By Erik Bergman
You will go through plenty of obstacles in your professional career. Each one might or might not be a setback for you. When that happens, your self-confidence takes a hit.
Low self-confidence leads to doubt. Doubt leads to mistakes, and mistakes lead to further setbacks. Avoiding the cycle is easy if you build enough self-confidence to negate the harmful effects. But how do you do that?
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If you’re looking to answer that, you’re in luck. This guide will show you six tips on how to build self-confidence. So without further ado, let’s start.
Avoid Negativity
Negativity, in all its forms, impacts us differently. Some people aren’t built to work in such a workplace or with negative coworkers. Escaping negativity might seem impossible, but it can be done.
Most commonly, negativity is a way of thinking that drains your self-confidence. For example, if you think reaching the monthly goal is impossible, you will never achieve it.
Therefore, we can determine that negativity is equally harmful to our self-confidence as many other things. So what’s the best way to build self-confidence in a negative workplace? Avoid the negativity, of course.
For some of you, this is impossible to achieve. After all, not everyone can switch from one workplace to another quickly. But avoiding negativity by challenging negative thoughts is one way to cope with it.
When switching to a different company is impossible, the only solution is changing your thinking.
Put Yourself in Uncomfortable Situations
No one said anything is going to be easy and in most cases, feeling uncomfortable is very common when first starting out in a new workplace. But the more you put yourself in these situations, the better you become at handling the pressure. Feeling uncomfortable will seriously impact your self-confidence. The obvious mistake is to build a safety bubble around you and never leave it. Why? Because we must put ourselves in these situations to learn how to deal with the problem.
Let’s say you’re a shy person, and one of your biggest issues is job interviews. No matter how hard you try, escaping the feeling of uneasiness during a job interview is difficult. As one might imagine, this is hindering your ability to pass a job interview with flying colors.
But if you never put yourself in these situations, not hearing back from HR will be the least of your worries.
So, the obvious solution is to put yourself in these situations to learn how to deal with them and build your self-confidence.
Celebrate Your Wins
As they say, a win is a win. Whenever there’s a win to celebrate, do it. No matter how big or small your recent success is, always take the time to celebrate.
Perfectionists are the sort of people that never celebrate anything and often jump from one project to another. While not exclusive to everyone who calls themselves a perfectionist, this is an issue that might be harming your self-confidence. How so, you might be asking?
Well, it’s important to remind yourself of the good job you’ve done. As chances are, your boss won’t do it.
Every time you finish a project or successfully convert a lead into a sale, do a small celebration to boost your self-confidence.
Don’t Put Too Much Pressure
People buckle under pressure. Putting yourself under too much pressure is going to have harmful effects. So one way to avoid taking a hit on your self-confidence is to alleviate some of that pressure.
What you can do is simple. Instead of taking on a massive project with a short deadline, ask for help. While this might be impossible in some cases, the more pressure you put yourself under, the greater the hit on your self-confidence if you fail to achieve results.
Set Manageable Goals
This one relates nicely to a previous point about celebrating wins. Consider these “wins” as your goals. Every time you achieve a goal, you celebrate a win. But the trick is to set goals that are both short-term and easily achievable.
That way, you boost your self-confidence every time you achieve a goal. If you set an unmanageable goal and fail to achieve it, you take a hit on your self-confidence. As one might imagine, this will lead to a downward spiral that might or might not be difficult to escape.
Acknowledge You’re Not Perfect
No one is perfect, but we’re led to believe others are. There is probably something you wish you could change about yourself. And in this case, it’s probably your poor self-confidence. One way to boost your self-confidence is through acceptance and acknowledgment that you’re far from the finished article.
By acknowledging your flaws, you work towards building up your strengths. That way, you make it easier to work on your strengths than weaknesses.
Ultimately, the path toward self-confidence is to be aware of the flaws and work to eliminate them from your character.
Conclusion
That concludes this guide on the six tips to build your self-confidence. Self-confidence is essential for all walks of life. Whether you’re looking to improve professionally or personally, self-confidence will push you to go further and bigger.
Practice self-confidence by avoiding negativity, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, celebrating wins, avoiding too much pressure, setting manageable goals, and acknowledging the fact you’re far from perfect.
Author Bio
Erik Bergman co-founded Catena Media and helped grow it to over 300 employees and a $200 million valuation before stepping away to start Great.com, an iGaming organization that donates 100% of its profits to environmental charities. In addition to running a successful online business, Erik also hosts the Becoming Great podcast, shares entrepreneurship tips with his more than 1 million social media followers, and contributes to sites like Entrepreneuer.com, Business Insider, Foundr, and Forbes.
