Want to become more confident at work? Read 5 amazing tips to help you boost your confidence and self-esteem.
Tame The Inner Voice
Eleanor Roosevelt: ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’
Emily (friend): ‘I see so many women who say they can’t do things due to their lack of confidence. Stop undermining yourself.’
You’re amazing. You’ve done really well. That project was fantastic.
Whilst your colleagues may be singing your praises, are you? You may have recently achieved huge success at work, been promoted or had a great performance review yet you’re still doubting your abilities, tending to focus on the negatives rather than the positives.
One of the biggest confidence builders is your own mind. Your inner voice can BIG you up or completely TRAMPLE on your self-worth.
Becoming more aware of your thoughts and thought patterns is key. Stop the negative thoughts DEAD in their tracks. Recognise when you start to go down that spiral of negativity and swap the negative thoughts (I’m rubbish, I can’t do this) for more positive ones (I’m good at what I do, I can do this).
Value and Believe In Yourself More
Eleanor Roosevelt: ‘A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.’
Louise (friend): ‘Speak up. I think we so often don’t speak up as we don’t want to look silly. Our opinions are valuable and we can contribute a lot more to discussions if we only had more confidence in ourselves.’
Laura (friend): ‘Sometimes our confidence can be undermined by other people; try not to let this happen, try to trust in yourself and your instincts more.’
It’s time to value yourself and your opinions more. In my previous role, I was the most experienced member of the team, yet I constantly undervalued and doubted myself. I would let other members of the team who were less experienced but more confident (and who talked louder!), influence my decisions. I wasted time and energy on doubting myself when this time and energy could have been better spent elsewhere.
Spend some time looking back over your achievements. Recognise how hard you have worked, what obstacles you have overcome and what you have delivered over your career. Compile a list. Re-read it. Believe it.
Repeat to yourself. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.
Boost Your Skills, Recognise Your Strengths
Emma (friend): ‘Believe in your abilities, develop expertise, ensure that your work is recognised both internally and externally, seek feedback to grow and encourage open and respectful communication.’
Liv (friend): ‘Fill yourself with knowledge. Become a subject expert on your area of expertise.’
Look at your weaknesses and conquer them. Figure out what your strengths are and play to them. Often it can be difficult for us to admit what our weaknesses are and to see them as challenges to be overcome. Likewise, we often don’t recognise what our strengths are and what sets us apart from other people.
Many companies carry out performance reviews where your boss, peers and direct reports are asked to give feedback on you. Listen to what people have to say – don’t just focus on the seemingly negative comments, listen to what they say you do well. If you’re good in front of clients, make this your differentiator. If you’re not good at public speaking and you need to be, set about getting better at it.
Say Yes More, Take Action
Dale Carnegie: ‘Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.’
To build confidence we need to take action. We often sit in the side-lines, turning down opportunities, deferring to colleagues, not trusting in our own amazing abilities but the process of doing something new is a great step forward in boosting our self-esteem.
When we see ourselves succeed at something, we become more confident – it really is that simple. My biggest challenge at work turned into my biggest achievement. I got huge recognition from my boss and peers and I felt amazing afterwards. Say yes to new experiences and see your confidence grow. And remember that with practise things do become much easier.
Set Yourself Some Goals
Do you set yourself work-goals or career-goals?
Liv (friend): ‘Yes always. Gives me something to strive towards. Gives me satisfaction and general improvement in wellbeing.’
Sam (friend): ‘Because I am freelance I sit down with my husband at the start of the year and have a review and I am very proud to say that I have achieved everything in my career that I have set out to do. You have to make it happen.’
We’ve established that action helps to build up our confidence, right? Setting goals and achieving them builds our confidence yet most of the women I talked to rarely set work or career goals – they tended to focus more on fitness goals or losing weight goals.
I’ve found that setting goals at work has been hugely beneficial in helping me step out of my comfort zone and in learning a new skill or discipline. Sometimes I’ve had goals set that were stretch goals; a goal that pushed me that little bit extra and often set by another person such as my manager. These wouldn’t necessarily have been the goals I would have chosen for myself, purely because I wouldn’t have been so bullish about my abilities. And yes I did struggle with some of them as I just didn’t have the faith in myself that I could do them, but through perseverance, through hard-work and with encouragement from others, I achieved them and it felt great!
At work, I find that if I don’t have goals of some kind, then I can meander gently through the year. And sometimes, a gentle meander is great, however if I’m honest, it’s a little unfulfilling. If I have a set of goals though, I push myself to deliver them and I achieve much more.
Low on Confidence After Maternity Leave?
If you are particularly struggling with confidence after having a career break or maternity leave, read my tips here.
Thanks
Lou
A really important topic.
It is important to realise that we are all full of confidence all of the time.
The question is, in what are we confident?
Many people who feel they have no confidence, are fully confident about how useless they are or how they will fail at something, or are not good enough. They are fully confident in their unhelpful beliefs about themselves.
The problem is not a lack of confidence, it’s that they are confident about the wrong things.
This awareness is the beginning or realisation, that they can begin to change what they are confident about.
Thanks for your comments. Looking forward to your writing something for me for WR.