Example: 30-45 minutes
N/A
Confidence is an important variable to performance, achievement, and overall mental health and happiness! Achieving self-confidence is a tough barrier, especially in a competitive industry, and so it’s important to understand the root causes of low self-confidence, and tools to build confidence. Your self- confidence is the key to your success. It is very important to know how to boost up your confidence so that you can make your own position in this competitive world.
Its importance is justified in recent research, which shows that when people are put in situations where they are expected to not do well, their performance plunges. Quite literally, they get into a negative headspace and behave in an undesirable manner. However, when they’re expected to do well, they’re generally in a positive headspace and their performance improves considerably. Same person, different expectations.(kaplanprofessional.edu)
Why do we need it in workspace?
You’ll be more assertive: If your words and actions have conviction you’ll be taken more seriously, which will help you advance your job and career.(kaplanprofessional.edu)
You’ll do more: You’ll be more likely to engage in challenging, but manageable projects. This will push the boundaries of your comfort zone, which will encourage you to aim for and achieve new goals. These are both valued of characteristics of successful workers. Most importantly, employers will learn to trust you with a project and know that you are likely going to be good at motivating others as well.(kaplanprofessional.edu)
You’ll communicate more effectively: Confidence allows you to speak concisely and with clarity. Professionals who communicate with confidence can convey what they want to their clients and co-workers in a clear and efficient manner. Effective communication is critically important for career advancement. (kaplanprofessional.edu)
Participants will be able to:
Slides
Videos:
This is meant to accompany the slides above (under “Materials”)
We’re learning about confidence! This lesson is to understand why confidence is important, how confidence can be challenged, and what we can do to combat these challenges to be confident people.
If I were to say “Wow, she is super confident!”, what do you think of? Is it positive? Any negative implications?
Sometimes, there can be negative implications for being confident. But the reality is that confidence isn’t about being showy to the crowd, or comparing yourself to others. Confidence comes from not worrying about comparing yourself or proving yourself to others. It’s the ability to feel equally comfortable with being right or wrong.
Confidence levels manifest in people’s behaviors. An important part of confidence is having the self-awareness to know and acknowledge your own mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes! And not fearing making mistakes and failing is key to being able to try something new and take risks to learn and grow.
The data tells us that women experience imposter syndrome more than men, but it’s important to remember that everyone experiences this.
Imposter syndrome is a vicious cycle for individuals and only perpetuates low self confidence. Working with a mentor to identify these points in the cycle and work on ways to interrupt the cycle is the only way to work your way out of imposter syndrome. You must be intentional.
To understand where we are now, you can take the Self Confidence Self Assessment Quiz. This will help you understand your level of self efficacy, or how effective you believe you are in handling specific tasks.
An important part of confidence is understanding both your strengths AND weaknesses. Don’t be afraid of your weaknesses–they are opportunities to improve. It’s important to be aware of your weaknesses, not only so that you know what you can improve on, but also so you can perhaps find ways to solve problems using your strengths, and not necessarily only relying on your weaknesses.
Here are some questions to answer when thinking about your SWOT analysis. What advantages do you have that others don’t in terms of skills, experiences, connections, etc.? Which of your achievements are you most proud of? What values do you believe in that others fail to exhibit?
Even if it’s as small as realizing what to google to break through a piece of code you couldn’t quite figure out, or maybe it’s just finally narrowing in on a single problem to solve – every single step is a step forward and deserves recognition. Celebrate these achievements! 6 months ago – where were you? What have you learned since then?
We tend to enter a collaborative environment assuming that everyone else knows EVERYTHING and we know this tiny little piece of the picture. In reality, both individuals bring equal opportunity and value to every collaborative situation or work environment. Recognizing the unique value you bring into a situation is a large part of breaking the cycle of negative thinking and low self confidence.
Sometimes, it’s hard to quell the self doubt and low confidence. In those cases, it’s important to remember: SOS, or Stop, Observe, and Shift! Stop and take a moment to break the cycle of self doubt. Observe your own thoughts, how they make you feel. And then Shift your mental, emotional, and behavioral responses to be positive.
In all situations, whether it’s feelings of inadequacy or worrying about performance, ask yourself “What is the opportunity to grow? How can I make this an occasion to celebrate my achievements?”
Building your competencies gives you the ability execute. With increased execution comes increased confidence. In partnership with affirmations, goal setting, and positive thinking, how will you not achieve your goals?! “Just confidence in yourself, without the competence, is also useless — talking the talk is not a sustainable strategy. You need the talk and bravado, but you also need to develop the skills to backup your talk.”
Bernice Moore’s theory are steps, and really a cycle, of improving both a competency and your self confidence. By practicing these steps, both 1) the skill and 2) feeling confident about your skill can grow!
There are a few core competencies that will help you in any environment. Emotional intelligence will help you understand people, the environment, and how best to respond. Self-awareness can be practiced by constant reflection on your thoughts, feelings, strengths and weaknesses. Get to you know you better! And problem-solving is valuable to any group of people, at any company, in any industry.
Some helpful tools to practice everything we’ve discussed today is listed in the Toolkit.
Confidence includes also self love and respect. Not having self confidence can impede you from performing at the level you want. Don’t let a lack of confidence stand in the way of what you and your brain can achieve!
Confidence = Arrogance
Confidence comes from knowing everything and being good at everything
I can’t get better at being confident by practicing
Split into small groups, and each group can tackle each section and discuss amongst themselves. Basically, individuals in a group can write down their own strengths/weaknesses/etc. independently for a minute, and then discuss with their peers.
SWOT analysis
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