I’m sure a number of you have had moments like this during your career: We look at a colleague who has just been given a promotion or perhaps an increase in salary and we think to ourselves, “I know just as much as she does. How did she get the promotion whilst I’m still working in the same role?”
I’ve seen it many times and I’ll most likely see it again, but in some circumstances, these individuals who get the promotions are the ones that benefit from having that natural swagger of self-confidence. A number of studies have found that people are more likely to favour confidence over expertise in the workplace. In a number of different job roles, confidence can be a far more important attribute than competence, which is sadly unfortunate for some women who tend to report lower levels of confidence, especially within a working environment.
When you’re striving to reach the next level in your career, true confidence and the belief in your ability to succeed is going to be a crucial factor. This will help you demonstrate you have what it takes to warrant getting a new job, a rise in salary or given a senior position within the company. Luckily, this innate confidence you see in people that you admire isn’t fixed as you may think – confidence is something that can be practiced and built over time. So where do we start..?
-Keep a list of your past accomplishments
How many times have you spent time worrying about hoping something won’t go wrong – only to find that it went really well and you had nothing to be concerned about? And after this, you feel on top of the world and believe you can challenge yourself with anything. This is what keeping a list of your accomplishments is all about. It is a constant reminder that you are good enough and can exude confidence in any situation.
-Adopt a growth mindset
Knowing that skills and abilities can be developed through hard work is a key element to develop confidence and resilience during your working career. Rather than believing that your natural ability is your ceiling (i’m not good at talking in front of large groups of people) you have to believe that you can improve by constantly practicing enough to develop that confidence in the long run.
-Make progress one step at a time
Even adopting a growth mind-set and noting down your list of past accomplishments to guide you along the way, tackling something new and stepping outside your comfort zone can be rather overwhelming at times. If that’s how you feel and your confidence levels are dropping – just focus on taking small steps at a time. Break it down, if you’re trying to become a more confident speaker, don’t throw yourself into the deep end and deliver a speech in front of hundreds of people. Instead, start by talking in front of much smaller groups of people and build your confidence from there.
There are plenty of ways to build confidence and each person is going to find the practices that best suit them. What tips do you have to build self-confidence? Share them in the comments below.
