baby steps
BY WENDY ALEXANDER

Baby Steps

When you're at rock bottom - take baby steps to turn life around

No matter what you do, what you want or who you want to become you’re going to have to manage your mindset

And if you want to get the juicy roles that pay the big bucks, then mindset and confidence must become your shadows

But what if you’re naturally shy?

Or been through some hard knocks that have dented your confidence and you’re not sure how to get it back

Start small

Baby steps

Remember that thousand-mile journey which starts with a single step

That’s where I started after hitting my rock bottom

When you’re left pregnant and alone with massive debt and you know money is going to get tighter because maternity leave is just around the corner, unless you’re superhuman, you’re going to panic

And panic I did before I realized it wasn’t going to make anything better

So, then I cried and cried and cried

And then I prayed for help

I was flooded with advice from well-meaning family and friends, but advice wasn’t going to solve my money problems or help me pay the bills

One person’s advice did penetrate through the rest, and it was a question

What’s the one small step you can take today that will move you in the direction of where you want to go

Where I wanted to go was to a job paying me at least $20k more than I was earning

I realized I needed to talk to the people who were offering those kind of jobs – hiring managers or recruiters

But it wasn’t easy to pluck up the courage to ask for their help

It never is when your confidence is in the toilet

At the time I was hiding away from the world, deep in the quagmire of my humiliation, failure and shame

But I also really wanted change, good change for me and my child

So, I started small

I went in search of audio cassettes (remember those) and books that would help me shift my mindset

I read books like Louise Hay’s book “You Can Heal Your Life” so many times the pages quickly became dog-eared

I listened to Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer and other audios so much the cassette ribbons eventually spilled out, and they were rendered useless 

I eventually plucked up the courage to ask peers out for a coffee and to get comfortable talking to people again

Then I asked managers, until I eventually asked HR people and recruiters

I built relationship runways over lots of coffees and teas and the occasional lunch

I asked loads of questions about jobs, resumes, cover letters and how to present myself in a way that would be appealing to hiring decision makers

All the insights gained over those many cups of tea (in my case), research and rewriting my career profile a gazillion times built slow and steady confidence

Two years after my rock-bottom I’d 3x my income, cleared all the debt and had built the kind of relationships that meant I never had to job-hunt again

It doesn’t require big-bang actions to change your mindset, uplift your confidence and elevate your career and life, but you do have to start somewhere

I recommend baby steps