How to Be More Confident
Self-confidence is very attractive to employers, but it’s not always easy to feel self-confident, much less convey it during an interview, if a fruitless job search has been dragging on for several months. Confidence isn’t necessarily something you’re born with; it can be developed, according to Mark Harrison in his article, How to Build the Confidence Habit.
Harrison lists several methods for building confidence, such as
1. Make friends with your failings and limitations. Everyone has faults and flaws. Understanding that you will always make mistakes, especially if you make a habit of taking on new and difficult challenges, and learning to accept that as a fact of life is the first step toward becoming more confident.
2. Don’t be pushy or aggressive. Imposing your will on others either by being loud or forceful isn’t a sign of confidence. Quite the opposite. True confidence is either politely assertive or quiet and understated, never loud, brash or obnoxious.
3. Don’t be defensive. Someone who is confident can take constructive criticism with good grace, and deflect harmful criticism without taking it to heart. Even harsh criticism can be helpful at times.
4. Do what you believe to be right. The path to confidence requires stepping out of your comfort zone and taking risks. Sometimes it’s risky to follow your own conscience, but if it’s leading you in what you know to be the right direction, it’s worth it.
5. Set challenging goals. Confident peole know that the best way to overcome failure is to get up one more time than you fall down. You can’t learn and grow if you aren’t willing to risk failure.
6. Keep a record of your achievements. Saving your accomplishments in a brag book isn’t the same as bragging. And neither is taking the time to list everything you’ve ever accomplished in your career and in your life. Look in the mirror instead of comparing yourself to others.
7. Learn to be optimistic. This is a tough one for many people. It takes patience, practice, perseverance and self-awareness to combat negative thoughts with positive ones, but doing so will not only make you feel more confident, but it will make you feel happier, too.
8. Take a balanced approach. Naturally, you want to avoid allowing confidence to become arrogance.
9. Relax. Confident people aren’t afraid to fail. They know that everyone fails sometimes. The key is to learn from your failures, not obssess over them and berate yourself for being less than perfect. No one is perfect.
So, if you want to be happier and more relaxed at work or find a great job, give Harrison’s advice a try. You could find your career taking off in no time simply because you took a chance on yourself, risked failure by taking on more challenging tasks and took stock of all the things you’ve achieved in your life.
