It takes self-confidence to be a business owner.

To place a financial value on the skills, knowledge, and experience you have to offer.

To have the audacity to believe people will be willing to pay for that.

To have the courage to invest your time in hours and hours marketing yourself (or your product) with no guarantee what you’re doing will result in any money at all.

It takes self-confidence to be a business owner – which is a problem if (like me) you’re Confidence-Compromised.

Caring for a child who has additional medical needs and developmental differences.

Living with chronic pain conditions.

Grief.

Depression.

Relationship challenges.

Being an introverted, highly sensitive, socially-awkward, different-thinker.

Medical poking, prodding, and stitching (through various tests, check-ups, and small surgeries).

These are some of the things that have affected my self-confidence.

And I’m not special.

Everyone has their own combo of Life Stuff going on.

For some of us, the combination is so potent that it gobbles up the confidence that would otherwise be channeled into running and building our businesses.

This Life Stuff makes it hard to ‘charge your worth’ and ‘get visible’ and ‘be yourself’.

And it can make conventional business coaching, productivity advice, and motivational mantras more hurtful than helpful.

My Confidence-Compromised Business Beginnings

• I doubted myself a lot. Not because I’m often wrong, but it’s like every ounce of self-belief was used up advocating for Son#2 and I didn’t have a lot left in the tank for myself. This made it hard to act on ideas or follow through with decisions.

• I was (and still am) reluctant to push myself too hard and take risks. Big launches, in-person events, taking on one too many clients – anything where I’d be thinking ‘This will be OK so long as nothing goes wrong’ is a BIG mistake and absolutely guaranteed that something to go wrong.

• I fell for shame-based selling. I’m less susceptible to this now because I recognise it for what it is – deplorable. But a few years ago I shelled out £3,000 that would’ve been much better spent on my family, to a coach who convinced me to ‘put myself first’ and ‘take myself seriously’ and ‘believe in myself’….and of course, investing in coaching with her was the best way to do that.

• I undercharged, over-delivered, had flaky boundaries and didn’t believe the good things other people were saying about me because I didn’t have a very solid sense of self.

• I worried that my aspirations weren’t good enough so I struggled to own them. I ‘just’ wanted to make enough money, doing work I loved, while working around the shit-ton of Life Stuff I had going on. But nobody’s selling that dream, so I found myself chasing after goals I didn’t really want (six-figure income) because they seemed like the ‘right’ thing to want.

• I constantly compared myself to other people and came up short every time.

Things That Helped Me Succeed* Anyway

*My version of success may not look the same as yours.

Most of this I stumbled upon by chance, then learned to use with intention.

#1 Accept that my Life Stuff was affecting my self-confidence – and that this was OK

Someone who was trying to help me grow my business asked ‘Why do you doubt yourself all the time?’.

I had ample evidence that I was a good copywriter, and they were frustrated that I didn’t just shrug off my self-doubt, ‘charge my worth’ and do all the other things I would do to be successful if only I could just believe in myself.

Maybe they thought pointing this out would bring about some magical change in my personality and I would shed my layer of self-doubt and emerge a confident warrior.

And that is kinda what happened, but probably not in the way they had imagined.

Because my response was ‘Are you fucking kidding me’?

I listed all the recent ways I had been given reason to doubt myself….. teachers, medical professionals, special-ed coordinators, family, friends, well-meaning strangers on the street, business coaches…. all telling me that I should stop what I was doing, and do the thing they wanted me to do instead.

Those people were telling me I should doubt myself, and they far outnumbered the people telling me I should have confidence in myself.

So of course I doubted myself.

And when I realized what I was achieving, and who I was, despite those influences pulling me down, I started to feel like a phoenix instead of a failure.

#2 Cheer on other Confidence-Compromised people

I have this magical power that makes people tell me stuff.

I think being highly sensitive (and therefore strongly influenced by other people’s emotions) also makes me like some kind of sponge, drawing that emotion towards me.

Which is a privilege.

I love that people share their lives with me.

They tell me about all the challenging Life Stuff they’re dealing with right now…. and then they say a bunch of stuff to beat themselves up because their business is not as successful as they want it to be.

I’m looking at them in awe of what they’ve been able to achieve.

They feel like a waste of space.

In the moment, I do and say things to help them see themselves differently.

But later I also reflect on these interactions and use them as my own personal reminder that I am often just as mean to myself and I should give myself a bit more credit, cut myself some slack, and take a break from the self-deprecation.

#3 Gather Evidence of Awesomeness

Anytime someone emails me or writes a Facebook comment with kind words, I screenshot it and add it to my Evidence of Awesomeness collection (which is a database on Notion).

When I need to remind myself why I do what I do, and that what I do is helpful and meaningful for others, I dive into that database.

It’s all work stuff though, and I’ve recently been thinking about how I don’t acknowledge my domestic efforts, so I’m creating my own journal – a Tiny Triumphs Logbook so I can record the small moments when I feel proud of myself.

If you want to get better at spotting and owning your own Tiny Triumphs, I have a Substack blog about that (called Tiny Triumphs – it’s a bit neglected)

#4 Containing Confidence Knocks as if they are hazardous material

You know when you knock over a glass of water and the volume of water suddenly multiplies by ten times and spreads far wider than you could ever have believed was possible, and gets everywhere?

That’s how Confidence Knocks work too. Except it’s not the same as harmless, easily mopped-up water. It’s more like a barrel of hazardous material, that ruins everything it touches.

When I burn the toast, if I’m not very vigilant about my thought patterns, that one small mistake can rapidly become a whole bunch of self-doubt about whether anyone will ever hire me as a copywriter again, and perhaps this business is a failure and maybe I should just get a job. There are usually a few steps in between but you don’t need to see the inner workings of my mind (it’s scary in there).

Before my mind takes off like a runaway train, I give myself a minute or two to reflect on what (if anything) this small confidence knock means. And then get on with my day.

#5 Knowing that, for me, a successful business is a Comfy Business

I want a business that comfortably fits in around my life challenges, adventures and priorities.

I don’t have a particular income goal in mind, a desire to stand on stage in a packed arena, or want a publishing deal (if you do want those things, go get ‘em).

I want to be able to sack off work and help baby seals, and be around to drive Son#2 to the tutors so I get a few minutes of conversation with him, and plan my day around tide times so we can visit the beach, and be able to rest when I need to, and work when I want to.

For a long time, I felt kinda ashamed about this.

I should want more. I was unambitious. Upper-limiting. Playing it small. I felt like I didn’t really fit into the online business world… and yep, that knocked my confidence.

Now I’m so excited about having a Comfy Business I wrote a book about it, and it’s the focus of my newsletter.

They still impact my ability to run and grow my business.

But now my patterns look more like a toddler-friendly rollercoaster, rather than a shame spiral of doom.

Humble Mumble Cure