The most common challenge my clients have is a lack of self-confidence.

In this article, I will offer you a different perspective about self-confidence. This is something I realized recently.

The greatest myth around self-confidence is: You should have confidence first to:

– Find a better job

– To present yourself in the best light in an interview

– To leave a toxic relationship and be free

– To start a business or change career

– To become great at communicational skills

– To make significant changes in your daily routine

– To set up boundaries with people

The truth is that you don’t need to be confident to start doing any of this. You only need to START something. Anything. Because your self-confidence will come after you achieve the results you want. Not before that.

Earlier, I thought the same way as the majority of the people do. I was pushing myself to become confident with clients, be confident for YouTube to be confident for Coffee with Maya, etc. I was investigating strategies how to become more confident.

I watched YouTube videos and read articles about confidence. I was trying affirmations, visualization, and many other great tools.

But no matter how much energy and strength I put in being confident – I was still terrified doing all of these things in the beginning.

I was scared before meeting clients.

I was scared on camera.

I was scared when public speaking.

I was scared before Masterclass 1 with my first group coaching clients.

Am I scared now about all these? Hell no. Not at all.

Today, I am completely and absolutely confident about every aspect of my work.

And I can tell you – it’s a great feeling.

But how I’ve come to this point to have such confidence? – By doing the actions first.

There is no other way. You can’t wait to become confident and then do the things you are supposed to do to get your results.

You need to do the action first.

What did this look like in my case?

Next, you will read a very sincere and raw description from the beginning of my coaching career until today.

Before putting my first public articles and posts on social media, I was terrified and completely opposite of confident. Scared would be the word that sums it up.

After I put my work publicly, I became more confident. Because I saw the results that came after I left my comfort zone. I experienced for people who don’t know me to reach out. They sent me supportive messages saying I’ve helped them with that article today.

The next thing was my website. Again, I felt unsure and had self-doubt. This time the feeling was even stronger because now I invested money and a lot of time to build my content. What if I fail, and it’s all for nothing?

What did I do? I had no other option than do the actions first. The result that followed gave me the confidence I wanted. One article after another, and the number of my website visits increased. The number of people who found me and found out what I do increased as well. 99% of the reactions of the people were positive. That’s how I became confident in writing one article a week.

In the meantime, I started to work with my first coaching clients. Was I the super confident coach back then? Definitely not. I was only aware that I have a burning desire to do this, to coach people and show them that there is a way out of every situation. I wanted to help them take control of their life back no matter what was happening in their lives.

And I knew how to do that. I didn’t know I would be 100% successful in that.

After a couple of months, the first testimonials showed up on my website. This was a big deal for me. I proved to myself that I was on the right path. I became absolutely sure that I should continue coaching people and develop my skills even more. But I still wasn’t feeling very confident as a coach.

My business grew faster than my self-confidence, so I felt that I should hire professional help at this point.

So, I hired a coach who helped me build a business strategy and got clarity and awareness of my potential as a coach. Working with my coach showed me that I don’t get out of my comfort zone enough, and that reflects on my success.

This is how the idea of starting a YouTube channel came to a realization. Before that, I’ve been planning to go on YouTube for more than two years. I didn’t do that because I was waiting to become absolutely confident first. That moment never came.

There was no more room for waiting in the strategy that my coach helped me create. So, I started the channel absolutely unprepared, with no editing or technical skills around creating the videos. Once you put your intention and focus on something, eventually, you are figuring things out.

Pretty soon, I become more confident on camera and the editing process. The first step was to start.

The idea for Coffee with Maya? – Same thing.

I’ve been planning this project and the strategy around it a couple of months before the first meeting.

The first Coffee with Maya was in the middle of April 2021. I announced the Zoom meeting, and women started signing in. I promised a free meeting, where we all have a coffee or our favorite beverage. I planned a topic of discussion and a 30-minute lecture. You know from my articles and all of my content that I am very interested in everything related to personal development.

My vision was to organize many meetings after the first one to talk about:

– time management and organization

– adopting useful habits

– understanding limiting beliefs

– dealing with other people

– creating goals – and many more subjects.

I am laughing today at the memory of how nervous and scared was I before the first Coffee with Maya. 😊

I was scared that no one would show up at the meeting. I was scared that it would be boring. I was scared that I won’t be capable of running the meeting and, at the same time, doing the lecture and keeping an eye on the waiting room to let people in. How did I overcome those fears? I didn’t. I just said to myself: One, two, three – go! 😊

10 months later, I feel the opposite entirely. I organize Coffee with Maya meetings in 3 languages: English, Macedonian, and Serbian/Croatian. To get the real picture and idea of how I show up at those meetings nowadays, you have to come and see it for yourself. Those meetings are free, and you can participate by writing me on this email contact@mayastoychevski.com: I am in.

You may say: Ok, Maya, this is a nice story – but what if you failed at any of this? How can you achieve confidence if you failed at some of these projects you were talking about?

Well, the answer is: I couldn’t lose either way. Suppose my articles weren’t successful, and I received no reaction from my followers. In that case, I wasn’t going to become confident, but I would have new directions on how to improve in this. The same is with my work with clients. If the feedback was that I am failing as a coach, I would have invested in more learning, improving, and trying over and over. That would also make me confident. Do you see?

There is no other way to become confident other than doing things first.

What’s next for me? I know for sure that there is no way for a person to stay at the same place forever. That’s why I set up some new goals for this year that are scaring me and will challenge me on a higher level. I won’t be waiting to become confident first. I have already started action steps towards achieving them.

My advice for you:

-If you have low self-confidence when talking to people, push yourself to talk to people more.

-If you have low self-confidence to show up in your workplace to the best of your abilities, just push yourself and start doing it.

-If you have ideas that can serve at least a small group of people in this world, start blogging about it.

-If you have low confidence about anything, just start to do anything. Action will get you to a better place.

Are you in the mood of playing a little and getting an “a-ha” moment? Brainstorm on the thought: What is the worst that can happen if I do ________________________?