Do you often find yourself questioning your self-esteem at work? Do you feel like you are not appreciated enough? Like no one acknowledges the work that you are doing? Do you find it daunting to speak out at meetings? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you most probably lack confidence at work. 

Lack of confidence or self-esteem at work impacts your mental well-being, but it also affects your career prospects. Confident employees are the natural pick for leadership roles and promotions. You may be more talented and have more experience, but a lack of confidence at work will result in fewer developments and fewer career growth opportunities. 

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Tips to Improve Confidence at Work

Most people believe that you cannot change or improve your confidence level. The belief is as far as possible from the truth. Lack of self-esteem at work stems from various reasons, including insecurities, the experience of bullying or harassment, body image issues, negative peers, high expectations or perfectionism, etc. 

However, you have the power to overcome all of these and exude confidence at work. Wondering how? 

Here are a few tips:

Positive affirmations

Negative comments regarding work, appearance, or personality can reduce your confidence and make you question your abilities. Positive affirmations negate the impact of these and improve your self-esteem at work. Positive affirmations are short statements that you use to motivate yourself. 

A few examples are:

• I am confident in my abilities.
• I am the best at what I do. 
• I do exceptional work for my company. 
• I am a worthy candidate for this job.

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You should start your day by looking in a mirror and repeating these affirmations to yourself. You can also remind yourself of these affirmations when you feel like you need a boost of confidence.

Read more: Future of Work, Jobs and Careers after COVID19

Accept mistakes

You want your work product to be perfect, and when there is even a small mistake, you start questioning your abilities. But, the thing is, everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes do not mean that you are not good at your job. 

You should think of mistakes as a learning opportunity. Understand why they happened, find out how you can avoid them, and then forget about the mistake itself while retaining only the useful information. Dwelling on past mistakes does you no good. On the other hand, learning from them makes you better at your job. This will ultimately give a boost to your self-esteem at work.

Long-term and short-term goals

You know the standard interview question – “Where do you see yourself in five years?”. You need to ask yourself this and decide your long-term goals. Now, decide on short-term goals that will help you attain your long-term goals. 

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Goals keep you motivated. They also tell you how much progress you have made. When you feel that you haven’t achieved much, your short-term goals will show you how much you have achieved. This knowledge will give you a boost of confidence at work. 

Even if you falter on one short-term goal, having a long-term goal offers you the motivation to work out an alternative short-term goal that will help you achieve your long-term goals.

Know when to ask and when to assert

There is a time to ask, and there is a time to tell. Understand the difference between both situations and make the right choice. If you are stuck with a problem and need help, there is no harm in asking for it. Asking for help doesn’t make you a smaller person or reduce your self-esteem at work. Most confident people do not hesitate to ask for help.   

On the other hand, when you need to communicate about your needs or requirements, you should be assertive. When your boss hands you a task to do, assert that you can do it. Most people undermine their capabilities and ask whether they are truly capable of handling the job. Not only does it create self-doubt, but it also causes the other person to doubt your abilities. An assertion is what is needed in such situations to show confidence at work.   

Accept feedbacks

You should always welcome feedback. They tell you how much your work is being valued. They also offer an insight into areas that you can improve upon and make yourself better.   

You should seek out feedback. Seeking feedback shows others that you are confident in your abilities and do not feel insecure about your work. Rectifying the mistakes mentioned in the feedback will give you a sense of accomplishment and increase your self-esteem at work.

Learn about: Working From Home? Top Essential Tools & Apps You Need to Succeed

Give respect to get respect

Respect is a two-way street. When you respect others, they respect you too. Being recognized by others will also help in building your confidence at work. Respect indicates that the other person values your opinion and admires your work. When others respect you at the workplace, you naturally start to believe more in yourself, improving your self-esteem.

Dress the part

Have you heard of the saying “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”? Take that statement to heart and make sure you are always dressed impeccably while at work. When you wear well, you feel good, and you become more confident at work. It will also reflect on how others treat you. 

This is not to say that looks are the most important thing. There is no substitute for hard work. However, dressing well is a way to boost your image. You are not doing it for validation from others, but for yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you will be better at the job, which, in turn, adds to boosting your self-esteem at work.   

Confidence is the key to success

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The first step to achieving anything in life is to believe in yourself. The confidence in your abilities keeps you motivated and helps you in attaining your goals. Don’t let lack of self-esteem at work hold you back from achieving your dreams. 

Attend the professional development trainings 

It is important to develop the skills which are required in a job and will definitely be needed to function at a job. You can definitely improve the way you perform at your job. This can work as a positive influence on how one works at a job. This is how to improve confidence at work.

Learn and hone new skills.

It is important to develop the current skill sets, which allows one to explore various other opportunities and particularly helps in gaining confidence. Deciding to hone new skills which are beneficial for development helps in gaining confidence. This is another tip on how to work on your self-esteem.

Enter into the new world of opportunities by leaving your comfort zone.

It is important to leave your comfort zone and put your steps to learning new things. It is a very important confidence booster. There could be chances that you were always scared of giving out presentations to the entire team, but the opportunity to give a presentation gave you confidence and a lot of tricks which could help you the next time. This is how to increase confidence at work. 

Learn from your mistakes.

Another how to improve self-confidence tip would be to constantly keep evolving and learn from your mistakes, and then only you appear to be growing in life. It is very difficult to accept your mistakes, so when you do identify and learn from your mistakes, then only you are able to grow. You can earn various new skills, which allows for developing future skill sets. This is how to improve self-confidence.

Checkout: How to Stay Motivated + Effective While Working from Home

Wrapping up

If the lack of a degree of knowledge about some topic causes you to lose confidence, you can fix it by taking insightful courses from upGrad. upGrad offers courses from the top universities globally, has a proven placement record, and offers advice and mentoring from industry experts for your overall development. 

Learning online has become more relevant today than ever before. If you’re interested in learning online, you can get a course and start your journey today. Checkout upGrad’s top courses in Data Science, Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, MBA from LBS & Full Stack Development.