#1 Identify when you do feel confident
Focusing on when you do feel confident and understanding why is a helpful starting point to leverage confidence. Mapping the activities, you feel confident doing is a helpful reminder of what confident looks like to you and can help you to establish the ingredients you need to feel confident.
#2 Rediscover your strengths
Reconnecting with your strengths is a great way to build confidence – reminding yourself of the things you excel at is in itself confidence boosting. It is also a way of sparking ideas as to how to tackle the tasks you are less confident with.
Need some help getting started?
- Reflect on the things you do naturally and with ease
- Consider the positive feedback you get from others
- Consult a trusted colleague and get their perspective
- Use a tool like Strengths Profile that will draw out your strengths and act as a starting point for your reflections.
Maintain a light relationship with your strengths, don’t let them define you, or hold you back from taking opportunities to develop new strengths.
#3 Prepare to shine
At times we can be our own worst enemy, we fail to prepare as a way of proving ourselves right and live up to our perceived lack of confidence. Identify the actions that sit outside your zone of confidence and prepare for them. Give yourself the best chance of shining.
#4 Put on your confidence cloak
As well as preparing practically for what we are going to do or say, it is also important to prepare mentally. In addition to knowing your material inside out, it is also key to get into the right mindset to deliver it on the day.
Looking inwards, what does confidence look and feel like to you? Practice getting into this mindset. Mindfulness practices are helpful for enabling you to engage entirely in the moment and feel grounded. Set aside time even create a short routine to get into that mindset.
An anchor on the day can also help to remind you start to feel ungrounded during a conversation or meeting to reground into your confident mindset. A friend of mine has a confidence jacket, when working virtually others use a picture or quote above the laptop, for me it is necklace that goes on and off when I need it.
#5 Remember that we are all fools from time to time
When we practice being confident and jumping in more we may say or do something a little less than perfect from time to time. That is OK. Confidence is as much about being comfortable being seen as less than perfect as it is about practicing being perfect.
