Well hey everybody, thanks for listening to the Red Door Creative podcast. My name is Jordan Farris and I’m the founder and owner of Red Door Creative which is a digital creative agency. The goal of my business is ultimately to help great people do great things, and this podcast is just one way that I hope to help business people and marketers like yourself do just that. I try to keep the episodes short and sweet because I know you’re busy like I am. Let’s get started.
Betting on Yourself
Today I want to share some encouragement about betting on yourself. With last week’s conversation about risk-taking under our belt, I want to take things a step further and dive into the significance of putting action behind these concepts we’ve been talking about. So what does it mean to bet on yourself? Betting on yourself is the practice of bringing insights about yourself to the surface of your awareness and leveraging those insights to their maximum advantage for your life and future. That means taking inventory of your unique selling points and leveraging them for maximum benefit down the road.
Only you know what a fulfilling life looks like for you, but I believe that the practice of betting on yourself can increase your happiness and fulfillment in ways you wouldn’t even believe. The best way to experience the maximum potential benefit from your life is to bet on yourself. Every bet against yourself is a sure loss, but a bet FOR yourself can reveal a new world of possibilities for you.
Look Inside
You know, I have come to be a big believer in regular introspection. It’s so important to have a regular dialogue with yourself and take proactive steps to be mentally healthy and self-aware. Some of my favorite tools for introspection are journaling and reading because I value constantly learning. Through the process of regularly looking inside yourself, you’ll definitely learn a thing or two, and that’s what we’re after here.
You are the expert on what makes you YOU. What are the qualities that you’re most proud of? I encourage you to literally jot down notes of your strengths and weaknesses like we talked a bit about last week. In order to bet on yourself, you have to REALLY know yourself. And remember, you can be imitated, but you can never be duplicated. Take note of any negative thinking cycles happening in your head. You have the power to steer negative thoughts back toward positivity.
Once you have an idea of who you really are, what makes you unique, and possibly a few areas that need a little work… you can get to work on investing in yourself.
Invest in Yourself
If our goal is to bet on ourselves, it makes sense that we might have to pay to play the game. That is, in order to reap the rewards of taking a leap, we first need to be sure to invest in ourselves to be our best. In my experience, investing in yourself primarily consists of small, incremental adjustments that require intentionality and discipline to maintain over the long term. You probably have experience with trying to break or form a habit, and I’m sure you get just how difficult these small steps can be to take. You might decide it’s finally time to get that early morning workout in on a daily basis in order to have the energy and clarity you need to be effective at work, or you might realize you need to brush up on an area of leadership or maybe a technical skill that you’ve neglected a little bit. Why not optimize yourself whenever you get the chance? It’s certainly possible to shore up areas of weakness while simultaneously sharpening your sword.
If you decide to work on yourselves in any of those ways, I adamantly encourage you to record observations regularly through journaling. It’s so rewarding to look back on an old journal entry and see how much you’ve grown. Plus, who doesn’t like the idea of tracking your return on investment?
Celebrate Wins Often
Now that you’re investing in yourself and recording your journey for future reflection, it’s a great time to think back over your career and remember the biggest moments for you. Good moments and bad moments count, because the idea here is to create a bit of a running list of wins and losses in your career. It’s not an obsessive list, and we’re not spending time crying over the spilt milk of our own defeats, but when the time comes for you to make your next leap, it will be nice to have that record to reference in the process of selling yourself. The more wins you get racked up, the more confidence you’ll have about betting on yourself and winning. Tremendous confidence grows in the fertile ground of accomplishment.
Along the same lines, when you work with others, be it a client of yours or even a supervisor… consider taking the time to ask them for a testimonial quote for you to use in the future. It’s incredibly gratifying to look back on the kind words your clients or contacts have given you, and it’s always important for potential stakeholders to understand the kind of impact that you have.
Conclusion
You know, the road to personal and professional fulfillment is different for all of us, but the need to believe in ourselves remains the same. If you’re excited about the idea of taking a more active role in your life instead of letting life just sort of... happen to you, it’s imperative that you have the tools you need to feel ready to bet on yourself. Let’s leap together!
That’s it for this episode of the Red Door Creative Podcast. If you got anything out of this show, follow my business @madebyreddoor on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Anchor. I’ve got new shows coming out each Friday on your favorite podcasting platform. You can find those links when you follow me on social media.
You guys have a great week, and we’ll see you next time! Thanks for listening.
