Create Your Next Chapter Outside the 9-5: Building Your Confidence through Motivation from a Burnout Coach
Meet Dr. Erica Buchholz and be motivated to take action.
With a Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology, career coach Erica Buchholz supports job seekers in finding a career path that is exciting and in line with what they actually love to do. She helps people get jobs with amazing teams, doing work that is impactful, and ignites their excitement.
It’s a different option than the route I took becoming an entrepreneur, but all the same philosophies apply -whether your dream job is working in a new environment with others or creating a business based on your passions, confidence is required!
Her expertise as a burnout coach is pure gold. Check out her guest post below and take action on creating your next chapter outside the 9-5.
Use my 6-Step Checklist to Escape the 9-5 as a guide for your journey and if you want to discuss working together, my 3-2-1 take Action offer is on the table. Click here to book a free call.
Note: As a blogger, I use affiliate links sometimes! I may receive commission from purchases on links I share, but it does not change your price.
Photo by Anna Zakharova on Unsplash
Build Your Confidence
Going from employee to entrepreneur is a journey. And an incredible one at that! Yet, without wrapping your mind around what you really and honestly want, maintaining momentum can be a real challenge.
Confidence is commonly defined as a feeling or belief that you can rely on someone or something, firm trust.
When it comes to developing your life outside the 9-5, confidence in yourself and your abilities will carry you further than anything else.
So how can you actually build your confidence so that you can transition with excitement and energy?
1. Where confidence comes from.
While we all have different stories, we all have stories. Self-confidence is impacted by many sources, including:
- positive and negative life events
- experiences with family, friends, managers, coworkers and strangers
- the people we were exposed to early in life that served as models of how life is lived
- exposure to news, social media, television commercials and shows
- people we surround ourselves with today and in the past
These all have direct links to our confidence.
Photo by Chance Monnette on Unsplash
Think of a time you were praised for doing a job task well. That feeling of accomplishment and achievement is linked to your confidence and self-esteem.
Think of a time that you were rejected or someone was overly critical of you. Those feelings are also linked directly to your confidence.
All instances are important. Yet, to build your confidence, you can take an active role in how they will impact you.
You get to decide what each experience means to you. How you talk to yourself is more important than the actual experience.
For an experience that leaves you feeling down and low, talk to yourself about
- How that experience actually served you.
- How you have grown from it.
- How it will encourage you in the future.
Do the same for experiences that make you feel happy, light, and energized.
- How will you grow from that?
- How can it encourage you to experience those feelings again?
- What will you do with the knowledge you gained from the experience?
Use what you discover to figure out your very next, best step to move out of the 9-5. Take that step with confidence, knowing that you get to decide how that step goes and what it means to you.
Image by Yunus Emre Ilıca from Pixabay
2. Know You Will Fail. And that is okay!
It is incredibly easy to start a project or begin the transition to entrepreneur and come across setbacks. It happens to us all!
Support yourself with the knowledge that it is okay. And great!
Engineers discuss wanting to “Fail Early and Fail Often.” The more mistakes you make early on, the easier it will be to make corrections, adjust, and adapt.
As you talk to yourself about these “failures,” consider how each is actually a stepping stone. Each failure teaches you an important lesson or aspect that is likely to come in handy in the future.
We so rarely hear about the failures of others – the mistakes they made. Social media is skewed to showing a perfect picture of everything. Yet, these mistakes still happen.
Understand that failure is simply part of it, you are not bad if you fail.
If you fail, it means you were trying. And that is amazing!
RELATED: This guest post from Margaret Bourne about moving past failure in business.
Image by kay from Pixabay
3. Be nice to yourself.
You can be amazing at a lot of things, then you start to say mean things to yourself. Now it can be almost impossible to recognize your strengths.
Get serious about paying attention to the words you say to yourself. Then, protect yourself, just as you would protect a younger version of yourself.
Would you tell your 6-year-old self, “You are a failure, who can’t do anything right. You’ll never be a success, this will always be hard”?
No way!
You would tell that 6-year-old, “You are trying. Things are hard sometimes, and you can do hard things. Take deep breaths, keep going, it is going to work out. You are amazing!”
Tell yourself that right now. And any time your confidence begins to waver.
Getting out of the 9-5 has ups and downs.
Be nice to yourself in the process.
You are doing great!
Photo by Alysha Rosly on Unsplash
How to Maintain Your Motivation
1. Track it all.
Open your journal or a Google Document. Write down every single accomplishment you have, for each and every day.
Big ones. Tiny ones. All the ones in between.
Track it all down so you can realize just how much you wind up doing in a day.
Plus, you can come back to this list anytime you are feeling a bit uncertain, lost, or low.
You are an incredible human, doing amazing things.
Rely on this list when it is hard to think of it on your own.
NOTE FROM DAPHNE: Find a journal that works for you here!
Image by Melanie Volkmer from Pixabay
2. Your body won’t lie.
Start to notice your body sensations. Ask yourself a question and notice how your body responds. Ask an easy question, “Do I like dessert?”
Your body will instantly tell you.
If you feel confined, small, or shrinking – the answer is no.
If you feel light, expansive, and open – the answer is yes.
Begin to ask yourself:
- Which of these tasks do I want to do?
- Which tasks light me up?
Do those first.
Image by Alexa from Pixabay
Your body is incapable of lying to you, so use it as a tool.
Not sure which decision is right for you?
Ask your body, how does it feel when you picture option A vs B?
Start doing the things you truly want to do. This will keep your motivation high and give you excellent clarity on what feels right for you.
3. Get Support from Amazing People.
Having a like-minded community around you is an excellent way to keep you going.
When you are all in it together, you are so much more open to sharing and so are they!
Photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash
In a supportive community you can:
- ask for help
- practice
- see what others have been going through (honestly)
- spark creative ideas
If there was just one thing you could do today to move forward, I would suggest taking a deep breath, giving yourself a huge hug, and telling yourself what an incredible thing you are doing here.
Remind yourself that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and that you can figure it all out.
You are amazing!
