Will I run my business successfully? Do I have the respect of my colleagues? What impression do I make on my clients? The self doubt that plagues entrepreneurs is as onerous a burden as the expectations that they have to live up to. Indeed, one feeds off the other. Building self confidence is extra important for entrepreneurs, who have very little other than their own resources to fall back on. So, how do you bring about that transformation in yourself, and how do you sustain it? These are some of the key questions we’re trying to answer.

Self confidence is simply an external manifestation of your perception of self worth. If you have faith in your abilities, it shows. Building self confidence will not only improve your outlook about yourself, you will also feel more positive about the world around you. Confident people make better entrepreneurs – since they have an unshakeable faith that they can put things right, they are willing to risk being wrong at times. And that’s what entrepreneurship is all about, isn’t it?

If you’ve looked wistfully at all those beautiful, successful people who radiate an aura of confidence, despair not! Building self confidence is very much a “learnable” process; our guess is that most of those people you admire have gone down that road earlier. Here are some pointers.

Set goals. You can’t go about building self confidence in a vacuum, that’s for sure. Try to define what confidence means to you; be as specific as possible, even assign a measure to it. For example, do you lack the confidence to make an impromptu speech in public, or handling a troublemaking employee? Putting your finger on it is half the battle won. Now, you can set specific performance goals and measure your achievement against them. As your performance improves, self confidence will soar.

Just chill. You may find this hard to swallow, but staying cool and unfrazzled is the first rung on the self confidence ladder. If you don’t let a sticky situation get on top of you, you’re already learning to handle uncertainty! Once you make your peace with that, you’ll be able to deal much better with any adverse consequences.

Don’t beat yourself blue. Modesty may be all the rage, but self criticism is another ball game altogether – one that you are destined to lose! Don’t be harder on yourself than necessary and stay objective at all times. It’s much more productive to recognize your mistakes for what they were, learn from them and move on.

Forget the rest… the biggest impediment to building self confidence is to be dogged by worries of what the world thinks of you. We hate to disillusion you, but most of the time, other people are not thinking about you – they are so busy thinking of themselves. And you know something, your lack self confidence is a lot less apparent to others than it is to yourself!

Recall the good. Even the most self assured people have their off days. When you’re feeling particularly low, make an effort to snap out of it. Think of things that gave you pleasure, like a game you won, or a business goal that you achieved. We’re not saying you have to rest on your laurels, but sometimes remembering past achievements will give you the self belief to tackle future ones.

Finally, base your self worth on realistic expectations, respect your abilities and persevere tirelessly. You’ll feature on other people’s admiration lists in no time!