6 Steps to Your Core of Confidence
Struggling with Career Derailers? - Part 7
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |
If one more article, video, podcast or book on Confidence comes my way I’m going to scream! I’ve found more than 258,000,000 pieces of content flung at women who want to be more confident.
And 99.9% of that advice is fatally flawed. But before we get to that, let’s consider these 2 questions:
What is confidence? How to be and feel more confident?
What is Confidence?
As defined by various dictionaries:
The quality of being certain of your abilities
Belief in the effectiveness of one’s own abilities or in one’s favorable acceptance by others
Feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances
Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance
Right off the bat, notice that your recognized abilities or powers are central to your feelings of confidence. This means confidence isn’t a fixed thing — it predictably changes depending on the situation you’re in.
Feeling a lack of confidence in a certain situation is an indicator, not an indictment. It likely signals that you need to enhance your abilities and powers, not that you’re defective.
It’s natural to feel less confident when you’re in:
Totally new situations (e.g. first time leading a team meeting)
Situations where you’ve been unimpressed with your own past performance (e.g. you froze during a presentation)
Situations where others have been unimpressed with your performance (e.g. you got feedback that you could have done something better)
These uncomfortable circumstances leave us wishing we were more confident — which is why we go looking for advice about...
How to Be/Feel More Confident?
And here’s what we’re told.
Woe be unto us. Most of this advice is rooted in the indictment that we are psychologically or emotionally defective and lacking in self-esteem.
We need more positive self-talk
We need more affirmations (aren’t they basically the same thing?)
We have self-limiting beliefs
We dress poorly
Our body language sucks
And seriously — how is a personal elevator pitch going to help us in the moments we feel least confident?
We’re also told to:
Use expansive posture
Make eye contact
Dress for success
Surround yourself with a support system
Set and achieve personal goals
Communicate assertively
I was reminded of the flaws in this advice when, seeking a conditioning program for the Andalusian mare I just bought, I found the work of Simon Cocozza. He skillfully explains that beautiful equine performance comes from the horse’s strong core — not from equipment designed to make the horse look right.
Yes, this is also true for us.
Compare the image below with the title image above. In the image below, the horse being forced into “frame” represents a woman forcing herself to meet external expectations of what confidence looks like.
In the title image the horse represents a woman performing within her business environment with the confidence that comes from understanding the business, where it’s going, the financial realities at hand and the business’ strategy.
And this brings us to the first of the fatal flaws in the millions of pieces of advice directed at us:
Conventional advice is often designed to shape the outside (visible behaviors) of the woman, not the underlying root causes of lack of confidence.
I hope I’ve made it obvious to you that, rather than wishing we were more confident, or striving to appear more confident, the real solution to being more confident in uncomfortable situations is to be intent on improving your abilities/powers.
And this brings us to the second major flaw with conventional advice on confidence.
Conventional advice that tells you to shape your behavior based on perceptions of the outside world should be seen as useful, but incomplete. Why? Because all the advice ignores the fact that:
Women who want more confidence need it within the context of business. That’s why the abilities/powers that come with enhanced Business Savvy provide you with your core of confidence.”
Your Business Savvy Edge
Business Savvy gives us an enduring foundation for confidence in business settings. The fact that no one tells us this is a large reason why women get stuck in the middle — working on supposed “defects” instead of strengthening our business-context abilities and powers.
We invest energy in “fixing” ourselves rather than building our Business Savvy. And to poor results, because:
Self-talk when we don’t know what we’re talking about is useless
Affirmations about abilities we’re truly lacking are unbelievable
Faking it with empowering beliefs about competence we don’t have is a recipe for disaster
Dressing for success, perfect non-verbals and a terrific elevator pitch won’t counteract the fact that we are women inbusiness, not business women
The answer for most of us: to be and feel more confident at work, we have to increase our business, financial and strategic acumen.
With Business Savvy we can:
Speak the language of business and understand when it’s being spoken
Act and be seen as a partner in the business
Lay a strong and enduring foundation for confidence
(I say “often” because there are situations where you have the Business Savvy you need but lack other abilities. For example: you know your numbers cold, but you’re uncomfortable presenting to your boss’s boss. Work on those abilities! Practice — and practice with feedback.)
What’s a Woman to Do?
Here’s a 6-step process for strengthening your core of confidence:
Reframe your thinking about your confidence. It’s true that most of us don’t consistently feel a lack of confidence. So be very careful to not use self-talk like, “I don’t have confidence.” or absorbing feedback, “You need to be more confident.” Instead give yourself time to celebrate the times that you are confident and…
Identify a situation at work where you persistently feel you lack confidence. You might find yourself in a meeting where you feel that you lack confidence or where speaking with a certain person shakes your confidence or that an event such as a performance review shakes your confidence. Don’t tackle a “confidence problem,” Instead start with a confidence-shaking situation.
Ask: what abilities/powers are you lacking? It might be that you aren’t sufficiently conversant about the overall business. Maybe you’re not up to date about the topics of conversations you repeatedly have with a certain person. It might be that you’re uncomfortable accepting praise…or handling constructive feedback. It might be
Identify actions you will take to further develop your needed abilities/powers?** There will always be something that you can do to strengthen your confidence in these situations. Acquire more knowledge - especially about the business. Practice saying “thank you” or “tell me more about that.” Get coaching on a less than “good enough” skill.
Take the first steps! Enuff said!
Be patient with yourself. As with Executive Presence (Part 6), developing confidence in situations that shake yours is an analog process. You won’t go from feeling a lack of confidence to feeling fully confident overnight.
**If you’re thinking that Business Savvy is among the powers/abilities you need is to gain, enhance or demonstrate, start your journey here.
The Be Business Savvy Course
Are you frustrated with your career progress, disappointed by career advice that hasn’t worked, angry that mediocre men are moving and you aren’t?
I’m Susan Colantuono, best known for my TED Talk, “The Career Advice You Probably Didn’t Get.”
I’ve devoted most of my working life to supporting the career advancement of women.
Now my work is exclusively focused on offering women tools for developing and demonstrating Business Savvy - the business, financial and strategic acumen we need to succeed and to close The Missing 33% of the career success equation for women.
That includes offering my groundbreaking course in a self-paced version (with coaching support) right here at Be Business Savvy. Check it out!
You will find additional useful and actionable content in my books and other online resources:
No Ceiling, No Walls ebook
No Ceiling, No Walls soft cover
Make the Most of Mentoring soft cover
Coaching Executive Women (occasional) newsletter
Lead ON!
Susan