Everyone wants to feel confident at work: like they are doing a good job and be acknowledged and recognized for doing good work. But, sometimes you don’t always feel so confident-no matter how good your skills are, and not everyone knows how to feel more confident at work.
Now, it is true that competence breeds confidence. So, if you feel unconfident because you are new or want to hone your skills, you should find a way to practice to get to competence.
If you’re reading this, my guess is that you are very competent at your job and need some help to appreciate your competence and feel confident in situations where self-doubt, fear, and insecurity creep in.
How to Feel More Confident at Work
Google defines confidence as:
- the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
- the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.
- a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.
Learning how to cultivate confidence in yourself will help you learn skills quicker, become a better decision maker and increase your self-esteem by having your own back.
Confidence is a feeling you can learn to feel on purpose, so you can call on it whenever you need it.
In this article, we will go over an 8-step process on how to be more confident at work.
- Identify the unhelpful emotion you are feeling instead of confidence
- Process the unhelpful emotion
- Find the thought-producing unconfidence
- Question the thought
- Find a new, more supportive thought
- Write a list of accomplishments
- Start a victory log
- Talk back to your inner critic
Identify the unhelpful emotion you are feeling instead of confidence
The first step will be to gain awareness of your feelings. What is the emotion you feel when you are not confident? Is it doubt, insecurity, fear, frustration, envy, resentment, self-pity, confusion, or indecision?
What you are feeling does not have to be limited to these listed emotions; they are just a suggestion of emotions that could be possible.
Learning to name and identify your feelings is one of the first steps to self-awareness and creating change.
Process the unhelpful emotion
The next step is to process the unhelpful emotion you have just identified.
Processing an emotion means welcoming the emotion to your body with an understanding that emotion does not have the power to harm you and that you can feel any emotion.
An emotion is just a vibration in your body, and an emotion only lasts for 90 seconds. Try not to resist or avoid or not have the feeling you are having–that will only make the emotion stronger and come back.
Instead, invite the emotion into your body and start to describe it.
Identify where you feel the vibration in your body. Ask yourself if it is moving, has a color, or has anything you can think of.
If you do this process correctly, the intensity of the emotion should be significantly reduced, and it should feel like the emotion has dissipated.
Find the thought-producing unconfidence.
Thoughts always precede feelings. In other words, a thought is what creates a feeling. Therefore, you want to find the idea that makes unconfidence in you.
Narrow it down to just one sentence.
Question the thought
Question the thought that is producing unconfidence in you.
Is it true? Is it helpful? Could something else be equally as true? Is this the only option? Is there another way to look at this? Are you making any assumptions or judgments?
Let’s try an example. If the unsupportive thought you have identified leads you to feel unconfident is something like, “Jean didn’t like my presentation, and I could tell by the look on her face.” We can now question this thought to loosen it up in our minds.
Is it true?
Or does Jean make faces during presentations, which could be for several reasons?
Is it helpful? Not really. There is not much upside to trying to guess other people’s thoughts or making assumptions that they have a negative opinion about something when they haven’t voiced an opinion one way or the other.
Could something else be equally as true?
Could something in your presentation have reminded Jean about her cruel ex-boyfriend, and she was making a face about that memory instead of your presentation? We are not in Jean’s head, and we can’t know what she thinks, so it is equally valid that there could be any reason she would make a face.
Is there another way to look at this? This question will bridge you into the next step of the process.
Find a new, more supportive thought.
Once you have questioned your thought, examined your thought, and sought to understand your thought, the next step is to find a new, more supportive idea.
If previously, your unhelpful thought was, “Jean didn’t like my presentation. I could tell by the look on her face.”
You could think of a new, more supportive thought: “Sometimes Jean makes weird faces during my presentations, and that is okay. I don’t have to make it mean anything, and I could be fascinated or curious about this instead of making assumptions.”
This new, more supportive thought is the one you need to keep directing your brain back to thinking every time it thinks the unhelpful thought.
Talk back to your inner critic
The inner critic is the voice in your head that is critical of you, talks down to you, and always thinks about what could go wrong, or that other people don’t like you.
Your job is to manage your mind and to talk back to your inner critic. That is why you want to find new, more supportive thoughts so that you can tell your brain the supportive thoughts when it offers up unhelpful thoughts.
Write a list of accomplishments
In the book, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, he talks about ways to build up your self-esteem, and one of those ways is to write a list of 100 accomplishments you have in your life.
Most people have some significant accomplishments they can put on the list, but to come up with 100 achievements, you have to start recognizing all the small wins you have had in your life. Some examples he suggests in the book include moving from second to third grade, learning how to ride a bike, finishing your first novel, etc.
This exercise is effective at getting your brain to look for all the accomplishments you do have in your life.
Start a Work Progress Log
This is something that is also mentioned in The Success Principles. A work progress log is a log you keep daily where you write down everything you have accomplished for the day.
It will help you build self-esteem and confidence and make your brain more efficient at looking for all the ways you are succeeding in your life. Keeping this log will also help you develop an appreciation for your skills and abilities.
Summary
These are ways how to feel more confident at work. If you are interested in going more in-depth on this topic, check out my free guide, 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.