Business is not just sales numbers,  facts, and figures.   It’s not just spread sheets, titles, organizational charts, and TPS reports (for those of you who’ve seen Office Space..lol).   All these things are involved in business, but when conducting business we forget one important element, PEOPLE!!!   People make businesses run. Without people, a business is just a business plan. It takes people to bring a business to life, and the person we’re going to focus on today is YOU!

Owning a business or working in Corporate America (or even in the non profit sector) is not for the faint of heart! People say in business “nothing is personal”, but how can ANYTHING not be personal when people are involved?   Egos get bruised in boardroom meetings, when clients reject a sales pitch, and when your boss criticizes your performance.    With this in mind, I believe that its important that we all build our business self esteem.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur or work in an organization, here are some tips to build your business self esteem:

1. Have modest expectations for yourself: We all have been guilty at one time or another of setting our goals too high, or so high that we put ourselves through mental turmoil to reach them.  In business (especially if you’re an entrepreneur), you have to develop some momentum, similar to a steam engine gathering speed on a train track.  You can only gain this momentum through completing consecutive goals and creating a pattern of winning! Let’s be honest, how many of us spend ALL EIGHT HOURS actually working. We spend a lot of time on Facebook, talking with friends at the water cooler, and lets be honest, spacing out! Don’t beat yourself up for not being a drone and working all 8 hours.   Be more gentle with your expectations for yourself. Start off setting aside an hour a day for focusing on nothing but work, then two hours a day, and so forth.  You will find yourself being more productive and getting more things done!

2. Ride Your momentum: Once you get that momentum going, set bigger challenges for yourself. Make them harder than the first set of challenges, but still make them attainable.  This creates an attitude of winning, because you can look back at see the pattern of victories that led you to your current success. Repeat the process when you reach a set of more difficult challenges.

3. Celebrate Successes: This is very important to building your business self esteem!  But don’t just celebrate the large accomplishments, celebrate the small ones too!  A huge accomplishment is merely a series of small accomplishments. For example, getting a college degree (huge accomplishment) is accomplished by passing all your classes (small accomplishments).  If you make a habit of celebrating your successes, you will shift your attention from focusing on failure to anticipating success.

One More Rule of Thumb:

Remember, people are people before titles! Many times, we let what a supervisor says or does to us affect our sense of self worth. Remember, they have a family at home (just like you), enjoy a glass of wine or a cold one after work (just like you), and they have a supervisor (just like you).  If you feel you receive unwarranted criticism from your supervisor, recognizing that your superior is a person just like you helps you deflect some of that negativity. Maybe his or her spouse made them angry?   Or maybe he/she is being bombarded by their boss which causes them to bombard you. Try extending a hand to them, and being empathetic. You can only do this by recognizing their humanity.  They want to keep their job just like you do! They have bills to pay just like you do! So if they’re a person just like you, regardless if their a CEO, executive, or middle manager; don’t let them make you anxious or dictate how you feel about yourself, because they are just a person. And we should give no person the power to determine how we feel about ourselves.

These are my tips for building your business self esteem. What’s yours?