Growing self-confidence
Welcome 2021 & happy new year!!!
I’m delighted for the new year to be here, there are many more upcoming challenges but we’ve grown a whole lot in the past year and we will hopefully see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Today we are going to discuss self-confidence.
It is said that women tend to be more modest on their achievements and capacities, hence why, for example there’s been light shed on the imposter syndrome (which 70% of people will experience during their careers and that being mostly women).
One’s capacity to be confident, will impact the willingness to accept new opportunities that come along and proactively put themselves into situations that require new skills and consequently their chances of success.
There are two types of moments after which I have gotten to grow appreciation for myself: when I overcame difficult challenges and when I have consistently shown up. Of course, it fluctuates: nothing’s static in that I am not always satisfied with myself - in fact I inevitably mess up, when I do, I focus on learning from it & not repeating it.
That being said though, 2020 has definitely helped me reinforce my resilience and the appreciation I have for myself - I go into more details of what I went through in the latest episode of my podcast The Incubate Her which you can listen to here.
Just going through the experience of life in itself builds self worth, that said, there are ways with which you can actively increase your confidence and self-esteem, and I’m sharing what has been working for me:
Having awareness on what you excel at and what you have room for improvement: being aware and fair on what you can offer counteracts the potential negative spinning thoughts that can go through your brain and block you. It also gives you an opportunity to set a plan with steps to reach your objectives by working on developing your area of expertise.
Cultivating positive thoughts: implement the habit of keeping a gratitude journal whether it’s actually written down or a list you do everyday in your head. When you are successful at something, congratulation yourself, celebrate and don’t be shy to talk about it.
Be kind to yourself: address yourself as you would your best friend: don’t beat yourself up and don’t treat yourself as if you are lesser than. Choose mantras you can repeat in your head that will work uplift you: “This is going to be hard, but I can do it!” ; “It’s not perfect but that’s ok, I’m learning as I go.”
Set boundaries in your environment: people have to know what your scope of work is, when it’s OK for your to be contacted, and what your peers / customers / business partners can expect from you.
Focus on you! Comparing yourself with others is a recipe for self doubt, remember no matter at what point each of us are in our lives it always comes with the whole package of both pros & cons. Observe and be in awe of what they’ve achieved: in a way that’s curious and admiring rather than from a place of scarcity. I feel very inspired by successful people, I approach them with inquisitiveness, aim to learn from them and think about what I could implement that they’re doing to my own work.
Be accountable: when something doesn’t go as planned accept it and understand it. Pushing a failure under the rug is always detrimental and dis-serving as it prevents you from analyzing what went wrong and what you can learn from it - and therefore it will most likely not prevent you from doing it again!
Accept the unexpected: there are many moments where you won’t have any control on what is going on: whether it’s a pandemic or a reorganization or a flight that’s cancelled and jeopardizing an important customer meeting. Getting worked up about these things only drains your energy: acknowledge it’s not what you planned but reroute your attention on your short term tasks and goals. Your capacity to focus on that will not only make you more productive but will be a long term satisfaction showing your capacity to adapt to whichever circumstances.
Having esteem, confidence and trust in oneself inherently impacts the chances of achieving goals and being successful. Think about the number of times you’ve stopped doing something because you doubted yourself, and the number of times you didn’t pursue something because you thought you couldn’t do it!
Are you already working on increase your self-esteem? Do you feel you have missed important opportunities in the past because you didn’t think you had what it took?
I’m also curious to know what you’ve learned from 2020 & plan to work on in the upcoming year. What are your goals?