The Confidence Of Success
Over the last 4 months, during COVID, I've been speaking to many women from all professions and all are feeling a sense of loss in their confidence during this disruptive time of rapid change and uncertainty. And although we’re gaining a sense of freedom again, many are feeling ill equipped and inadequate to deal with the additional responsibility and accountability. Others are feeling detached and isolated. Many even believe they are missing out from being invited to the decision-making table and opportunities that they would otherwise be considered for if they were in the workplace - as the saying goes, out of sight out of mind.
We all know that horrible feeling when you lose confidence.
For many of you, you know exactly what it feels like to lose your confidence. And I know that you understand the importance confidence plays in your career, the statistics tell me this:
63% of women have stated that confidence is one of the top two characteristics required to be a great leader; and
67% of women have admitted that they need help building confidence in their career. (KMPG)
But I’ve been thinking, although we understand this intellectually, do we still underestimate the value of confidence in achieving success in our careers, in life and anything that we truly want to achieve?
There is hope.
Which brings me to my purpose today through this blog, I wish to create awareness around what confidence actually is and leave you with some tips on how you can start rebuilding your confidence, if in fact, you have a sense of lost confidence during these times.
What is confidence?
Simply, confidence is an emotion.
Oxford Dictionary Definition (NOUN) - confidence is a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities and judgement. Confidence is the feeling that you believe in and can rely on yourself!
This tells me that confidence comes from within us, not externally. But we have been conditioned throughout our lives to rely upon and source confidence externally to ourselves. We build confidence through the accumulation of ‘things’. Things like, qualifications and skills, titles, authority and power, wealth, status, material objects, and recognition and appreciation. We even build confidence through the accumulation of people, by surrounding ourselves with likeminded people, those who ‘have our back’.
The problem with building our confidence SOLEY on a foundation of external circumstances, is when these ‘things’ are lost or cease; we lose our confidence rapidly along with them.
Confidence built on the accumulation of ‘things’ is like walking the Great Wall of China; it’s a walk of constant rises and falls. As we walk the ascents along the wall, we collect all the trophies, recognition, titles, status, etc and the descents are the loss of a recognition (or feedback we don’t wish to hear), role, title, status, wealth, etc.
True confidence resiliency comes from within.
“I was always looking outside of myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time”
Confidence comes from within us, we obtain empowerment through awareness. To achieve this, we need to slow down and create time to find clarity. And when you couple clarity with conscious action, you find that inner confidence resiliency we all crave, and we all need to succeed in our careers.
As Dr Russ Harris, the bestselling author of The Happiness Trap explains it is through this conscious action; that is by “stepping outside our comfort zones and doing what matters deep in our hearts – we will experience authentic confidence”.
And understanding what matters deep in our hearts, requires awareness and clarity. Because when you are building true confidence resiliency from within; you need to be clear on what makes you unique through:
Your joy: the things that bring you joy so you can make time to fill your own cup, before you look to fill others;
Your beliefs and values: It’s these that impact every decision, every thought, every behaviour, every re-action of every minute of every day;
Your strengths, experience and knowledge: the value you bring to each and every interaction with others;
Your success defined by you: what does a life of success look like for you? And not what your parents, partner or leader thinks success looks like; and
Your investment in self: the sense of worth, glowing with your inner confidence, knowing the importance of investing in you - your growth, your time, your development; all with the purpose of taking conscious action in achieving success.
5 tips to confidence resiliency.
List all your achievements over the last 2-3 years: no matter how small or big, identify all the things you are proud of, all the things you have achieved and accomplished. And some of what you identify will be considered as externally sourced ‘things’, this is ok.
List all the skills, strengths, knowledge, your values and decisions that were required of you to achieve everything you listed in Step 1. This will help you gain clarity on your strengths and values, but also the value you add.
Get clear on what is important to you. There's a great activity you can complete called “The Rocking Chair”. This will help identify and give you clarity around what success looks like for you, defined by you.
Talk to yourself like you would your colleagues. When you face a problem, are feeling angry, frustrated or sad; pretend it is your colleague coming to you feeling how you're feeling, experiencing what you're experiencing. What is the advice would you give to them? How would you speak to them? This is the advice you give yourself; this is the way you need to speak to yourself.
Back yourself, believe in you because you've got this. No one knows you as well as you do. No one knows what you want more than you do.
A disclaimer, yes some of these tips speak to externally sourced confidence. It is important to point out that externally sourced confidence is not evil. They’re only detrimental to your confidence resiliency, and therefore your success, when you rely primarily on these to build and maintain your confidence.
These tips, on their own, are designed to help you make a shift in momentum toward the right direction during a time of rapid change and uncertainty.
Want more? Schedule a complimentary discovery call with me. I’d love to chat with you and find out more about how I can help teach you about confidence resiliency; how you can build and maintain your confidence and empower your to take back control of your career and life success.
I’d love to hear your confidence stories.