How To Feel More Confident In The Workplace

How to feel more confident at work? Now, confidence at work, I think, is little bit different to confidence, say, at a party. Because when you at work, confidence is only useful if you are actually doing a really great job. There is a danger in being over-confident, I would say, at work.

Especially if you are starting out.



So first up, I think it really important to say that if you want to be confident at work, really work on developing your skills. Know what your strengths are, know what your weaknesses are and work really hard on developing the things what people at work want you to develop.

When people give you criticism, listen to what they say. It is something that, when I talked to A-list actors when I wrote the book ''Star Qualities'', there were people who had done really well in their careers. And they all said it is so crucial to listen and to take criticism.

And I think often we get really scared of being criticized and we don't listen fully. If you can take on board what someone is saying about you and really work at it, then you are going to progress on your career much more quickly.



Once you've got your skills really together and you are doing a good job, then it is really worth starting to think about how to have gravitas or credibility.

Because sometimes you do have to stand up in a meeting and make your points. And you want people to listen to them. Things to think about are, there is good rule called 'You have got to be an oaf'.

And what I mean by that is that if you want to make a big impact in a meeting, you have to set your outcome.



You have to decide what you want out of that meeting. Do you want to get a laugh, do you want to get people's business cards, do you want to get people to buy into a project that you want they buy in from? What is it that you need? Then you need to be aware of their responses.

You have got to really listen, pay attention, notice how they are taking in what you are saying. Then you have got to be flexible. So you cannot be too fixed.

You have got to respond to what they are giving you. And if you do that you will start to have more influence.



Another tip that I think can really help people is, if you think about using the language that other people used to use.

So, if you boss uses certain term or phrase or talks about certain values, you can use those values back at them. So, maybe, they always say that we need the project to be successful. If you start your pitch with we all want this project to be successful, then your boss is going to feel that you are looking at the goal the same way that they are looking at.

You have to be careful obviously. You have to make it very subtle. But using their language can really help you.





Another thing to think about is asking lots of questions. If you find out from someone what success looks like, you can actually ask them that what will success look like if we achieve this goal. Then you find out what matters to them.

And then if you can give them what they want, you are going to be successful, you are going to start to feel more confident.



So, listen to people, do the work, set clear goals and then really tune into people's values. And you will start to develop are really healthy set of confidence because you are doing a great job.

And frankly, there is no other confidence to have at work. Anything else is just arrogance. So that is how to feel more confident at work.
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