How to feel confident in your career
If you’re feeling a little lost, and lacking in self-confidence right now, you’re not alone. But a lack of self-confidence can really impact your career. According to Forbes, more than 60% of companies say they look for confidence when hiring new employees into roles. Confidence is such a crucial component to shining in your career. But sometimes it’s damn hard to feel confident, and then we get frustrated at ourselves for not feeling confident. This can trigger a bit of a slump in how you feel, and your overall work performance. Does this help? Absolutely not! Can you boost your confidence through being kinder to yourself? Absolutely!
Confidence at work is important for so many things. Whether you’re wanting to shine in your existing role or go after a brand new job that fires you up, self-confidence will help you every step of the way. Good self-confidence helps you back your points in meetings, take credibility for your work, and even put your hand up for promotion-earning challenges! When you’re confident in yourself you set better boundaries and generally produce much better results.
If your confidence feels like it needs a little boost after the last two years, we’ve got you. Read on for our top 9 tips for regaining your self confidence levels, and then some!
Building your Confidence
The very first step to building, or re-building your self confidence is to embrace a positive mindset. Truly. Take a moment and write down all the positives of where you are in life. What have you done well? What do you like about your life? Think of all the epic and awesome things you’ve achieved.
Another powerful tool for elevating your mindset and how positive you feel is to eliminate any negative self-talk. Your words have so much power over your emotions. Next time you’re frustrated with yourself, try being kinder to yourself. Don’t be a mean girl. Be your own cheerleader.
Embrace your mistakes, because honestly we all make them! Stop thinking of a mistake as a blot in your career, and reexamine the events as a learning opportunity. Get curious about what happened. What can you learn from it? How has this mistake improved your abilities? Take off the pressure of having to know everything and be the best, just be better than you were yesterday. Small steps are still steps!
Find yourself a great mentor. A good mentor is a huge way to boost your confidence. They can help you create a path for your career, and are great to bounce ideas off. A good mentor is someone in your corner, guiding you.
Get curious, and ask questions! Sometimes we get stuck in a mindset of having to know it all, but honestly it is so beneficial to be inquisitive. Either in your job, or while job hunting! Ask others how they got to where they are, what they did and learn, etc. Be a sponge and soak up all the information, until you feel like an expert in your field.
Build on your strengths. We all have natural abilities, and most of us feel best when we get to use them! Embrace what you’re good at, grow those natural talents, step into your power! Trust us, you’ve got personal power. Grow it. You’ll be amazed how good you feel once you step into those awesome natural abilities of yours.
Develop new skills. If you find that there is an area that you struggle with, be proactive and find ways to overcome your struggle. Not only will this help boost your confidence to grow in your career, it will also skyrocket your self confidence. How great does it feel when you conquer something that used to make you nervous? Keep powering through, and conquer more obstacles.
Set yourself small achievable goals. This ties back to what we said earlier about small steps still being steps! Your career is a lifelong journey, set yourself goals to guide yourself along the way. Each time you achieve a new goal not only will you mark a new career milestone, you’ll grow your self confidence! Follow your dreams, they are yours for a reason and you CAN AND WILL get there, I promise you.
Last but not least, work on your body language! No, seriously, this helps! Google “superhuman pose” and watch the science unfold. Amazing, isn’t it? How we hold ourselves has such a direct impact on how we feel. No more slouching!
Whenever you’re feeling a little lost, or like you need a self confidence boost, run through some of these ideas. But most importantly don’t be hard on yourself. Everyone goes through periods where we’re not at our peak, and beating ourselves up about it just makes it worse. You have achieved amazing things, so build yourself up right now (tips included here!). You’re doing great, honestly. The last two years have been insanely tough and you’re still going. Go you!
If your lack of confidence maybe comes from feeling unfulfilled at your current role, have a read through our previous blog post here. And if you’re ready to get moving towards better confidence at work, and even a more fulfilling role I’m just a phone call away. I would love to help you find a career that loves you back!
Amie xx