5 Ways To Boost Your Confidence (In The Workplace)
What is confidence?
”Confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from an appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities,” according to the Cambridge English Dictionary.
Having confidence in the workplace can be crucial to your success. Confidence can make you more motivated/ambitious, less anxious/stressed and more likely to drive performance, career growth and improve work relationships.
Here are 5 ways to boost your confidence and see an overall improvement in your daily life:
1. Get out of your comfort zone. Give yourself permission to take some risks, stretch yourself and make mistakes.
Normalise stepping outside of your comfort zone and position yourself in new environments; this stretches you past what you know and as a result, increases your confidence. Stay open and curious as to what can occur when you experience something unfamiliar to you and your world. When you do the things that you think you can't, your comfort zone will continue to expand. Even doing something seemingly small every day will lead you to something bigger. You will grow and will begin to feel unstoppable. Just take that first step.
This confidence-boosting strategy can be tough to apply, but leaving your comfort zone can be one of the most effective ways to gain more confidence in your career. For instance, maybe you have always dreaded giving presentations to the entire team. You could step outside of your comfort zone by volunteering to give the next presentation or co-host with a teammate. If this is the case, you would then prepare your presentation.
You would step outside your comfort zone fully, but focusing on your skills, how you would deliver the presentation and the presentation itself rather than the mistakes you might make or worrying over embarrassment will help you confront that fear and overall boost your work confidence.
2. Get things done, by achieving goals of any size. Start small, then work your way up to the big ones.
Confidence is built on accomplishment. If you achieve small and big goals, you're going to feel much better about yourself. It begins with your day-to-day goals, what do you need to accomplish today, or next week, to help meet your goal? If you accomplish the daily goals you set for yourself, then you will begin meeting weekly and monthly goals, which brings you in range of your bi-annual and annual goals.
Keep in mind that progress is incremental, and big changes do not happen overnight. Small steps in the right direction every day, will help you achieve your goals in the long run.
3. Attend professional development training and gain new skills.
Developing the skills you rely on for your job can impact your overall confidence. When you increase your skill level or develop a specific skill further, like learning a new language if you work in education, can improve the way you perform in your role, and this will have a positive influence on increasing your confidence.
Consider attending professional development training or skills training. For instance, you might take a class or attend a training seminar to learn new project management strategies, or you may read journals or books that can offer the information you need to add to your qualifications.
4. Dress for success. This will increase your self-confidence when at work, surrounded by your peers.
Consider your professional wardrobe and improve your work appearance to match what is required in the office. For instance, you might have a “business casual” dress code, but instead of wearing denim jeans, try a pair of casual slacks.
Dressing to appear more professional and coming into work with a business appearance may help influence the confidence you feel when performing your job and interacting with your peers and superiors.
Similarly, avoid dressing casually for important events like conferences, board meetings or other presentations, where formal business attire is typically an expectation.
5. Be mindful of your body language.
This takes a level of self-awareness and presence. Remember to keep your head up, shoulders back and stand up straight and tall.
Walk and move with purpose. It makes a world of difference rather than walking slouched with our heads down, which makes us feel low and sends out a negative impression to the people around you.
Watch for folded arms, slouched postures and fidgeting with your hands. Instead, smile and make eye contact.
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We'd like to invite you to join our upcoming ‘Present With Confidence: Online Masterclass’. It is a fun, active-learning training session to prepare those in the workplace aiming to become more confident in:
- Public Speaking
- Presentations
- Projecting their Voice
- & Commanding the attention of a room
This will provide participants the opportunity to be coached by award-winning trainers Joanna Bessey, Tria Aziz & Ghafir Akbar.
Sign Up for our upcoming Online Masterclass on 21st & 22nd April HERE!
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