Be all that you can be

If you have a desire to be self employed but have never had the courage or the opportunity, remember this if you are suddenly made redundant from your current job.

Redundancy can give you the motivation, freedom and even time to set up your own business and to be your own boss. There is help available to you if you choose to become self employed, but think about the pitfalls too:

- The buck stops with you. There is no-one else to turn to if things fall through.
- You have to be everything from cleaner to managing director – unless you become successful enough to hire employees of your own of course!
- You will almost certainly work longer hours and will inevitably take home work with you.
- It can take a considerable amount of time before you will be able to draw a decent and regular income, so you will probably have to have a means of paying the bills in the interim period.

Before you get carried away with never having to answer to another boss again you have to decide just what you want to do and then make a business plan. Many are the businesses that have failed because the owners did not do enough planning and research before making investments of time and money.

Ask yourself:

- Is there a need for your business?
- How are you going to fund your business at first?
- How will you drum up custom?

Ask yourself whether this is a good time for you to retrain.

If you have a particular course or scheme in mind, make certain that you have researched it thoroughly and that you have preferably discussed it with friends and colleagues whom you trust the opinion of.

Keep in mind the relevance of the course you have your eye on to sorts of jobs and careers that are available in your area. Also, you should consider that many employers prefer to take on people with a track record in a particular field over someone with only qualifications in it.

Also be aware that if your current or potential employer offers training it may not present you with a nationally recognised qualification (like an NVQ., B-Tech, A Level or whatever) upon completion of it and yet it may still cost you quite a lot of money Be sure to check for yourself what part time courses are being run by the local community centres, Job Centres, colleges and universities, as these are sometimes run at special rates.

Don’t overlook the development of your interpersonal skills, for example, office diplomacy, negotiation and assertiveness.

Also have a chat with local agencies or anyone you might know who is a freelance worker or who does contract work. Ask them what benefits and pitfalls you should look out for.

Retraining or returning to education to learn new skills is a positive step if you have lost your job. You may have been made redundant and the market place for your skills is limited, in which case you could see this as an opportunity to retrain. Maybe you know redundancy or dismissal is imminent and you want to proactively look for a way to get out of the industry you have been in.

Maybe you want to change the direction of your career and/or expand on your current skill base. Whatever the case, if change is in the air and you feel you want to move elsewhere professionally, perhaps you could start by asking yourself some basic questions:

1. What skills do you have?
2. What would you like to do every day?
3. How important is financial security?

Whatever your answers to these questions, they will help to prepare you to make important decisions when applying for retraining or education.

Once you have a better picture of what you might like from your future career you can embark on some in-depth research. A good place to start would be websites like DirectGov Education & Learning, which have pages dedicated to adult learning, how to find the right courses, as well as gratis advice on matching together courses with whatever your skills and interests may be.

If you have trouble visualising your current or future successes consider keeping a Success diary.

Simply put, if you keep a diary or journal of things that you feel are your achievements and things that you are happy about you will begin to visualise yourself in more successful and pleasing terms than you might otherwise.

Get yourself a notebook and once a week or month remind yourself of your achievements and anything that you are thankful for and/or pleased about in your life at that moment. Take the time to do it. It won’t take long and in time it really will make a difference to you.

Just take a few minutes once in a while (make it regular but not unrealistic like every evening) to jot down your thoughts on these sorts of topics:

What have I accomplished this week/month?

What am I looking forward to next week/month?

What is there in my life to feel grateful about right now?

What am I happy about in my life right now and why am I happy about them?

Who are my friends and who loves and appreciates for who I am ?

What am stimulated by right now and what excites me?

If you do keep this sort of diary then not only will you start to see the good things in your life more readily, which in turn will fight back depression and worry, it will also form the basis of making positive plans to improve your circumstances. Once you know where you are and what assets you hold it will become easier to plane where and how to move elsewhere in your life.

1. 70% of communication is through body language and a great deal of how we feel comes down to how we act. Your posture and the openness of you gestures have a massive effect on your confidence. Walk purposefully and with your shoulders back. Look people in the eye when you speak with them and smile frequently. It will make all the difference

2. At the end of each day think about your achievements that day. Also reflect on the things in your life that you are thankful for, including family and loved ones, a job, kind or friendly people that you have met, whatever. The point is that the more things you find to be happy about the more you are likely to be happy, and the happier you are the easier it is to build your confidence. It’s a no brainer really.

3. Move. It is an absolute fact that motion and physical exercise not only relieve tension in the body but also releases chemicals into our brains that make us feel happy and content. Feeling depressed? Go for a brisk walk. Stretch. Get the blood pumping around you body and you \will probably find that whatever was bothering you beforehand seems a little bit more manageable.

4. No one likes a bore who brags about himself all the time. That said, learn to speak about your achievements to others and take a little pride in them. It will boost your confidence.

5. Life is short, youth is shorter and you only get one shot on this planet. If you are feelings worried or a bit down, ask yourself if the problem you are facing or the feelings you are experiencing will really \matter to you in 10 or 20 years. If not, will worrying about them now really make all that much difference…? Probably not, other than to pull you down and hold you back of course.

In the last article we looked at how the words of others can affect our confidence and shape how we see ourselves. However, the words we use for ourselves to express what we are feeling and thinking also have a profound affect on how we perceive and cope with the world.

Our choice of words are rarely arbitrary, if ever. The words we use feed back into how we feel. For instance, think about the language you use when you feel let down or frustrated with someone or their actions. If you say things like “I’m utterly furious” or “you ALWAYS let me down and you NEVER listen”.

In fact these choices of words may not have literal truth to them. You may not be “utterly furious” and the person in question may not “always” let you down and “never” listen, but just by using those words frequently when you are upset gives gravity to your distress, perhaps even more than the circumstance deserves. Also, if you use powerful language like this quite frequently, even when the circumstance might not deserve it, people around you might not take what you have to say so seriously.

If every time you are upset you are “utterly furious” and “betrayed”, whether someone you trusted stole your car or just forgot to buy the margarine brand you asked him or her to, sooner or later the qualitative difference between your feelings about these two extremes will lessen, both in terms of how you feel and how others see you.

Pick your words carefully. If a loved one or colleague does something frustrating tell them that, but reduce your language. Instead of saying you are “furious” tell them instead that you are “a bit annoyed”. This is in affect a form of control over your emotions. You aren’t bottling them up because you are communicating your feelings, but on the other you aren’t allowing yourself to be a victim of your feelings either and therefore losing an element of control.

Lower the intensity of your language and not only will you begin to feel more in control you will also exude a sense of self control, patience and even self-awareness..

Words have power. Indeed some might say that words ARE power. They communicate ideas and feelings and they form the structure of almost every thought we think in the silence of our own minds. Can you think of many times when you have thought without words?

I thought not.

Words have the power to shape how we see ourselves and others. How many times has someone’s rash or hurtful words brought you down, especially when you care about what the speaker thinks of you.

Bear in mind, however, that nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent at some level. It isn’t just that their words have upset you or damaged your confidence, it’s also the things that you think to yourself after their words have been spoken that causes problems for you. If you genuinely thought that they were wrong and their comments were unfounded or that they were not in a position to judge accurately, then why care about the negative things they have said to you? It’s just noise in the air.

Of course, if you write off every criticism the chances are that you are deluding yourself and falling into the trap of arrogance. The point is to filter genuine and constructive criticism out from the disheartening dross that we are so often subjected to in our daily lives.

If we aim to be self aware and self reflexive we will be able to find something positive within a genuine criticism without falling foul to damage to our confidence, and we will also be able to see the difference between criticisms and ‘nasty remarks’. From this point we can learn to better dismiss the latter while accept and help improve ourselves from the former.

One of the things we talk about a lot on this site is changing your career.  After all, the job-for-life no longer exists and we need to not only adapt with the times but many people fancy a change of career, more variety, more money or simply want a different challenge.

With the current credit crunch, many people are searching for a career that can survive and a mortgage advisor is one that appears to do just that.  With the boom of property prices, mortgage advisors enjoyed huge commissions and plenty of business.  Now, with a credit crunch and rising interest rates, mortgage advisors are still enjoying plenty of business as people know they must find the best deal for them and so professional mortgage advice seems even more important.

To become a mortgage advisor, it is a legal requirement that you must hold an appropriate qualification so your first step is to get one!  If you aren’t already in the industry, then you can either search for a company willing to put you through your training or if you want to show how keen you are, then you can do the training yourself first.

80 per cent of UK mortgage advisors hold their CeMAP qualification (Certificate of Mortgage Advice Practice).  When you register for the exams with the ifs (Institute of Financial Services) you pay £135 per module, of which there are three.  The registration also comes with a study manual, but these are very difficult to understand if you do not already understand the subject, hence there are many CeMAP training companies out there who can help, and offer training in an city close to you.  You could take CeMAP training in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, London, Birmingham or Scotland.  If you live in Scotland and want to get your CeMAP qualification, be sure to choose a CeMAP training company who can offer CeMAP training specifically tailored to Scottish Law.

With a good CeMAP training company, with a high pass rate, it is possible to study and take your CeMAP exams in as little as two weeks.  So what are you waiting for?

In the previous article we have already established the importance of approaching life with a ‘can do’ attitude, but negativity is ever present in our lives. I’ve not met or heard of a functional human being who does not experience moments of self doubt or worry. It’s normal and not something to fear.

That said, sometimes our doubts and negative thoughts can consume us, holding us back and sapping our confidence. Don’t let them. Endeavour to be in charge of your thoughts, because remember, they aren’t things that can harm you or your confidence unless you let them.

Self-doubt is not the destructive certainty that a psychopath holding a gun at your head it. You can alter and even stop self doubt by thinking differently. If you find you are coming up with negative answers when you question yourself, ask different questions. If you answer “will I succeed at this” with a worrying and confidence sapping “no” change your internal question to “how can I assure that I WILL succeed at this?”

If you feel yourself slipping into a spiral of self-doubt or worry before an interview or presentation, stop and think for a moment. You are worrying about the bad things that might happen if you are not ‘impressive’ enough, so you are picturing failure. Instead focus on the good things that will happen if and when you ARE impressive enough. It’s just the same thing in reverse.

This isn’t a panacea for all your worries and doubts, but it will certainly help you let go of those irrational fears brought about by the shot of adrenaline that the fight-or-flight reflex gives you prior to the sorts of events we are discussing here.

When it comes to work most employers and/or customers look for people who have a ‘can do’ attitude. Try to view new tasks and hurdles as positive challenges to overcome. If you feel you have been asked to move a mountain don’t just sink into misery at the enormity of the task, just start moving stones.

If the task truly IS impossible then you will soon see, but at least you will be able to tell your employer or your customer (if you are self employed) that the task cannot be completed in the way they want from a standpoint of knowledge. You can discuss what went wrong and where, speaking from the high-ground of the first-hand experience you gained trying to achieve it.

From this point it is more likely that the task or service can be adapted to something more reasonable and achievable based around your own recommendations, rather than just passed onto someone else.

However, although it is important to be positive and enthusiastic, you most also be self-reflexive and able to say ‘no’ when appropriate. There is nothing wrong with saying no to people, even customers and employers, just so long as you know why you are saying no and can justify it reasonably if asked. Also, there is a difference between saying no and being combative. If you are in the right, if the task really cannot be done by you for various reasons or if the expectation upon you is simply unrealistic, you can refuse and explain why to most people without it turning into a confrontation.

Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself, especially as it will be your neck on the line if you DO agree to do something which you know you cannot, simply because you were too nervous to say ‘no’ and explain why from the outset.