I’ve been thinking about my personal brand recently.

A brand represents a solution to a need. Successful brands have a unique selling proposition or an added value for the consumer.

What solution am I bringing? What need am I fulfilling? As a college student or young professional it is difficult to find answers to these questions.

Describing your personal brand in a few sentences shouldn’t be hard to do. But, describing your personal brand in one word as Dan Schawbel, personal branding expert, has suggested, may be more of a challenge. Brevity is everything in marketing.

Before you start going through the dictionary to find your “word,” start with yourself. Truly, branding comes from within. We each possess personal characteristics, soft skills and technical skills that make us employable. What makes our brand ours is the perceived value that we each add to our employer, clients, co-workers, professors, classmates, and even family and friends.

First, your brand needs to start with confidence in yourself.

I have seen many fellow Gen Yers limit themselves. They don’t reach for the stars because there is a chance of failure, a chance that their added value won’t be enough. They don’t try to do everything they can to better themselves when the world is at their fingertips.

Confidence doesn’t grow on trees. It is found through experimentation, with new experiences.

Although Gen Y has been criticized for being overly optimistic, belief in one’s own abilities and acknowledgment of weaknesses is critical for success. Confidence is an abstract concept that can grow with time. Your link to who you are as a brand starts with your confidence in your abilities. Before you go fishing for your personal brand word, start within. Do a personal brand SWOT and assess who you are as a person.

The better you can understand yourself, the more value you can add to the world around you and the stronger your brand will become.

*Thanks to class and friends’ discussions that helped these ideas stem into a post.