I get asked quite often, usually by women I’m mentoring, how I found the confidence to start my own business. And the honest truth is, I didn’t feel confident at all. I was terrified.
I didn’t plan to end up in transport. It found me, really. I took an assignment because it was in front of me, not because I had some grand strategy, and I had absolutely no idea whether I’d be any good at it. What I did have was a manager early in my career who once told me I had a natural way with people that couldn’t be taught. I held onto that sentence for years. Sometimes that’s all backing yourself is - borrowing someone else’s belief in you until you’ve built your own.
I think we have this idea that backing yourself means feeling sure. It doesn’t. It means doing the thing anyway, often while your stomach is in knots, and trusting that the fear will catch up and quieten down once you’re a few steps in. It nearly always does.
What got me through wasn’t bravado. It was that one sentence, and the people who came after it who said similar things at the right moments. They just kept showing up, asking good questions, and reminding me that not knowing everything yet isn’t the same as not being capable.
That’s exactly why mentoring matters so much to me now. I’m currently mentoring my fifth mentee through Women in Transport, and every single one has reminded me how much it means to have someone backing you, even quietly, from the sidelines. I don’t have all the answers, but I can be the person who keeps showing up, the way mine did for me. Sometimes that’s the difference between someone staying small and finding out what they’re actually capable of.
So if you’re waiting to feel ready before you back yourself – please don’t. Ready rarely comes first; it comes after.
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