It’s a term people hear often—professional confidence, or confidence within professional and work settings.
And pretty much everyone has seen it in action—that one person in your social media marketing agency who is always happy, upbeat, looking at the bright side of life, and somehow also full of belief in themselves.
We all want to be that person, not just because they seem to be getting ahead in life, but also because they make everyone around them want to better themselves.
But how do you get that kind of confidence? Especially if you are introverted or have anxiety?
There are some strategies that you can adopt to build professional confidence. By following them, you can become a better person, one who is more efficient, happier, and a role model.
Learn from the Best
In a professional environment, it is always advisable to find a mentor to guide you. No matter what job you have, there is always something you can learn to become better.
But it isn’t just work that we are talking about here. Remember that person we mentioned earlier—the perfect colleague who is happy and confident? You can learn from them.
Try observing their behaviour—how do they handle unexpected challenges? How do they greet people they don’t know? How do they treat subordinates, as well as superiors?
You can learn all this by observing them, and of course, you can always ask them for advice.
Beyond your work environment, you can take courses online, or read experts’ ecommerce tips and self-help columns.
Self-Belief
This is a tough one. People talk about self-belief like it is a switch that you can flip. It’s not.
But failing to believe in yourself can impact your professional and personal growth.
If you don’t think you’re great at your job and deserve better, your salary expectations will be lower. You won’t push for promotions, and as a result, you won’t grow in your career.
This may or may not have anything to do with Imposter Syndrome—a feeling that an overwhelming majority of people, particularly women, tend to have, where they think they are unworthy of their success, and that whatever success they have had is down to luck rather than effort and talent.
Whether or not you are suffering from Imposter Syndrome, self-belief is very hard to come by.
How do you inculcate self-belief? There’s always the ‘fake it, till you make it’ strategy. Pretend you’re as talented as your efforts prove you to be and you will eventually believe it.
Try and tick off every small success—such as choosing the best high-quality stock photos for your marketing campaign. This will help you see how talented and hard-working you really are.
More than anything else, at every opportunity, tell yourself whenever you can that you are good at what you do, and that you do deserve your success, and more.
Banish Negativity
Negativity creeps in quickly when you don’t have self-belief, and it has an adverse effect on your professional confidence.
Negative thoughts about everything from your work ethic to your personal interactions make you feel worse about yourself than you should.
Avoid negativity as much as possible. Find yourself thinking that you can never do something? Change that to: ‘I can do this’.
Don’t think that you are terrible at something. Tell yourself that you are learning to be better at it.
Think of it this way: those terrible things you say to yourself, would you say them to someone else? Probably not even to your worst enemy!
Additionally, try and surround yourself with positive people in your digital marketing agency. Negative people will exacerbate the negativity in your mind, and that will only make you feel worse.
Also remember that negativity is unwelcome in a professional environment. Ever found yourself avoiding that constantly angry and annoyed colleague? That’s what negativity does.
Change your negative thinking to positive thoughts, and you will be able to exude better vibes to everyone around you.
Challenge Yourself
Inculcating professional confidence in yourself means stepping out of your comfort zone. You can’t be better if you stay in the same place all the time.
This means trying something new and challenging yourself often. Take up a new course, a new hobby, or start a blog about your journey towards confidence.
Being brave, and succeeding in your brave new endeavours, will boost your confidence immensely.
Visualizing Success
Often the problem with trying to become more confident is that you don’t know what it looks like.
So imagine yourself giving a presentation at an offsite meeting and at the end of the presentation, everyone applauds.
Go a few steps back—imagine what you will be wearing, how you will be standing, who you will be making eye contact with.
Once you have imagined this, put it into practice—wear the clothes you see in your mind. Stand the way you did in your vision while at work.
The more you practice, the better you will get at it and then your professional confidence will grow.
Dress for the Part
We’ve touched on this before—dressing for success will help you improve your confidence.
Looking the part—to impress investors and to fit in with your work environment—is important for your career growth, but also for building confidence.
If your idea of success means wearing a colourful trouser suit, then slowly invest in them and wear them more often.
When the image in your mirror aligns with the image you had in your mind, you will begin to feel more confident.
Learn from Failures
Everyone is terrified of failure and rejection, but many of the points we have outlined above will lead to some failure.
If you are afraid of failing or being rejected, you will never be able to challenge yourself, or ask your mentor for tips, or even of changing your personal style.
Instead of being terrified of failing, look at what you can learn from your failures. Every failure to connect with your team is an opportunity to build a new digital workplace.
Had trouble with the ticketing system at your last event? Now you know what to do to make your ticket registration system better.
Failure is a stepping stone to success—it hurts when it happens, but it will make you better and more confident.
Professional Confidence is Within Your Grasp
With the above seven strategies, you can instil more self-belief in yourself and become more professionally confident.