Building Confidence Takes Practice

I have been contemplating career confidence recently and I have to say, building confidence takes practice. I've been trying to find ways to build mine in areas that I don't feel strong in, and help others build theirs too. I have been fortunate enough to have grown in my confidence in the last few years and I feel that I am now able to take on a lot of things that are outside of my comfort zone. This is the result of surrounding myself with some great, supportive, non-judgemental people who ask difficult questions of me, whilst allowing me to fall gracefully and get back up again. So this is my 1st tip...

Simple - no other detail necessary!

Fail often and learn from your mistakes. Be kind to yourself when you do, but go back over what you have done and see where you can make it better next time. Once you have found how to make it better, practice it again and again. The difference between someone who skates for fun and someone who skates as a world class skater is that the world class skater has fallen many more times. In order to succeed, you have to fail. A lot! We learn so much more from failure. Once you've done it a few times, you know that it is not so bad, hard or fatal. In fact, you know how not to fail the same way next time.

Keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn't. Every time you find something that works well, make sure you keep doing it until it comes easily or naturally. This is still whilst you are failing at a different part. This is what practice is. Don't just stop doing something that you have managed to do well enough. Get yourself up there with the greats.

This tip has little do with what you do personally; it’s all about how you look at the people around you. You can surround yourself with supportive people, but you can’t control who you come into contact with all of the time. You will meet many people who will bring you down or not react to your or your ideas in a positive way. In the face of this, learn to remain positive about what you are able to do and the person that you are. You may not feel confident about everything all of the time, but don’t let this show; focus on how you react to those that respond with negativity. Deal with them quickly and as little as possible. Always treat them with respect and courtesy.

Gratitude is a great way to build your confidence. It goes hand in hand with the point above about positivity. The more positive you are about the world around you and what you receive from it, the happier you are. This extends positivity to those around you and I believe that you attract what you broadcast; be grateful and happy and you will find positivity coming back to you.

Treat everyone you meet with respect and courtesy. Try it for even one day. A smile will be contagious, try it when you buy your next coffee or lunch. Smile at the people who serve you. Ask them how they are. You may be surprised with what you get back. Even in the short term, it will boost your mood and confidence. If you wonder how you should reactwhen the big boss walks through the corridor, smile and say good morning/afternoon and see what happens. Take it from me, it can be the biggest confidence booster when they respond back and everyone else wonders why.

Now practice, practice, practice...

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others

Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.

She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to: 

• Do their best work and delighting others
• Create some boundaries, but not cages
• Know they are acting for a purpose
• Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful
• Have autonomy over how and when they produce

She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.

Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. 

Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co.