Learn Professional Confidence and Get More of What You Want at Work  

The other day, I was spending time with a woman I mentor, talking about the objectives she has in her career and the areas where she felt both strongest and “lightest.” And I noticed that there was a lack of something underlying all of her hopes, dreams and future areas of study…something that I have always taken for granted: confidence. Or to be more clear, what I noticed was her fear of confidence.

It was manifested in her thinking that she didn’t have confidence, and couldn’t get it — and more concerning, that she didn’t deserve to have it. This came through particularly in a discussion about the future, and what she wanted to become; it became glaringly apparent to me that there was a fear about becoming someone or something that seemed so out of reach and so far away, it might be better to focus on something smaller.  In other words, she should “be smaller,” and limit her potential.

To me, this is a vicious cycle. You think you can’t, so you don’t; you don’t feel you can, so you won’t. When this cycle is applied to a professional development scenario where you are trying to grow skills and get experiences, it can and will kill your mojo faster than anything else.

The Confidence that Leads to Courage

For me, confidence has always been innate. I’ve learned to become more confident in certain areas by “trying and buying.” If I try something and it goes well, I buy that outcome. If I try it and the outcome wasn’t ideal, I learn. Then I move on to the next thing, and try that.

This got me thinking about how I do that: what is the process of getting professional mojo and re-engineering thought processes towards building the confidence and courage to do, be, and act the way you want in the career realm? What path will bring you more rewards, meaning and growth in the work that you do every day?

Since then, I’ve gathered some thoughts and best practices I’ve followed in learning how to be confident and sustaining the kind of professional mojo that can both propel you and sustain you, especially in challenging times. Here goes!

Flip the Script on the Inside

This is the first step in realizing your personal power and harnessing it.  To get started, think of a time you received a compliment, when someone said, “Wow, you look nice today,” and you immediately discounted it by saying something to negate the compliment instead of accepting it. In your brain and your self-talk, you didn’t feel good or think you looked good, but someone else did.

This happened to me two weeks ago. I went to the office after attending a funeral and was decked out in my “funeral wear” of black dress, pearls, and pumps. Someone said, “Wow, you look very nice today,” and my response was, “Oh, thank you. I just came from a funeral.”  His response?  “Well, you still look nice today.” Why couldn’t I take the compliment? Why did I make it so hard for someone to compliment me? Why did I have to have an excuse for looking nice or explain why I looked nice? I didn’t have to, and that’s the point.

While this was a superficial example, the lesson is the same in a wider sense: the sooner that we start telling ourselves it’s okay to have knowledge, an opinion, a suggestion or a curiosity to learn, the better. So if, before you open your mouth or send an email, you should ask yourself three questions:

1. Is what I am sharing “additive” for me or someone else — i.e. am I going to learn something or change something, and bring about a positive result for me or someone else?
2. If I don’t share this, am I keeping something from myself or the world?
3. Why shouldn’t I share this? What is the worst that is going to happen?

Having a voice is not a bad thing. Using that voice for good is also not a bad thing. We all have intrinsic value in who we are and what we do. And every interaction with another person is an opportunity to learn – for us or for them. It is an opportunity to grow and develop. Why wouldn’t you take that opportunity? Why would you miss it? This is the internal script that you should be having in your head, boiled down to “Why wouldn’t I?” You get one life to live – and LOTS of opportunities that you should not be missing. It all starts on the inside.

Surround Yourself with the Right People

This is easier said than done; in some of our personal and professional relationships, we have those close to us who are perhaps not ideal in supporting our evolution. In Marianne Williamson’s book, A Woman’s Worth, she talks about times where we have to turn away from things that hold us back — and notes that nothing holds us back more than someone who invalidates who we are and what we are capable of.

This can be particularly challenging when that “someone” is your boss and is actually tasked with the  responsibility of growing and challenging us. In this case, there are choices on whether to invest and evolve those relationships such that you are eventually getting what you need, or move on from those relationships to get what you need.

While you’re noodling on those choices, it doesn’t mean you have to be stuck. You can learn to engage with a toxic boss differently (see below).  At the same time, start reaching out to those who can and will validate your thinking, help you question things, and broaden your learning. These can be mentors from your own profession or from complementary professions. Start using those insights from various people to build comfort in your thinking, and help you get closer to the decision about how you get more of what you need. The more often you get comfortable with your thinking, the more confident in your thinking you become.

Ask Questions with an Objective Curiosity

People come with all type of issues and baggage, including co-workers and manage. They are people. Metaphorically speaking, however, this doesn’t mean that you have to pick up their bags and carry them for them, nor should you open up their bags and put on their clothes. Instead, you can change the conversation, and de-personalize the issue.

For instance, if you want to get involved in a project that your boss isn’t letting you into, instead of asking, “Why won’t you allow me to be involved in the Subject X project?” you could say, “I’ve been doing some research on my own about Subject X, and learned that this kind of project could be structured in three different ways, one of which was chosen. For my learning, is there a scenario where another structure could be better?” In the second question, you are asking for knowledge, out of curiosity. In the first question, you are questioning an authority, asking for a value judgment. Through focusing on the project and not the people, you can mitigate some of the emotion of the interaction.

Test for Epic-ness

My kids are at the age that they use the phrase “epic fail” in the right context, but not really correctly to describe the magnitude of an event. I always giggle a little when they say it because it is usually in the middle of a video game which, frankly, doesn’t scream “epic environment” to me (how “epic” can a failure be in Minecraft? Oh, you have to spend twenty more minutes building that forest out of blocks? Okay, you should get on that).

I use this idea of “testing for epic-ness” both at home and at work. Before I do things, I ask myself a set of questions which look, in varying flavors, like:

• “What are the positive and negative outcomes of this action?”
• “Who will be affected by this, and how will they be affected by the positive/negative outcomes of this action?
• “Is this a need or a want?”
• “What is the worst that can happen? Can I deal with that?”

There is another great book out there, called 10-10-10, by Suzy Welch, that changed the way I look at choices.  In her book, Suzy suggests running a decision through three filters: what is the impact in ten minutes, ten months, and ten years regarding how you will feel about it? This is a variation of the question I mentioned above: “What is the worst that can happen? Can I deal with that?”

Puncture Self-Doubt thru Smart Questions

In the example of the woman I mentor, she was hesitating with asking important questions about a program that was being launched, since she had concerns about it. Here is how I talked to her about the situation:

• My first question to her was: “What is the worst that can happen if you ask these things? You’ll be fired? Okay. That would be inconvenient, but with your experience and degree, could you get another job tomorrow?”
• My next question was, “What are the best things that can happen? You’ll be seen as thoughtful and intelligent, and people may change their perception of you and your talents?”
• My last question was, “How would you feel if you do nothing?”

This weighing of potential scenarios may be more simplistic than some people’s situations, I understand; we aren’t all positioned to walk away from our jobs. However, power can be obtained through realizing that you have choices, and confidence can be built in assessing those choices, and then making them.

Confidence, like many things, can be learned and developed. Confidence breeds courage, and courage allows you to take action. Action generates energy, which changes things. After all, learning to ride a bike didn’t happen overnight; it happened after working your way up from crawling, walking, and running. With each try, you built more confidence, a feeling that you were valuable and competent, and that you could do and be more. So the end result – quite simply – is that if you make a change in your self-talk and how you approach opportunities, greater things can happen.