While working with a client on confidence and self-esteem in language abilities, we began to discuss workplace confidence in general and I noticed a lot of similarities between the comments this client was making, comments from other people in my life, as well as my own observations in various work atmospheres. Ultimately, I devised the following model to help people ‘climb’ their way to confidence and recognise how to make the best use of their time and energy at work, whilst simultaneously relieving some of the stress in their life and building their self-assurance in what they are able to do.
Know What You Know
This requires confidence and trust in yourself. If you are struggling with this, focus on the small things. What do you do well in your job? What do your colleagues come to you for help with? These things might be tangible, such as proofing tax statements, or they might not be, such as being the voice of reason in a difficult situation. Focus on these small elements of expertise in your day-to-day and be fair in recognising your skills.
Turn this focus towards larger and larger elements of your job over a few weeks (or whatever time frame suits you based on your own reflection). Eventually, you will build a repertoire of tasks, skills, and broader elements for your job that you are certain you can do and do well. Keep in mind, this does not necessarily mean that you are always flawless, after all, you are human, however, you should be able to complete these ‘tasks’ with a high rate of consistent success and relative ease.
Know What You Think You Know
This step is important and requires an attitude of self-reflection, openness, and constructive criticism. Of course, the main issue with people who are not good at these skills is that they most often are unaware of their poor reflection due to exactly that! I urge any reader to question yourself right now. Are you good at self-reflection? Open-mindedness? Criticizing yourself and receiving feedback from others? If so, great! Still, try to be even better in order to avoid missing blindspots. If not, great! You are at least one step of the way there, because you just reflected on your self-reflection skills!
These skills are important because once you know what you know, your confidence in your day to day tasks should rise. Sometimes this newfound confidence goes too far and again upsets the balance. Once you are sure of what you can do well in your work, recognize which things you usually do well but are not yet an expert in. Make a list, and then revise it. Some of the items on your list actually belong on your ‘know what you know’ list. Many of the items on your list are things that you can trust yourself to do, but need double-checked, or realise afterwards that you consistently make mistakes. It’s here that the need for accepting criticism is important, as you will need to seek out sources who can help you, and this requires you to admit to mistakes and recognize that you do not know everything there is to know. By doing so, you actually learn more and increase your capabilities at work! Eventually adding things to your ‘know what you know’ list.
Know What You Don’t Know
Arguably, the next parts of this model are related: what you don’t know, and what you can’t know. Knowing what you don’t know is a key step in saving yourself time, frustration, and blows to your confidence. Let’s stick with making a list (or a mind map, or whatever else you find useful). The items on this list should fit in one of two groups, either they are things you seek to improve your skills at, or they are things you believe are outside your range of learning and are better off delegated to others.
For the first category, you should be able to determine when time and importance allow you the chance to practice these elements of your job. For example, taking the time to work better with a computer system should not be done when you need to have something done 100% correctly in a short window of time, but instead take the opportunity when you can work at your own pace and have an expert check your work and ensure you haven’t made any mistakes. Eventually, you’ll be able to add these tasks to your ‘know what you think you know’ list.
Know What You Can’t Know
For the second category, outsource these tasks to someone else. Ask a colleague, delegate the task, or hire someone to do it for you. If you are not a naturally inclined salesperson, don’t spend your valuable time attempting to make sales and ultimately failing. Play to your strengths and allow others to play to theirs. Some of these things will leave you with no choice but to do it yourself, and you may learn something that allows you to move it up on the ladder. Further, as you continue in your career, you might decide that some of the things you believe you ‘can’t know’ become things you ‘don’t know’, moving up on the ladder naturally.
Take your first steps to confidence in the workplace on our ladder and watch as the amount of skills and tasks you are capable and confident in grows!
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