Posted by Personally and professionally, I have instinct good feeling and admiration on people who are self confident, regardless of their race, nationality, gender and physical appearances. I am also a huge believer in influences at personal level through human interact. In my opinion, self confidence is one of the key elements to success, it is something we should invest and contribute to ourselves, it is also something I am still working on myself.
In this post I am going to share some of the things that in my opinion that would help in building up your self confidence.
1. Research, learn and prepare before you communicate
“It is never too old to learn” is one of my favorite sayings, if you are in a conversation where the context is completely new to you, don’t walk away, listen and learn from other people, and afterwards research on the internet for more. Next time for similar subject you will have more to say thus you will be more confident to speak next time.
Whether you need to give a presentation, give a training, or host a meeting, it is important that you do some preparation beforehand. Be confident about what you are going to convey means knowing exactly what you are doing, preparation beforehand is essential. No need to make yourself super stress, but being casual like “we will see” is never a good attitude in a professional world.
2. Work on your fear
Since I was young, I was timid to ask questions, actively propose a solution or even speak out loud. It might be a cultural thing, in Chinese we have a saying that says “the gun shoots the leading bird(枪打出头鸟)”, sort of means “stick your neck out brings risk and danger”, we are educated to be a humble person. As a result, we are not motivated to take initiatives. But when I was in college in Belgium, I found this mentality does not fit the culture at all.
A lot of things have helped since I started working on it, and my self confidence also increased along the way.
The person who knows you best is yourself, find out what are you fear of, what is the root cause of it and then create an action plan to deal with it. Only when you can face your fear, are you a truly self-confident person.
3. Be open minded and embrace challenges
The work which is not challenging is just boring, the person who is not open to challenges stays where he is. I consider myself lucky if I have someone around me who criticizes and challenges, mentors and inspires me.
Nobody really knows everything, when someone challenges you, consider it as an opportunity to see things from another perspective and to learn from another person.
A person with self confidence in my opinion is not blindly trust himself and being closed and stubborn, but rather listen to others, explain to others and eventually(hopefully) convince others with his knowledge.
4. Set up goals and achieve them
Consider your life is a project, do you have a plan(short term and long term)? Do you do enough investment? Do you see achievements/success in your past year? Do you look back on the return on investment?
Seeing achievements on my list gives me absolute joy and happiness, it chases away my fear for the future and it gives me confidence to accomplish other items on the list.
I highly recommend you to track your personal and professional goals somewhere(preferably digitally, see my previous post: How digitized is your life?) and review them regularly.
5. Stay away from negative people
In the beginning of this article I already mentioned that I am a believer in positive and negative influences through human interact. Personally and professionally, one can be unconsciously influenced by other people’s behavior and mentality.
Spending time with positive people will develop your positive thoughts, self confidence, just like the Chinese proverb:近朱者赤 近墨者黑(seeking for translation..).
Try to identify people around you, are they positive or negative? Are they complaining or appreciating? Are they learning new things or talking bullshit all the time? Are they annoying or inspiring?
6. Smile
A confident smile for me is more attractive than good looks, wear your beautiful smile and tell yourself “yes, I/we can!”.
So, those are some methods I use to improve my self confidence, I hope it is helpful for you to become a better professional, if you find it helpful please give it a like or share!
I would also like to hear other people’s suggestions, please leave some comments!
Nice !!