comfortable In Your Virtual Assistant Business

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Referenced Links:

• Periscope
• Blab

Tweetables:

Most people won’t step outside of what’s comfortable to fulfill their dreams. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

Personal development helps you grow in your business. #vatipGotta Tweet!

Your journey is not for others to understand. #vatip Gotta Tweet!

In Words:

Hello and welcome to episode number 58.  Today, we’re going to talk about confidence boosters.  Lately, I’ve been wanting to jump right in and get to the meat of the episode.

Confidence boosters – what is that?  Well, every now and then we may need something to help boost our confidence to let us know that we’re capable of doing more.

How do we get a little boost in our confidence?

I’m just going to give you a few tips on that.  You probably will get some ideas while you’re listening to this.  So maybe if you’re in a position to take notes, do that.  If not, come back later.  Clearly, you’re listening to the audio and you can listen over and over and over and over again.

All right, so your confidence boosters.  We know we do a certain thing every single day.  It could be as simple as what your routine is every day.  Whether it’s routine for business or routine for home, whatever it is.  It may be time to step outside of what that normal routine looks like.

It’s been raining like crazy around here lately, and maybe it’s been raining like that in your area too.  Sometimes on days like that it’s easy to get in the mode of like dragging around or feeling what I call blah, and you need something to kind of get you out of that.  If we’re doing the same things over and over again, same routine, we need something to get us out of that blah, or if you’re feeling like I know I can do more but I’m not confident I can do more; I’m not sure, so you need a little confidence boost.

First thing is to step outside of what you’ve been doing normally.  What we normally stick to are things that are comfortable for us, so step outside of that.

 

Think about all the different options that we have and how we can go outside of our comfort zone.  What are you comfortable with?  That’s the first thing in knowing what’s comfortable.  The biggest clue in knowing what’s comfortable is looking at what you do on a regular basis.

If you’re comfortable behind the screen during your emails, comfortable doing things in writing, try a video.  We’ve got Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope, Blab, everything.  Hop on video.  What you can do to get comfortable with that is turn on your phone.  Do a video just you.  Do a video.  Make it for you, nobody else, as a tester, and then watch the video.

Have you ever watched yourself on video?  For me, that’s uncomfortable.  Even listening to myself on audio is uncomfortable.  It takes me outside of my comfort zone.  But many times I go back and watch myself or re-listen to myself and I’m like, oh, that’s me.  So that could be a confidence boost in letting you know you can do this.  You may think that you sound nervous in audio, but when you re-listen to it, you can’t hear that, or you may think that you look nervous in video and then when you go back you may realize, well, I can’t even tell I was nervous, or maybe you can tell.

The point is to get you outside of that normal thing that you’re doing, to just jump outside of the comfort zone.  Use it in video, maybe through your words, maybe in audio, maybe pictures, whatever it is to help you know that you can do more.  You’re using them as a confidence boost.

I’ve been hearing for years that personal development is like one of the main things, most important things, for business owners.  Develop you personally and that helps you grow in your business, and for the longest time the connection just did not click for me.  There’s a difference between personal development and motivation, two different things.

With personal development, like I said, it took me a while to realize the connection.  One thing that helped me connect the dots is social media.  Because everything that we do, that we decide to put out there, once it’s out there, it’s out there, and not just social media – email, this podcast, pictures, so Instagram, anything that goes online.  You’re putting yourself out there, so it’s like you’re opening yourself up to whoever wants to make a comment or say anything.  If you’re not strong personally, that could really affect your confidence.

Personal development is also key in helping us boost our confidence.  When we feel good about ourselves, when we are strong in who we are, that is unshakable.  It’s unshakable.

If you know you’re not a good cook and someone tells you you’re not a good cook, you’re not going to be upset about that.  You know you’re not a good cook.  It’s no big deal.  The flip side, if you know you’re a great cook and someone tells you you’re not, you’ll stand strong and know, whatever, I know I’m a great cook.

When we know who we are, when we stand strong in that, we are confident when we put our stuff out there.

You may have to do an activity as a confidence boost, which is what I talked about where the video could come in, audio, your writing, sending out emails, messages, taking pictures, putting that out there, or it could be time to do some personal development and start ramping up on that.

I used to read personal development books, and this was when I wasn’t connecting the dots, and a lot of times they’ll have an exercise in the book or want you to journal and write something down, and I was one of those people that would read it and keep going to the next paragraph.  I mean, it’s a book.  I’m in mode to read so I’m going to read.  But personal development is not just a reading part.  There is some type of action to it as well.

When I say to think about what your schedule is, what you’re doing now, what’s comfortable for you, that is an exercise.  That’s an action step to be done because once you realize what you’ve been doing over and over again, you can find out where you’ve been missing as far as doing the more.

I have talked for eight minutes.  Okay, I’ve touched on something that, whew, I know is going to help somebody.  Here’s why I know this, because I’m talking about confidence boosters.  Anytime you put something out there in a form of training, motivating, coaching, helping somebody else, you put something out there in that form, you’re tested in that.

I’m doing this episode on confidence boosters and here I hit the delete button on the audio.  I was going to re-record it, refine what I said.  But then in the moment in realizing what I had just done, it’s like, no, wait a minute.  Somebody needs to hear the unedited cut, the first run, the dry run of it, so there we have it.  It’s going to stay.  It’s going to stay.

To whoever you are, you are greater than the challenge that you’re experiencing right now.  You are not who they say you are.  You are who God says you are. 

If you need to do something outside of your norm, it’s time now to do something outside of your norm.  If you’re sitting in silence and you’re doing your work, turn some music on.  Get up and move.  Get up and move.  Go back to a place where you were super confident in your abilities.  Go back to that time.

For me, the time would be senior year in high school and applying for colleges.  It never occurred to me that a college would tell you no.  I never thought about not getting into school.  It just never crossed my mind.  It may have crossed friends’ minds.  But for me, it didn’t cross my mind.  I was, you know, why would they not accept me into their school?

I applied for three schools.  The school I really wanted to go to, the school I knew I’d get in no matter what, and another school, a good school.  All were good schools.  But it never occurred to me that I would be told no.  I mean, I never thought about it, and it wasn’t because I had never been told no before, because my parents told me no a lot.  But for some reason when it came to those college applications I did not think about it.

In fact, the school I ended up going to, the college application, I applied for it after the other two and it was last minute because the school I really wanted to go to I went to visit the school and hated the campus.  So on my way home I decided, well, I’ll apply to this other school then, and it was also the school that my dad had been wanting me to go to and he was all excited.  So I’m like whatever, because my school I really wanted to go to, I was so let down by what it looked like.

When I filled out that application, in fact, I called a friend.  She had gotten an application.  She decided not to apply.  I was like, “Do you still have that application?”  I got it from here, and there was a section of it and they were asking for an essay.  Now, this was in the late 90s.  I don’t know how it’s done now.

But you were supposed to write an essay to tell about yourself, and I clearly remember saying to myself I’m not writing an essay.  They will find out about me when I get there.  [Laughs]  Now, I’m a high school senior, applied to their school.  That was my thought.  So I filled out everything else because it did say the essay was optional.  I learned later that it said optional, but it really meant required.

Anyway, I got into the school.  This is one of those moments where, you know, if we were in church it would be like but God.  [Laughs]  Anyway, I got accepted into the school.  I got accepted into all the schools I applied to.  But I just think back on that because in those times I was confident in who I was, in my abilities, and yeah, I’d run into some roadblocks but nothing major.

Now, fast-forward, what seems like on a regular day, it was yesterday, but in reality it was many years ago, there’s been a lot more road bumps.  For you, I’m sure there’s been a lot more road bumps and sometimes those bumps affect our confidence, and so it’s important for us to stand strong in who we are and remind ourselves of who we are, and develop ourselves personally.

It’s not easy owning your own business.  Everybody can’t do it.  As much as I would love to see everybody around me fulfilling their dreams, whatever it is, whether it’s owning a business or not, the sad part is the majority will not fulfill their dreams.  It’s not because they can’t.  It’s because they won’t.  They won’t step outside of the norm.  They won’t step outside of what’s comfortable.  Instead, they look to the comfort.  They look to the norm.  The norm is what everybody’s doing.  The norm is what the people say you should do.

You can’t listen to everybody.  You have to be selective.  Consider the source.

That is so important for you because you have to protect your dream.  You have to protect your vision.  You have to protect the activities that you’re doing to reach your goals.  Somebody else’s mess could cause you to lose confidence if you’re listening to what they’re saying, if you’re taking to heart what they’re saying, what their saying about the thing that you’re doing and what they’re saying about you.  Don’t let that get in the way.

Yeah, we have our ups and downs, good days and bad days, just like the weather.  It rains some days.  The sun is out some days.  But regardless, if you woke up on those days, you have something to do.  There’s purpose in that day, and God gave you the ability to do it, so be confident in that.  Stand strong in that.

Continue to develop yourself personally, and continue to develop yourself spiritually. 

The walk that you’re taking as a virtual assistant business owner, many are standing on the sidelines in awe.  They’re still trying to digest what you’re doing.  They have no clue.  Not that you haven’t said anything or haven’t shared with them.  It’s that they can’t comprehend it because they’re used to the norm, and that’s okay.  It’s not for them to understand, if by now they don’t understand.  It’s your journey.  It’s not their journey.

Do what you need to do to boost your confidence today and whatever day it is that you need a little boost.  Whether it’s just getting up, moving around, whether it’s actually doing something outside of your comfort zone.  Creating a video, an audio, writing an email, writing a letter and actually sending it to somebody or putting it out there online to get outside of what’s holding you back.

See, the minute you do that, the thing that’s holding you back can’t hold you back anymore because it’s done.  You’ve broken free.  You’ve put it out there.  You’ve put it out there, so you’re gone.  You’ve taken off in the race.  I’m excited for you and look forward to seeing you on the way.

Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.

See you next time!