Confidence in me. 08.06.18

Confidence can mean many things.

Confidence can mean being certain. Or it can refer to a relationship of trust. But here, in this forum for the personal and professional development of women, we talk to your awareness of your own powers…your confidence in YOU.

Arrogance, on the other hand, is more presumptuous. It refers more to a negative attitude. In fact, it refers more to an attitude of superiority. And many times, as I’ve seen it, arrogance is more domineering. Bossy.

Confidence makes a good leader.

Conveying confidence at work communicates to others they can rely on you. They know they can trust your efforts. When you act as if you don’t deserve what you have, it devalues you—colleagues won’t respect you. And then, they won’t follow you.

Confidence equals productivity.

Whether you are a team leader, or a team member, confidence sets the stage for productivity. When you practice confidence, it is reflected in your results.

It’s contagious

Not only can your friends and colleagues observe your own confidence, it is contagious. They catch it from you!

5 Steps to Build Confidence

Although we’re not born with confidence, you can develop it. Accomplishments contribute to your self-esteem, but confidence relates to your beliefs in your own abilities. Confidence demonstrates your how good you are at something. How can you convey confidence, and positively impact others, if you are not aware of the rock star you are?! Here are five steps you can use to build your confidence.

Inventory your strengths.

Tom Rath, author of the book Strengths-based Leadership, presents four categories of strengths, including executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking. Starting here with broad categories can help you determine where your specific strengths lie. This, then, not only builds your confidence in the strengths, but reveals additional areas you could work to develop.

Reflect upon your mistakes.

I know, no one especially likes to look back on things they did incorrectly. However, examining the mistakes you made, as well as determining what you learned from each one, will build your self-awareness, and thus your confidence.

Talk with a friend or a mentor.

I prefer to talk to a broad range of people when attempting to learn more about myself. I have spoken to friends from long ago, especially those who have known me as a child, to friends and colleagues who know me from work. They all share their unique perspectives, and even may make statements on your impact on them about which you might have been unaware. I have found that learning from a friend that I am talented in an area that I had overlooked not only surprises me but builds confidence quickly as it came from a trusted source.

Share your talents.

I have been working on this one for the past year and have found it to be very effective in building my confidence. For example, I really enjoy using social media. I became interested in being an administrator for a business page for my church. With the data social media provides, I was able to see the areas in which I excelled...in black and white! Each week after reviewing data, I made subtle changes in how I did managed this page. And each week, the results spoke for themselves. Now I am quite confident in my ability to do this and I continue to seek additional ways to develop even more skills in this area.

Create a confidence action plan.

There may come a time in your life, as I have experienced, where you feel as though you can’t do anything right. Maybe negativity is like an umbrella over you right now. It’s time to come out from under it and stand in the sun!

I expressed to you all last week how UNCONFIDENT I felt about writing anything other than a research paper for graduate school. I felt that overcoming the fear of writing, sitting down and actually doing some writing, and then going into a quiet place to read what I had written, would build my confidence in this area. So, I created a plan:

1) Create places to write. I purchased a book with journal prompts in it for all 365 days in a year. I also created an account for an online diary at https://www.my-diary.org/. This allowed me to keep my writing private and have a place to “go” to do it.

2) Block out time to write. I selected 1 hour per day and blocked out this time on my calendar to ensure that I made time to do the one thing I have wanted to do for a long time. Putting it on my Google Calendar made it official and seemed to express my commitment to building my confidence.

3) Get together with others to write. I began asking friends and family if they, too, had interests in writing. Now I am attempting to put together an online writing group. I have begun drafting “rules” for our group and hope to get this off the ground in September.

Fake it ‘til you make it.

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times before. I know I’ve said it at least that many times to others with whom I had been working. However, I realize now that I need to truly feel confident in order to convey it to others.

Remember the movie, The Sound of Music? In this case, Maria expressed it best in these lyrics:

So, let them bring on all their problems

I'll do better than my best

I have confidence they'll put me to the test

But I'll make them see I have confidence in me