Confidence is a critical part of your success. You'll need it selling, networking, connecting, negotiating, presenting, on projects, team-building, in meetings — I can go on forever. It's a major part of your business life.
And yet when I present to clients worldwide, confidence is one of the most needed attributes in business.
We read books and listen to podcasts — yet, we still have a confidence deficit. How do we fix that?
Confidence isn’t binary — it’s a gradual process of learning to move on our ‘confidence range’. And here’s the secret: We constantly shift on that RANGE.
We’re afraid of both outliers of our confidence range — we are so scared of being viewed as a jerk, a show-off, or on the other end, low self-esteem, an awkward person.
We don’t realize that being confident is in the middle of the range and that we frequently need to be a bit more assertive (or bold) or a little less assertive (or reserved). All three states (reserved, confident, bold) are admired and expected in any business environment.
So how do we get MORE confident?
1. Develop a True Belief In Your Abilities
Focus on your internal mindset — validate and recognize each success you have at work frequently so they can occur repeatedly. Build an athlete’s mindset — where you believe and consistently internalize that you can do better, jump higher, and accomplish more.
2. Prove To Yourself That You Are Great
List your accomplishments over the years and where they have brought you presently (we rarely look back and admire our progress). Again, be an athlete — develop a practice schedule where you admire your accomplishments and use them to push yourself to higher heights in business.
3. Before Long, You Will Fail
Failure is a significant part of confidence-building — think of a baseball player with a .333 average — that’s an excellent average — but they only hit once out of every three times at-bat. The other two times? They strikeout. No one likes failure — but it’s part of the game. Many failures can hurt your ego and lessen your self-esteem. You might even GIVE UP — this is the tipping point of confidence — failure is a significant building block. Get up, dust yourself off, and get back into the game.
4. Passion = Confidence
Developing a passion for whatever you’re doing is one of your best confidence builders. I want you to paint yourself in a corner to force yourself to be more passionate about what you do and how you communicate with others. Remove the comfort to create the desire to be more passionate.
5. Practice Being Confident All The Time
Pain is a normal part of this journey, and so is failure. You are going to succeed in certain areas and also fail. But keep telling yourself that this is a journey to build your confidence.
And here’s my secret: Nothing feels better or makes you feel more alive than when you are confident.