Alan Matthews e-mailed some tips on boosting confidence to his e-mail newsletter recipients (of whom I am one) today. I thought they were useful. So much so I’ve printed them up and pinned them on my “motivator” board here in the office. All these pinned up items remind me why I’m working so hard and are nice to refer to whenever I feel a bit low.
Anyway, here are Alan’s tips on boosting confidence:-
| How To Boost Your Confidence |
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- Don’t dwell on mistakes, learn from them
- Don’t expect perfection
- Learn to say ” no ” to unreasonable demands
- Deal with situations early, don’t let things build up
- Stand up to talk to people
- Keep a journal of your successes
- Give constructive feedback
- Be persistent when things go wrong
- Delegate appropriately
- Offer solutions, not problems
- Have a clear goal for any situation – what do you want to get out of it?
- Remember other people are different from you, they have different motivations and styles
- Set yourself small goals to achieve every day
- Avoid negative people
- Don’t put things off – make decisions
- Be realistic in what you can achieve each day
- Think before you speak and stay calm
- Avoid negative self talk such as ” I can’t do this “
- Don’t catastrophise – expecting disaster from the start
- Visualise a positive outcome
- Remember body language is a major part of your impact on others – use it
- Model yourself on confident people – behave like them
- Don’t try to change other people – change how you respond to them
- Smile more
- Be enthusiastic and encourage other people
- Don’t judge yourself purely by your work
- Remember – everyone who ever succeeded failed first
- Break old patterns of behaviour – say and do something different
- Use the ” broken record ” technique in the face of aggression
- Don’t run yourself down to others
- If someone criticises you, ask them to be specific
- Be specific yourself in what you want from others
- Don’t apologise too much, especially for having an opinion
- If other people disagree with you, don’t assume you’re wrong
- Remember that appearing to be confident is often more important than being confident
- Prepare – have a Plan B if things do go wrong
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Comments
4 thoughts on How To Develop Your Confidence
MIKE
4TH MAY 2006 04:16:10
Can't fault any of the individual bits of advice but I would say that there are two many. I lost interest towards the end of the list and if I printed that off and put it on my board I wouldn't read it. Microsoft puts a lot of store in personal development and spends a lot of money sending people on courses that teach very similar philoophies as those articulated in the list. I'd done most of them and there have been things I have taken away frm all of them that I've found very useful. Having said that, I think the key is to find the things that work for you and ignore the rest. if I was looking at that list I'd ask myself what I thought were the most important four or five and I'd print them off and concentrate of doing those well. Once I felt that they had become second nature to me I'd look at another five and so on. Microsoft also puts a lot of store in a process called Strengthfinders which identifies what an individual is naturally inclined to do well. The principle behind this is to concentrate you time on doing the things you do well (ie maximising) and spending as little time as possible on the things that you are not naturally predisposed to (unless they are a prime requisite for your role). Kind of makes sense. Anyway - I've crapped on enough. It's god stuff but cherry pick what sense for you 9and you already know what they are). Mike
MATT
4TH MAY 2006 13:52:28
That IS a big list! I was feeling pretty good for the first few, but became somewhat depressed by the end... Now I need a hug ;-)
WOZ
4TH MAY 2006 14:54:03
you told me that when you feel low, you watch the leeroy jenkins video? you lied to me, and it cut me.....cut me deep.
MATT
4TH MAY 2006 16:19:20
Just put your favorite shirt on, and smile...