Having confidence in yourself at work means having confidence in your skills, in your ability to accomplish a given job.
it is also reflected in the general attitude: we send the message “I know what I’m doing, trust me” to our interlocutors.
Some people are naturally self-confident, but they are a minority.
Most of us (and I am one of them) have a natural tendency to underestimate ourselves, to devalue ourselves, to not be confident in our abilities and skills, to not consider ourselves capable of doing such a task.
In some cases, one can even develop impostor syndrome .
And in the end, we don’t dare.
We don’t dare to take initiatives, we don’t dare show what we are really worth, we don’t dare to let our ambitions know, we don’t dare to assert ourselves, we don’t dare to quit our job to launch his box …
How to improve your self-confidence?
But lack of self-confidence is not inevitable!
By adopting good habits on a daily basis, you will strengthen your confidence day after day, you will assert yourself, and finally dare to be who you really are and do what you want to do.
1) know yourself
To develop confidence at work (and in life in general), it is important to know who you really are.
Knowing yourself requires introspection , and being aware of your strengths and weaknesses .
It is also knowing what are the deep values that drive us, what we are ready to accept at work and what we will not accept.
Personally, I know that I need autonomy and freedom in my duties, and I would not be able to accept a position where I do not have enough freedom to do my job as I see fit.
2) accept who you are
We would like to be more this, less that, but it is clear that this is not always the case.
We are as we are, we are who we are, and we have to accept it .
You may want to communicate with ease, with large gestures, a loud voice and with confidence, but if you are an introvert, this will not be the case, at least not without a lot of work.
So rather than wasting time and energy trying to be someone idealized (that we are not), it is better to accept who we are, with our strengths and weaknesses. , and let go.
Yes we can always improve, yes we can always change, but that does not mean that we have to draw a line on who we are.
Accepting who you are also means loving yourself as you are, with all its imperfections.
This is what will boost our self-esteem, and therefore our self-confidence.
3) Be authentic
Authenticity is the key to all communication and all sincere relationships.
Behave as you are, speak as you usually do, do not try to play a role, it will not be natural, it will show, and deep inside you will know that you are not showing your real side .
By being yourself and stopping playing a role, you will no longer care what your colleagues or the N + 1 think.
Being authentic at work and in my life has been liberating for me: it has allowed me to gain self-confidence at work, to no longer worry about what others think of who I am, what I say or what I do.
4) ask yourself questions
Questioning is the key to self-improvement. Our desires and needs can change over time, and it’s interesting to stop from time to time, and ask yourself the right questions:
- Who am I really deep inside?
- What are the deep values that drive me?
- What do I want? Do i have dreams
- Do I take one step at a time to achieve what I want on a daily basis?
- How can I make sure I get what I want professionally?
- Is my work in line with my desires? my needs ? my values ?
- If not, what can I do to make it happen?
These are the questions that made me rethink my future, to realign my professional career with my inner self.
Take the time to answer them: knowing what you want and don’t want is a prerequisite for developing self-confidence.
5) stop comparing yourself
We dream all the time (and secretly) of being physically as such an actor, of having a house as beautiful as the cousin (who has succeeded in life).
You have to stop comparing yourself to others at all costs. Already because we devalue ourselves by doing this. But also because we do not have an overview: the comparison only concerns a few specific points.
Yes, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook , he is a millionaire, is the boss of his company, has an interesting and rewarding job …
But we must also see the other side of the coin: his job takes him a lot of time, he faces enormous responsibilities ( see the Cambridge Analytica scandal , where he had to explain himself to the American Congress), his smallest facts and gestures are watched by the media, etc …
Maybe even deep down, he’s not that happy in his work and in his relationship, who knows ( pure hypothesis on my part ).
By relativizing and having an overview, we realize that the lives of others are not necessarily better than ours.
So rather than focusing your energy on the idealized lives of others, focus on yours. After all, she’s not that bad.
6) forget your flaws
We create imaginary faults all the time, we devalue ourselves, we are afraid of not doing this well enough, of not having enough skills there.
Because we have not followed specific studies or that we do not have 15 years of professional experience in a specific field, we imagine that we are not well placed to talk about it. .
On this blog, I mainly talk about well-being at work.
- Do you think that I followed long studies in human resources?
- Do you think that I have a recognized experience of several years as HRD or Chief Happiness Officer?
- Have I waited until I had completed 33 certifying training courses and read 52 management books to create the blog?
The answer is no, every time.
It’s a subject that interests me, so I started talking about it, talking about my convictions, and I educated myself at the same time, I learned.
I’m still learning.
I don’t consider myself an expert in well-being at work, but I have passed the impostor syndrome.
7) give yourself the right to make mistakes
We must accept the right to make mistakes: we are all human, we are all fallible. Even the best experts among us.
Allowing ourselves to make mistakes means accepting that we can make mistakes, it is removing this enormous pressure that we ourselves put on our shoulders.
Are you making a mistake?
This is not the end of the world!
Don’t try to hide it, correct it, and learn from your mistakes.
How do you think the experts arrived at their positions? By groping at the beginning, like everyone else, by making mistakes, by learning, and by correcting.
8) capitalize on your natural talents
Whether in society or in business, we spend our time looking at our weaknesses to try to dispel them.
I just want to say: WHY?
Why focus on your weaknesses when you could focus on your strengths?
It is better to spend 10 hours of your time improving your strengths than trying to dispel your weaknesses.
Already, it will be much more effective, but in addition by focusing on the positive that is in us, and not the negative (the weaknesses), we increase our self-confidence without knowing it.
In the book Strengthsfinders , Tom Rath expands on this idea, and helps people find what their strengths are to focus on.
9) set micro-challenges
Setting yourself challenges that are easy and quick to achieve is one of the best ways I know to improve your self-confidence.
These are called quick wins .
By achieving these challenges, we will quickly collect successes, which will inflate our ego, place us in a positive spiral, which will allow us to chain even more successes.
The feeling of pride that we feel at the end of each successful challenge conditions us to have more confidence in ourselves.
10) reward yourself
When you are successful, when you have finally dared to do or say something, when you have more self-confidence, it is important to reward yourself.
11) take care of your appearance
We often forget it, but by taking care of our appearance, we have better self-confidence.
Whether it’s clothes, makeup highlighting your beauty, or a close shave, taking care of your appearance boosts your ego and restores self-confidence.
I’m not telling you to wear a suit or suit and tie to go to work, on the contrary!
Don’t go wearing a suit if you’re not comfortable in it.
Be authentic, be yourself, including in your clothing habits, but remember to take care of your appearance, to be more confident.
12) Affirm your opinions
We are often afraid to assert our opinions at work and in meetings.
To contradict your boss in the middle of a meeting, or to say that you don’t agree?
“Ohlala, no, I’m too scared, I prefer to nod my head, smile appropriately and shut up.”
If you disagree with something, or if you think there is a better way to solve a problem than the consensus, say so.
You will not make a fool of yourself and you will have no regrets afterwards: you will have given your opinion.
Afterwards, that the others rally to this opinion, that is another story.
13) Take initiatives
Don’t wait for opportunities, they won’t fall out of the blue on their own.
Take initiatives, create your own opportunities .
Go beyond the scope of your mission, speak in a meeting, take the initiative to plan an in-house mini-training.
14) Help others
Even though it’s hard to admit it to ourselves, we all need help at one point or another in our careers.
If you see someone having a hard time, go selflessly offer your help.
Not only will you do your good deed for the day, but in addition the feeling of accomplishment that one has by helping is a formidable booster of self-confidence.
15) not worrying about the gaze of others
Finally, stop worrying about “what will we say” and the like.
No matter what other people think, you live for yourself, not for them.
It’s about your life, your career, so if there’s something you want to do, do it.
In 2015, after a near-burnout, I made the choice to quit everything: work, home, Ile de France.
Without having anything behind.
If I had stayed with “what will we say” , I would still be in the gray Parisian, to undergo the vagaries of public transport, in a job which frustrated me to the highest point.
Rather than comparing ourselves to others, the important thing is to focus on ourselves, and to move forward, step by step, day by day, towards our goals to create our ideal life for ourselves.
By adopting these 15 habits, you should be able to (re) gain self-confidence. I’m not saying it’s easy, nor that it will be done in 3 days, but if the will is there, and you persevere, there is no reason not to get there! ?