This blog brings you the top techniques for gaining confidence at work. We spend most of our lives working too hard with a wish to gain success. But, do you know that hard work is not the only tool that helps you succeed? There are many other determinants and triggers, among them”confidence” is at the top. It is extremely important today to transform your fears into strengths and act confidently. The jobs are no more one table and chair world with one boss to report. Now, we deal with multiple stakeholders of the business, and satisfying everyone is arduous. Therefore, there is one topping on the whole skill set presentation; present it with confidence. You can’t really earn success if you do not present your hard work with a charm that only comes with confidence.
Gaining Confidence At Work For A Promised Success
This blog is particularly for those people who think they work too hard but, no one notices their hard work. All you need is confidence to get yourself noticed. These best tips for gaining confidence at work will truly help you in becoming a confident professional. I suggest you go for these techniques one by one. Once you have achieved one milestone, step onto the other.
- Outline your goals
- Align your personal & professional goals
- Connect and socialize
- Acquire knowledge
- Improve communication skills
- Walk in others’ shoes
1) Outline Your Goals
Can you guess why outlining your goals is the first among the best tips to grow you as a confident professional? It is because deciding your goals is the starting point of your career journey. If you are unsure of what you wish to achieve or what are your needs at any specific point in your career then, you will always act as a confused professional. As a successful professional, you must be confident enough to make moves and make decisions. Today, when problem-solving and risk-taking are the most preferred competencies for any job, a confused person cannot succeed if he is going blindly without any goals in mind.
Therefore, spend time carving your goals in the best way. Well-set goals have the power to guide you along your career expedition and don’t let you get lost on your way. When you are free of the fear of getting lost, you become confident enough to inspire others as well.
2) Align Your Personal & Professional Goals
So, we want you to become a confident professional; who has no doubts and who displays leadership abilities with a clear vision. For this, it is necessary to align your personal and professional goals. If you just notice, this is still a phase of goal setting process. When you are designing your goals network, including both the professional and personal goals. Connect the personal goals with the professional ones smartly and prudently.
For example, I wish to become the department head within 3 years. Once I become the head, I plan to marry or I want to go on vacation with my family in the beginning of the coming year. For this, I need $15,000 which I must earn by the end of this year. So, you see how we tie our personal and professional goals? Both supporting each other and positively affecting each other. A lot of people might outline their goals but do not know that connecting the personal and professional goals is one separate task. If you forget to align these two, all the planning becomes pointless and ineffective. Alignment reminds you of targeting a nice balance between personal and professional goals.
Here it is important to understand that personal & professional goals have a high tendency to negatively affect each other. As a result, both can collapse. So, while you are aligning them, be careful to not be aggressive and emotional. Employ a clear strategy to align these two. Identify the cause and effect very clearly. A happy personal life always makes you confident in your professional life. Thus, you can achieve more, and your body language gets more powerful. The best part is that your personal goals are enough to motivate you for achieving your professional goals. Who else can stop you then from being productive and successful?
3) Connect and Socialize
You can’t miss this one tool to gain confidence. Socialization is one of the most useful techniques to gain confidence. You learn by interacting more with people, especially the ones from your own profession. You absorb not only the newest approaches in the industry but also learn to express yourself. We see a lot of successful professionals with average expertise but high levels of confidence. They do not have very exclusive competencies, but they are hand-picked by the higher management just because of the outgoing abilities that they exhibit. In the present work cultures, interactions with customers and other business stakeholders require being sociable.
And yes, I understand not everyone is extrovert and social. But trust me, it is not difficult. Just make it normal and start slipping out of your inner comfort zone very slowly. Start talking to your colleagues. Share your experiences and interests with them. I assure you, finally when you are successful in opening to just 2-3 persons at your workplace, your shell will begin to crack. You’ll be eventually capable of weaving and expanding your social network with confidence.
4) Acquire Knowledge
This one technique for gaining confidence is green forever. Acquiring professional knowledge illuminates you from within. Nothing stands equal to it when you have the knowledge of contemporary industrial practices and you know well how to put it to use. Knowledge has a natural strength to instill confidence.
We have many amazing options to do online certifications and MOOCs today. And this has made obtaining knowledge so easy. Getting a college or university degree is one time and the knowledge you acquire eventually fades out of your mind. Here, I suggest you continue doing professional courses from reputed sources like Coursera. The best things are timings flexibility and access to the best teachers in the world. You get to know about the latest professional practices of the world which your 2 or 5 years old university or college degree won’t tell you. So, keep learning more and enjoy the professional confidence that comes with it when you have the latest subject knowledge which the other three people in the conversation do not have.
Remember a good GPA, college/ university degree can get you in, but it will not help you survive. Your professional knowledge is the tool that will aid in your professional progression. When you have the knowledge, you confidently know your way.
5) Improve Communication Skills
Dealing with gaining confidence at work questions includes developing good communication skills too. Great professional communication means being good at expressing yourself in the workplace. Whether you write, speak or deliver your message non-verbally, it should be effectively communicated. Being confident in what you deliver to other people affects your professional growth to an extremely high degree. An unconfident person cannot express himself or deliver the message well. His non-verbal message is full of vague cues. His written communication has a lot of language errors.
It is usually assumed that improving communication skills is impossible which is a myth. I have seen a lot of outgoing people with good knowledge and experience, but they are not able to even write an email free of mistakes. Develop a habit of reading a lot; read books, magazines, and newspapers. The best sources to improve knowledge and communication skills are Reader’s Digest, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes. All these sources can help you improve your language skills, knowledge, and leadership competencies.
Additionally, the more you interact with people, the more you learn to confidently shape your body language. Learn the newest ways online to achieve perfection in non-verbal cues and practice them as much as possible. Work on them one by one. Work most on your facial expressions, eye contact, tone, hand movements, and gait. These are the top body language cues that reflect your confidence.
Learn the best-proven ways to improve professional communication in my other blog on effective communication methods.
6) Walk in others’ shoes
This one technique is way too vital than you think. We deal with so many stakeholders at our jobs and everyone has different needs. Understanding these needs is crucial for successful job performance. A confused person with less or no understanding of other stakeholders’ needs is never able to address those needs well.
For example, you are a customer service representative and you come across an annoyed customer. You cannot address his needs well if you do not know what a customer wants. As you are unsure of his preferences, you are 85% susceptible to taking wrong moves. So, develop a habit of transforming yourself hypothetically into a customer, boss, peer, and other stakeholders whenever you deal with them. Think from their perspective. Understand their needs. This is going to help you the most to avoid making wrong guesses about what they expect from you. You’ll have a clear mind and you will be able to exhibit confident behavior when you deal with them.
Weekly measure your gain in confidence
You know assessments help you achieve confidence faster and more effectively. Every week, score yourself on how well you exhibited confidence on various occasions or how many confidence techniques have you mastered. These techniques need follow-up and constant practice. And mastering them takes longer than you think. I would love to know which of these techniques you loved the most and picked up for developing confidence. Use the contact us form to share your confidence success story
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