Stop Waiting to Feel Ready: Why Confidence Comes After You Take Action, Not Before

You're waiting to feel confident before you sell.

You're telling yourself you need to have everything ready. You need to wait until you're ready before you pick up the phone, send that DM, or make the offer.

I'm here to tell you that's total bullshit.

You know this. You have to start before you're ready. That is how you build confidence.

The Confidence Myth

Let me be really clear about something.

You will never feel confident enough if you don't start. You will never feel ready enough. You will never wake up one day and be like, "Today's the day. I finally feel like I'm gonna be a salesperson."

That moment does not exist. You create that moment.

You create it by practicing, by doing the repetitions, by role-playing, by pitching yourself, by putting yourself out there in uncomfortable situations.

That is how you grow your comfort zone.

I see this all the time with women who come into Sales Mama School. They're waiting. Overthinking. "If I just do one more course, if I just get this landing page perfect, if I just get my opt-in perfect."

They're waiting for all the testimonials to come through. They're waiting to just feel confident or feel better.

But you know this just as well as I do: the only way you can get better at something is by practicing it. Over and over and over.

The only way you get stronger is by doing the repetitions.

I always equate this to physical strength because people understand that.

If you want stronger arms, stronger legs, a stronger butt, a stronger core, whatever you want stronger in your life, you put in the reps.

You're not one day just gonna wake up and bang out a hundred push-ups. You start with 10. You start by doing it. Then you rest, reassess, see how you can improve, see what you did great, see what you could do better.

That's the same thing with sales calls.

You are going to suck in the beginning. Same thing with pitching yourself or having DM conversations. You have to find the flow that works for you.

The more reps you put in, the easier this becomes.

Cold calling, role-playing, all of that. But you have to put yourself out there and practice.

If you don't, if you're just constantly waiting, you are going to continue to be broke.

Nobody likes to be broke. Nobody likes to have no money.

Think about why you started your business in the first place. Why you're doing sales in the first place. Why you want to make more sales.

Financial freedom, which gives you time freedom, which gives you more time with your kids and the ability to buy things you want to buy.

It's never really about the actual money itself. It's about what that money creates for you.

Are you willing to be temporarily uncomfortable so you can have the life you want?

A lot of times people choose comfort. They don't want to put themselves out there. Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of success. All the things.

What I want you to focus on is taking action first. Confidence comes after you take action.

You're not just one day all of a sudden going to feel confident.

Here's another analogy: You can read all the books about how to drive a car. You can talk about driving a car. But until you actually get behind the wheel, put the car in drive, and practice the skill of driving, you are never going to become a confident driver.

It's the same thing with sales.

You can read all the books, do all the courses, do all the things. But unless you're actively pitching yourself, actively having sales conversations, actively overcoming objections, actively role-playing even when it's uncomfortable, you're never going to be a great salesperson.

You're never going to be a great closer. You're never going to make the amount of sales in your business that you want until you put in the repetitions.

Your Brain Is Sabotaging You

We've all been sold this lie that we have to feel a certain way before we take action. That motivation will just show up.

Don't get me wrong, every now and then inspiration strikes and you want to do all the things. Great, capitalize on that.

But waiting for motivation or waiting to feel confident or waiting to feel ready? That's a lie keeping you stuck at whatever income level you're at right now.

Take action. That will be the game changer for you.

Even if it feels stupid. Even if you're like, "I probably shouldn't have said that." Watch back your sales calls. This is how you get better.

Why Self-Sabotage Happens

Self-sabotage is a real thing. People struggle with it all the time. I even struggle with it.

There are times I'll get so far out of my comfort zone that I will unconsciously, subconsciously sabotage my own success to put me right back in my comfort zone.

Let me tell you why this happens. It's not your fault. Your brain is just wired to keep you safe and comfortable.

If you're not actively trying to expand your comfort zone, if you're not actively aware of your self-sabotage patterns, you'll fall back into those patterns and put yourself right back into your comfort zone.

This is why so many people only do outreach for a few days and then stop. It becomes hard or they don't get results right away.

Or they get a raise, make a lot of money one month, go spend it all, and they're right back into the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

There's a part of your brain called the amygdala. This is your fear center. Its literal job is to scan for danger and keep you alive.

This was great when we were cave women trying not to get eaten by lions and tigers and bears. But the problem today is your brain cannot tell the difference between actual physical danger and perceived danger.

When you think about making a sales call or putting yourself out there, your amygdala fires up in the same way it would if you were facing a physical threat.

Your brain literally thinks selling is going to kill you.

Mind blown, right?

So it will do everything in its power to keep you comfortable.

It will tell you stories like: "You're not ready yet. You're not good enough. Who do you think you are? You need to do this first. Wait until this."

All of that bullshit.

And then you believe it because it feels true. But is it ultimately true? Absolutely not.

Feelings are not facts.

Feelings are important. We need to listen to our feelings. We're not just going to shove them down. Feelings are guidance. Fear is guidance.

But every day you listen to that fear and take inaction based on what your fear is telling you, that's another day you're not making the money you deserve.

This is the difference between a great salesperson and somebody who just runs a business as a hobby.

Your brain wants to feel comfortable. We all want to feel comfortable. But in order to get somewhere you've never been before, you have to try something you've never done.

Comfort and growth cannot exist in the same space. You have to choose one.

Are you going to grow or are you going to stay comfortable?

I don't care what you choose. It's completely up to you. But don't sit there and say you should be farther along when you haven't done the things you need to do in order to become farther along.

Your mindset is huge around this. If you're doing the things but have a bad attitude about it, you're putting a bad attitude out into the world and you're going to get a bad attitude back.

What you put out is what you attract.

If you want to scale your business, if you want to hit those big income months, if you want financial freedom, you have to get really comfortable being uncomfortable.

That is the secret.

3 Sales Activities You Can Do Right Now That Require Zero Confidence

Let me give you actual things to do. Not just concepts. I don't want to just tell you about the problem. I want to give you a solution.

1. Send Five Connection DMs

This is something I tell my clients to do every day.

These are connection DMs. We don't necessarily have an agenda yet because we don't know if we can help people. That's where clarifying questions come in.

In another phrase, this is outreach. These are new conversations. Not people you've had conversations with before.

I'm not talking about sales messages. I'm not talking about pitching yourself. Simply connecting with people.

Reach out to five people in your audience or network and just start the conversation.

Ask them a question about something they posted. Something they said. Tell them you love something about them. Make it about them. It's not about you. It's about them.

This is going to do two things:

1. Get you in the habit of reaching out first, which builds that muscle. This is the thing people are most terrified to do.

2. Build relationships that can turn into sales conversations later. Maybe with that person. Maybe a collaboration where you utilize their network. Maybe they send people your way.

You don't need "confidence" to be curious about someone else. You just have to hit send.

Get out of your head, get into your heart space, and connect with people.

2. Share Client Wins and Testimonials, Then Make an Offer

You don't always have to be selling yourself. You can let the results do the talking for you.

Post a client success story. Someone who got results working with you. Tell their story, show the transformation, and then have a call to action.

You can say something like: "If you want results like this person, send me this word and we can talk." Or "If you want this type of result in your life, book a call and let's chat more."

That's it. That's not being pushy. That's not being "salesy."

You're just sharing proof of what you do works and giving a way for people to raise their hand if they want it for themselves too.

3. Book Three Sales Calls This Week

I don't care if you feel ready or not. Book the calls. Get people on your phone.

Practice makes progress.

Maybe you close them and maybe you don't. But I promise you this: you will learn more from three real sales conversations than you will from six months of watching YouTube videos about sales.

Remember the car analogy? You can read all day long and watch videos all day long, but you will learn more being behind the wheel than you ever will reading about it.

Here's the thing about these activities: none of them require you to feel confident in order to do them. You just do them.

You can do them all even if you're scared. Even if you're fearful. It's okay. You can be honest with those people and say, "This is one of my first sales calls." Sometimes people will take it easy on you.

You can do all of these things while you're sweating, while your heart is racing, while your palms are sweating. Nobody cares.

The more you do it, the better you will get at it. Honestly, if you tell people, "This is my first one" or "I'm really nervous about this," it's okay. People will understand.

Real Example: Susan's Story

Let me tell you about one of my clients. We'll call her Susan.

Susan came to me making about $3,000 a month. She wanted to scale, but she kept telling me, "I'm not ready. I don't have the systems in place. I don't have the automations in place. I need to finish this. I need to finish that. I need to update my branding."

I told her the same thing I'm telling you: You'll never be ready. You have to make offers anyways because your to-do list in business will never end.

There will always be updates to do. There will always be automations to do. There will always be fine-tweaking. You will always have something to occupy your time in business.

I challenged her. She basically was like, "Okay, I did it. I talked about my program even though it wasn't fully ready yet."

She offered some founding member pricing. And guess what? She got sales calls. Just short sales calls, 20 or 30 minutes. But still, she was booking sales calls.

In 30 days, she closed over $15,000 in cash collected.

With a program that wasn't even finished yet. The program wasn't done. All the things weren't done. There's always an endless to-do list. But she did it anyways.

Because people aren't looking for perfect. They're looking for if you've been somewhere where they want to go.

You can make money before you feel ready.

Believe in yourself. Then you'll feel confident. Then you'll feel like a real business owner.

But the confidence comes after you put in the action, the work. Not before.

The Pattern I See Over and Over

The women who make money are the ones who take fast action before they feel ready. And they don't get emotionally attached to a lot of things either.

We want to have emotions. Emotions guide us. But we don't want to let the emotions run the show. We don't want to let fear run the show.

The women who stay broke are the ones who wait for permission.

And that permission? I'm telling you, it's never coming.

Your Action Steps Today

Step 1: Send five connection messages.

Step 2: Share some client wins, share some testimonials. If you don't have client testimonials yet, share how the thing you're doing has changed your life and how it can change other people's lives.

Step 3: Move three deals forward and book three sales calls this week. Simply ask them, "Hey, do you want to hop on a phone call and discuss this further?"

Put it out there on your social media: "I have this many spots for calls this week. If you want to solve this problem, this problem, and this problem, here's a link to my calendar."

If you have people opening your emails, if you have people clicking on your stuff, send them an invitation to have a phone call with you.

That's all you have to do.

Right now, before you finish reading this, commit to one major sales activity today.

Send the DMs. Post the offer. Book the calls. Do it scared. Do it messy. It's gonna be imperfect. But nobody cares. Just do it.

Nobody actually cares. Everybody's so focused on themselves that they don't worry about what other people are looking like.

Nobody is gonna tap you on the shoulder and be like, "You're not ready to do this."

You have to decide right now that you are ready. And you have to prove it to yourself through taking action.

The money you want is literally on the other side of the fear of the things you are avoiding.

Stop avoiding things. Stop getting in your head about things. Stop letting these limiting beliefs be the thing that slow you down.

Practice makes progress. Put yourself out there.

Ready to work on your sales skills and close more deals? DM me on Instagram and tell me what activity you're committing to this week. I want to help you make money. Not someday, but today.

Listen to the full episode: Sales Mama Podcast on Apple Podcasts

Connect with me:

• Instagram: @salesmamaschool
• Instagram: @sausha.davis

Sausha Davis is the founder of Sales Mama School, helping women entrepreneurs take action before they feel ready and close deals through authentic sales strategies.