Rebuild Your Confidence.
Rebuild your confidence…
By creating your own ‘confidence equation’.
Whenever you do something new, self doubt loves to make a cameo.
Your brain's job is to keep you safe. As a result, it dislikes new and unfamiliar things.
To keep you safe, it reminds you of what you could lose or what could go wrong.
Here’s what that looks like at work:
Starting a new job, worrying you’re not doing it ‘right’.
Being assertive in a meeting, later freaking out that you overstepped.
Publishing an article, worrying about what people will think.
Moving into a leadership role, worrying about letting people down.
Do you have a version of this?
Self doubt is just your brain's way of trying to keep you safe.
If our brains are literally wired to avoid uncertainty, what’s an ambitious person to do?
You need something to help you grow your confidence while you do the new thing. A tool you can use to do that is our confidence equation.
The confidence equation.
You will experience a drop in confidence whenever you do something new. That’s natural.
To counter it, you can build your own confidence equation.
Confidence has three elements: evidence + validation + self belief.
All three together mean you can convince yourself to do the thing, even if you’ve never done it before.
Do you want to feel more confident?
If so, tinkering on your confidence equation can help you experience confidence as you do the new thing.
How to do it?
Step one: Create your evidence.
Evidence of your achievements gives your brain data that you’ve done new things before. If you’ve done something new before, you’re more likely to remember that you can again.
Take a moment to document evidence of your accomplishments.
For example, looking back at the last 12 months:
What did you start or finish?
What was the result or flow-on effect?
What did you learn about what you're capable of?
If you do this, for every one of your accomplishments (big or small), you’ll have a list of tangible, transferable skills, you can apply to your new context.
And, as a bonus, you’ll have a chance to reflect on the impact of the work you’ve done.
The result is you have a list of tangible evidence of everything you’ve achieved (which is also really useful to have on hand for future job applications or elevator pitch content).
Step two: Find sources of useful validation.
It’s common to seek validation from people who share your proximity, like your colleagues, family or friends. But those people haven’t necessarily done what you’re looking to do.
You benefit from hearing from someone who’s done what you want to do. This helps you trust you’re on the right track.
Take a moment to reflect on people who:
You trust their professional opinion.
Have shown you their discernment with feedback.
Have done what you’re looking to do.
Are kind and thoughtful (vs just reeling off their opinion on a topic they have no experience or expertise in).
If you can have this list nearby of people you trust, respect and admire, you’ll know who to link up with when you have moments of doubt.
For example, when you need an external perspective, you can contact them and map it out.
Who’s on your list? Do they tick the criteria?
Step three: Growing your self belief.
Getting clear on what you want to get out of a situation is one way to grow your self belief. Things get murky confidence wise when you’re not sure why you’re doing something in the first place.
Here are the questions you can ask yourself to clarify what you’re getting out of doing something new.
What do you want to get out of this? How will you benefit? If it’s not clear now, would doing this give you an experience you could use for a future opportunity?
If you’re successful at this, how might that impact your lifestyle? Will that change the dynamics of your relationships if you earn more, travel more? Are there any conversations you could have, to help others get their head around this change?
When you don’t know what to do, what could you remind yourself that you know for sure? Who do you trust, you can call, when overwhelmed?
When you’re clear on what you want to get out of an opportunity, how that’ll impact your life (and making a plan to make that more comfortable) and have a ‘freak out black book’ of people you can call, it’s easier to believe that you can pull it off.
You really have to convince yourself that doing new things will benefit you.
More than what you’re leaving behind.
These statements are what get you over the line when you have that sneaky self doubt show up.
A lack of confidence creates doubt, even if you have the skills.
The more you do, the more your confidence needs the reassurance of the three elements (evidence, validation, self-belief).
You’re not less capable because you need more support.
You’ll feel more successful and confident, when you work on topping up your equation.
Bring our confidence equation workshop to your workplace.
Did you know we teach this in workplaces?
Workshops that include this idea include:
Creating Your Elevator Pitch: a 90 minute online workshop, where you create your own elevator pitch with your colleagues.
Your Confidence Equation: a 60 minute online workshop, where you complete an achievement audit, outlining everything you’ve achieved.
Ditch Your Inner Critic: a 90 minute workshop, where you name your ‘inner critic’ and then your ‘wiser self’ to counter it, to grow your confidence equation.