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Starting a business, keeping going during setbacks and achieving success all require an inner belief that you can make it happen!

We all have confidence about some parts of our life and lack confidence in others. Most of us need to work on building confidence - and you can achieve this by believing in yourself and your abilities, believing you'll find solutions and being positive about what you create.

Well, here are some ideas to help you out:

• Believe you're good enough.
  Being able to show confidence in your business is vital.
  
  
• Measure what you achieve.
  Keep a record of success and look for things you feel good about. Why? Because we gain confidence from doing things well!
  
• Seek feedback from others.
  People can be their own worst enemies by assuming others have negative views about them when they don't really.
  
  
• Focus on the positive.
  You have many skills to be proud of - things you do better than others. List your positive qualities. Don't be modest,
  it could prevent you feeling good about yourself.
  
  
• Celebrate your successes! 
  Everyone is obsessed by failure - try to imagine what would be different if your business succeeds!
  
  
• Be aware of what and who make you feel good about yourself.
  Make sure you expose yourself to these positive influences more than to negative ones.
  
  
• Practice talking confidently.
  You need to look beyond your initial concerns and move forward.

What we believe about ourselves can play an important role in influencing our thoughts and feelings about setting up a new business. This is mainly because they are usually negative (I keep getting things wrong) rather than positive (no-one's perfect, I'm still learning!).

The more negative we are, the worse we feel, and the more we think in an anxious and worried way. Anxiety affects our thinking - making it hard to make decisions, leaving you more pessimistic, emphasising problems.

Anxiety affects our behaviour - leaving us less efficient, interfering with performance. And anxiety affects our feelings - leaving us muddled, confused, anxious and overwhelmed.

It's important to tackle any negative attitudes (I make poor decisions). Bring them into the open, perhaps by talking to someone else. This will help you make more confident decisions. 

Make sure you don't look for examples to illustrate negative views you have about yourself.

Remember positive experiences in your past which contradict any negative beliefs. Imagine yourself behaving in a decisive manner. If you find yourself saying negative things to yourself, pretend they were said by someone whose mission in life was to make you miserable - then fight back!