“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”
Drew Carey
An awful job will do two things:
1. Try to steal every last bit of your self confidence until you’re the shriveled raisin version of the person you once were;
2. Pay you just enough to make you question whether you should leave.
We don’t let this happen on purpose, of course.
If a man in a dark trench coat approached you in the street offering to trade your self confidence for a few magic beans, I’m sure you’d laugh in his face.
But somehow, awful jobs are sneakier than that.
They promise to “look good” on your resume or pretend to be “learning opportunities”.
But they’re not.
“Good” jobs are sometimes nothing more than lying cheats who can lull you into complacency with a solid paycheck.
Until . . .
Until you start to realize that the deal you made was rotten.
At that point, you might not only be terrified that it’s too late, you’ll also have had all your self confidence beaten out of you.
But you can get your self confidence back even when your job has stolen it.
A Case Study
My client, Dani had the personality of a karaoke party.
She was always “on”, always happy, and at the ready to make everyone around her feel ok about any sour notes.
But her awful job kept her stuck behind a desk all day, working with invoices and numbers – not people.
She thrived on social interaction, but her job was dimming her true brilliance.
She started to question herself and her abilities and wondered if she just didn’t have “it” anymore.
Eventually, Dani was able to connect with her confidence, and she then found the courage to divorce her paycheck and pursue her passion.
So how did she build her self confidence?
And how can you build yours?
Build Self Confidence
Try to feel for a moment what zero self confidence is like.
Maybe you don’t have to try that hard.
You feel invisible (or like you want to be), you feel powerless, and you have no idea what the right next move is.
And most of all, whatever you’re facing, you don’t think you can do it.
Pretty terrible, right?
So how can you build self confidence as quickly as possible?
DO IT
When you lose your confidence you just don’t think you can do whatever it is you’re trying to do.
The fastest way to build confidence is to do everything you can to prove yourself wrong.
That doesn’t mean faking it.
And it certainly doesn’t mean white-knuckling it and setting yourself up for failure.
It means digging in and doing what you need to do be a success at your task. Go ahead, prove yourself wrong. You actually can do it.
Do You Have It Or Not?
Sometimes we think we either have confidence or we don’t.
But the truth is that it’s not a gift that has (or hasn’t) been bestowed upon us.
Self confidence is built over time like a muscle.
And just like being smart, confidence is less about what you have right now and more about what you can create.
What’s smarter: knowing 1,000 facts, or knowing how to find 1,000,000 facts in less than a minute?
And what will give you more confidence: the fact that you did well the last time or the fact that you know how to prepare yourself so you’ll do well every time?
Prepare for Success
The more you prepare yourself to succeed, the more successes you will have.
And over time, more successes and knowing how to create successes on demand lead to more self-confidence.
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The roots of unshakeable self confidence lie in the everyday things that you can do right now to make your next thing a success.
Whether that “thing” is a date, a new job, a public speaking gig, or anything else, it doesn’t matter.
Put the effort into doing everything in your power to create a positive outcome and you will not only add to your long list of confidence-boosting successes, you will be re-building your self confidence muscle – the one that allows you to create success on demand.
Before you know it, you’ll feel as confident as Superman.
So tell me, what’s stealing your confidence at work and how can you start building self confidence and create success on demand?