Building confidence is something you can develop as you get older, both in your personal life and in your work life. Some people are naturally born with buckets of confidence, whereas others have to be proactive in building it over time.
Confidence is a great contributor to your own career prospects, whatever they might be. If you’re looking to build your confidence within the workplace, then there are some useful steps to take on board. With that being said, here are some top tips on how to ensure your confidence grows so that you can take on your workplace with renewed energy and vigour.
Push yourself INTO your comfort zone
Your comfort zone serves as your personal sanctuary for a reason. It’s not about evading challenging scenarios or escaping from the unfamiliar. Rather, it’s about recognizing the inherent value of feeling grounded and secure in your own domain. Kristen Butler, in her insightful book “The Comfort Zone,” illustrates that embracing your comfort zone leads to less stress and more flow.
If you’re someone who tends to stray away from the inviting warmth of your comfort zone, perhaps it’s time to consider reacquainting yourself with its familiarity. Engage in opportunities at work that resonate with your inherent skills and knowledge, those that you would have otherwise allowed others to partake in.
Taking these calculated strides toward your comfort zone can have a significant impact on how you perceive and manage stressful situations. Ultimately, it’s about expanding your understanding of your comfort zone, and utilizing it as a stepping stone to personal and professional growth.
Find your voice
It’s important that you know when and how to use your voice effectively. In the workplace, it can be common to be surrounded by people with louder voices than your own, however, that shouldn’t mean that yours just fades into the background.
Think about how you can work on finding that voice of yours and knowing how to speak up when you want to be heard. This can really be helpful when it comes to being in a situation where your suggestions or ideas may influence the overall project you’re working on.
Don’t feel like you’ve got no voice in the workplace. It’s all about unlocking that confidence and standing strong with your thoughts when you feel they need to speak out loud.
Get inspired by your confident peers
Do you have any peers within your workplace or within the department itself that you aspire to be like? Perhaps you simply like their confident approach when it comes to engaging within the workplace.
Inspiration comes in many forms and when it comes to your peers, it’s always good to take that inspiration for your own benefit. If you’re not already doing so, chat to your peers about how they approach certain scenarios in the workplace which you often shy away from.
Becoming friendly and building relationships with your peers is not only important for your job satisfaction but they may also be able to provide you with some tricks and tips in the confident department.
There are some businesses that go above and beyond for their employees, even providing mentoring opportunities for those who would be interested in having such a service. With that being said, take a look at local mentoring opportunities if it’s not offered in the workplace.
Focus on strengths and work on weaknesses
Everyone has their fair share of strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to know what yours are and to be open to both sides of the coin when it comes to your own person. Focusing on strengths is a great way to build your confidence and make moves within your role.
However, you also don’t want to neglect those weaknesses. The right people will be able to exploit those weaknesses for their own benefit. So with that in mind, be mindful of what weaknesses exist and how these can be turned into strengths.
Your strengths are your body armor and when it comes to exuding confidence, the more strengths you possess, the more confident you’ll feel.
Learn from your mistakes
Mistakes are something all of us will make at some point in our life. When it comes to building confidence, it can get knocked off by the mistakes made. That can make it challenging to build up that confidence, especially when it’s taken a significant knock. It’s worth looking at ways you can learn from your mistakes.
Identify what those mistakes were in the first place and then you can focus on tackling them further. Mistakes are meant to happen in life and it’s what we do from the knowledge of those mistakes that really counts. The more you learn from them, the less likely they’re going to happen in the future.
Encourage more positive language toward yourself
Positivity is something that we often don’t give ourselves enough of, especially when we give it so freely to others. Positive feedback and words of encouragement are going to help you build your confidence. The opposite will be achieved if you’re instead, self-critiquing everything you do.
Negative words are only going to diminish any efforts you’re making to try and get back onto the horse after you’ve been knocked off. So with that being said if you find yourself going straight to critique or using negative language, try to switch it quickly to positive words of encouragement instead.
Ask for feedback on improvement
Feedback is always a great opportunity for individuals to improve upon their own efforts. When you’re trying to build your confidence, it’s definitely worthwhile to ask for feedback. While it can feel embarrassing or it’s something you can easily take to heart, a lot of feedback is often critiquing what needs fixing. These are often weaknesses!
Don’t try to take it personally when someone gives you feedback. After all, their intentions are most likely to ensure you’re improving upon your efforts and making positive progress. That’s all useful when it comes to building confidence in the workplace.
Building your confidence is something that takes time but it’s a rewarding opportunity if you’re someone who wants to make those improvements. Use these tips to build confidence in the workplace for yourself this year.
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