Confidence becomes an important aspect of developing a career. No matter how good your academic grade is, self-confidence will affect how quickly your career rises.
Have you ever found a case that someone successfully jump-starts her/his career just because she/he has great confidence? Yes, that’s the reality. So, for this reason, let us discuss things related to self-confidence and the best way to build it.
What Is Self-Confidence?
What is confidence? The term confidence comes from the Latin, fidere, which means “to believe”. So, the meaning of self-confidence is to believe in the ability and self-assessment in carrying out the task. Further, confident people usually have realistic expectations and always think positive.
Types of Confidence
There are several terms related to confidence. And here are four types of confidence that you should know:
This term relates to how you sum up yourself. How you look at your overall portrait of yourself or how you perceive yourself as a whole.
This term describes how positive you look at yourself. Self-esteem is also related to how far you value yourself or to what extent you believe there is something valuable in yourself.
This term discusses how confident you are in your capacity, especially in completing tasks or managing problems with good results.
Sure, this term is more popular than others. This term describes how faith you in your capabilities and how far you feel you deserve success. Self-confidence itself is considered as a combination of self-esteem and self-efficacy.
Factors That Cause Low Self-Confidence
Being low self-confidence isn’t entirely your fault. That’s because several factors such as genetic and parenting style may affect self-confidence. So, check out these factors which make people have low self-confidence.
Studies have shown that genetics also has an important role in self-confidence. Serotonin —better known as the happy hormone— and oxytocin —called the love hormone— are compounds released by the brain that are associated with boosted self-confidence. Both turned out to be genetically inherited, so don’t be surprised if you find someone looked confident since birth.
- Parenting style
How your parents treat you as a child will greatly affect your confidence too. Do your parents often ridicule you? Do they like to compare you with other children? Or, do they often say that you don’t have talent? A child, who grows up in this kind of environment, will certainly become low self-confident as an adult.
- Trauma of bullying
Bullying that occurs in childhood can leave a very deep mark. If people cannot suppress this trauma, he/she can have low self-confidence as an adult. Also, the same impact applies to victims of bullying who are adults. In most cases, it makes them feel anxious, and they don’t have the enthusiasm to reach a challenging goal.
How to Build Self-Confidence
Don’t let your career stagnate just because of a lack of confidence. Try the tips below to overcome it!
- You Must Have Integrity
Integrity is defined as the way you see or judge yourself. Each person certainly has an assessment of themselves. So, to increase your self-confidence, you must have integrity. The integrity that we are discussing here are values that you can trust and strive for. The stronger your integrity is, the greater the trust of others towards you.
- Just Highlight Your Strengths
Only focus on the strengths and talents that you have. Sometimes, we think too much about our weaknesses, so we forget about the strengths of ourselves. Hence, from now on, always concentrate on the strengths that you have and try to give the best.
- Focus on Your Standards
Regardless of any situation that makes you feel less confident, you must stick to the standards that you have. Because no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to satisfy everyone’s desires.
As suggested by Lynn Taylor, the author of “Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant”, we have to focus on our tasks and don’t be discouraged by petty talk in an office. Moreover, don’t let someone else’s opinion of you affect your performance and confidence.
- Monitoring Your Self-Success
To increase your confidence, list all the achievements you received. For instance, collect all tasks or presentation results that get praise from your manager or colleagues. By looking at the files, you will be more motivated to resemble more confident. Also, this method will make you more aware of your strengths.
- Asking for Someone Else’s Opinion
Ask for feedback from your manager or colleagues. According to Dr Katharine Brooks, director of Liberal Arts Career Services at The University of Texas, feedback provided by your colleagues or manager can help you identify your weaknesses and strengths. Sometimes, other people can see our talents more clearly than ourselves.
Everyone has their talent, and that’s why they deserve to be loved, including you. Aside from being aware of your weaknesses, you also need to know what your strengths are. Also, always remember what success have you achieved and then make it as a source of energy when you’re down. Also, don’t hesitate to follow our tips above about how to build self-confidence at work.