Working in a spa, hairdresser, or beauty salon means doing so much more than just your actual job. So often, you become a sympathetic ear, a therapist, a sounding board, or a life coach. What you do is so important, and you can help your clients in so many ways.
Your clients are coming to you as part of their self-care routine, whether they realize it or not. But part of self-care is believing in yourself. And this means that you need to believe in yourself too. Your job may demand that you give a lot, but it’s important to keep the faith and make your own self-care a priority too.
Understand Why People Lose Faith in Themselves
The first step to stopping self-doubt is to work out why it’s happening.
There are many reasons, but the most common include:
- Letting fear hold you back
- Encountering obstacles you don’t think you can overcome
- Failing at something
It’s often the case that not one thing or one instance results in a loss of self-belief. It’s more a series of events or interactions that knock you down little by little.
The fact that it can happen so slowly sometimes makes it hard to spot. This makes it hard to counteract. But there are several ways that you can find faith in yourself again:
- Change The Way You Talk To And About Yourself
When we’re in a negative frame of mind, it’s so easy to belittle yourself. Even a self-deprecating joke to a client can impact your self-esteem when you’re on shaky ground emotionally.
If you can’t be your own cheerleader and tell yourself that you are worthy of great things, then no one else is going to do it for you. It’s so important to work on the words you use to describe yourself and give them a positive spin.
You also need to talk sternly to the little voice inside of you that says you can’t do something or you’ll never be good enough. Studies have shown that a positive inner monologue will immediately reframe the way you see things and help you to improve the way you respond to situations.
- Build Trust With Yourself
Trust isn’t something that you only have with other people. You also need to trust your own mind and body, and know that you can achieve things that you set out to do.
It works the same way as trusting another person. If you trust someone, you know that they’ll be able to do something, you can be honest and comfortable with them, and you can rely on them. If you trust yourself, you know you can rely on yourself and you can be comfortable in your own skin.
The reason we stop trusting ourselves is because we regularly let ourselves down. How often have you promised to start a diet and then fallen off the wagon after day one? Or promised that in the New Year you will make time once a month to have a massage rather than give one, and then forget to get one in January?
To change this, start making promises about small things that you know you can and will follow through with. It can be as simple as setting your alarm for 15 minutes earlier so you aren’t rushed for work anymore. From here, you can build confidence and trust with yourself again.
- Remember It’s OK To Be Uncomfortable
While being comfortable with yourself is the goal, you sometimes have to get uncomfortable to do it. Part of losing self-belief can come from getting stuck in a rut – doing the same thing day after day, year after year. If you never challenge yourself, you can fool yourself into believing that you can’t do anything different or exciting.
A big part of the process of regaining your self-belief is to try new things. This means you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Yes, you could experience some failures or setbacks along the way. However, you’ll never learn what you’re capable of if you don’t even try.
- Learn To Move Forward From Failure
Speaking of failures, they’re a major cause of losing belief in yourself. However, they can also be something positive if you look at them the right way.
The key is to not take a failure as a sign that you’re useless or you’ll never be able to do something more. Instead, failure is an opportunity to learn. Remember tip one about reframing how you see things and how you speak about yourself?
For example, say you want to pick up a new hobby and to begin with you’re no good at it. You may see others around you doing it perfectly or picking up the skills far quicker than you. This doesn’t mean you’re useless. It simply means you take longer to learn the skills or that this particular hobby isn’t for you.
- Celebrate The Victories – Big And Small
On the flip side of learning from mistakes, it’s as important for your self-esteem to celebrate your victories. This is as true for something as small as getting comfortable with waking up that extra 15 minutes early as it is for getting a promotion at work or exhibiting your new hobby to the public.
Taking time to acknowledge when you’ve done something well will set up a positive feedback look in your brain, encouraging you to keep going and proving to yourself that you aren’t useless.
At the end of each week or each month, set aside a little bit of time to look at what you’ve done in that period. You’ll often find that there are things you can celebrate, no matter how small.
It’s All About Acknowledging Who You Truly Are
Regaining a loss of self-belief is not an easy task, especially when you work in an industry that requires endless self-confidence and interpersonal interactions.
The key is to start with an honest conversation with yourself, acknowledge who you are, and set up goals that work for you. Make time for pampering yourself too, and embrace all the elements of self-care.
When you get this right, you can even share your insights with your clients and help them to look and feel their best too.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-looking-at-the-mirror-774866/
