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Growing Your Confidence
Confidence is a multi-dimensional key. It will open doors for your.
Clearly confidence does influence how people react around you, your 'internal positioning' sets the tone for how we behave around you, from my experience if you are not enjoying these benefits as a person at work or home, then you are sleeping on your confidence and we can work on changing that:
Your peers and managers trust you more, and that's one thing we all value.
You don't get bullied.
You become more approachable.
You handle conflict better.
Those are all the foundation for having a good time at work or anywhere else in your life, lets look at how to make that a possibility.
Practice good Communication:
How you communicate really reflects your confidence, practicing good communication grows others' confidence in you - Vukani G.
Work place stats show that good com's increase productivity in a team. by 20-25%.
Listening is a powerful skill, learn to listen with intent, when working within a team understand the mission & how to play your part which makes the next point important.
Ask those questions. It's easy to get lost in the verbiage or jargon when a team member is sharing some insight or helping you work on a task so practice voicing out confusion clearly & early so you get unblocked, avoid leaving good questions unanswered.
Learn to give first before asking. Generally share the good news, be positive, bring solutions & avoid bringing bad news. As a developer expressing a blocker is inevitable however when coming to your peers with an issue come with a clear issue & your preferred or potential solution.
This allows your peers to feel good about sharing their thought while showing that your intention is not for them to do your job for you but to help out.
Avoid arguments & if you get into one voice out the concerns within the context of that conversation without getting emotional about it or taking it personal.
The goal is to address the argument at hand not the person so stand your ground, know your facts & get your point across respectfully.
Love yourself:
For most of us, we feel less in touch with our confidence because we aren't giving ourselves enough attention, time and love.
Practice self-grooming & appreciation, your peers learn from you how to treat you. Set a good example in that regard my friend.
Stop playing the victims in your life, love your life & your people, accept what you have & adopt the gratitude mindset.
Learn to take criticism gracefully because it could be constructive, don't let your ego stop you from seeing that the truth has a way of shaking us awake sometimes. Think about what people say before becoming defensive.
Never exploit or sabotage yourself to please those around you, this indirectly causes resentment and also lowers your value and the value of your mentors.
read my blog posts, these will always be here to help you around and show you the way..
Learn to say no, when an offer is good but does not align with your goals & vision give it a pass or suggest someone who could benefit from it. This doesn't only grow your confidence but makes your peers respect you.
Take care of your body by going to the gym or play some physical sports. A healthy & active body will balance your emotions & reduces stress.
I don't say this enough "STOP THAT NEGATIVE SELF TALK", I don't wanna hear it, and nobody else does including you. It's that simple.
Develop Consistency:
Choose a discipline, any path of discipline & choose to be consistent at it. This lays the foundation for your consistency in all other things.
Psychology studies have proven over the years 30% of people who produce above-average results in anything are able to do perform that well because of consistency in at least one part of their life, not talent.
Nothing you decide to do is impossible, how ever lets practice starting things with the end in mind & clear articulation of what the end looks like as daily/weekly/monthly progressive tasks.
A process that works for me is making S.M.A.R.T goals. I then chop those into milestones that I know I can accomplish. I then keep my focus on achieving the milestones & rewarding myself for those wins.
I came to learn the hard way that the things I fail to remain consistent with are the things which I also failed to look at as "milestones". I would advise you think back at your experience & see if which of your goals have you explored as daily/monthly achievements.
Trust your internal compass:
A sad reality about some of us is that we fail to have our core beliefs, values and mission clearly expressed in our lives. Let's discuss how these affect your confidence.
One of the things that interfere with our confidence is that we tend to believe in things & then spend over 60% of our time doing the total opposite. Stop it!!, put your focus & time into what you truly believe in.
Avoid things that make you doubt yourself, confidence is a muscle you will improve only by being intuitive - not doubtful, by being intentional - not passive in your life not only at work.
Never neglect the effects of consistent self-introspection. Write your goals down & have that progress accounting session weekly, monthly or so. You will have a clear idea of where you are in your growth cycle & you will be able to enjoy that dopamine kick that you are moving forward.
A little reminder is that you make some good decision too, when the result of these decisions come through. Take your time to appreciate that, to reward yourself for it.
Focus on small incremental progress:
Success & failure is achieved daily. Not with big changes, but small decisions in the right or wrong direction.
Make your goals S.M.A.R.T, this framework is so famous because it works.
Turn those goals into milestones. Answer the question:
to achieve this goal what must I do daily or hourly? "period is based on time bound of the goal."
to achieve this which relationships must I nurture and how do I show up?
what reward will I get for achieving the milestones "this is not optional."
what does the success of each milestone look like?
Work on chopping down the goal into small enough tasks that you can make progress in & collect those small wins.
Have humility, when you fail. Take it in and make the milestones smaller and achievable. No matter how small progress is, progress is progress - so take it.
By embracing that your confidence is in your hands & that you will keep growing it with unwavering faith and commitment, you'll discover this newfound focus to open doors for you that propel you towards being respected, appreciated & even given a better role. Remember, every step, no matter how small, brings you closer to your goals.