Boost Your Workplace Confidence with These Pro Tips

The office can be a place of great achievement and great failure for many. Setbacks experienced in this atmosphere can take a toll on anyone’s confidence and make the place of work a daunting experience. Whether you have been in a job for ten years or two months, everyone will require strategies to help them overcome boundaries and obstacles that may get in the way of success and targeting your goals.  These tips and tricks will help boost your confidence on entering and on leaving the office, making it a safe space for career progression and success. Knowing you are adept with the tools and techniques to overcome obstacles is a comforting thought, and this list will set you up for future success no matter the scenario. 

Dress for success 

The right outfit has the power to uplift and transform your attitude to work. There is a major difference between entering the office in a put-together pinstripe compared to a boring old sweater. When wearing the right attire, the right mindset can flourish. A vibrant and eye-catching office entrance will not only instil you with confidence, but it will also showcase to the rest of the team that you are talking about nothing but business. Dressing for success is a great way to build a strong and confident first impression, giving you a professional edge over others. When getting those around you to trust in your work ability, clothes can change everything. It is as simple as wearing a sharp suit and tie over a pair of baggy low waisted jeans, or perhaps even a well-fitted button up which commands a room and all of your clients. 

Enclothed cognition isn’t some complex scientific thinking method that can elevate your life when practised repetitively. It’s actually the simple art of exploring how the clothes you wear have massive influencing power on our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. The term first came into proliferation in 2012 when researchers conducted experiments on two groups of people, one wearing lab coats and those not. Those wearing coats performed better on attention-related tasks compared to those who weren’t, and the scientists concluded that those wearing certain types of clothes enhance cognitive performance by triggering traits like competence and attentiveness. If science says it all- there really is no excuse to ditch the comfy wardrobe for a more classy one that says office-ready like never before. 

Set clear and achievable goals 

When it comes to setting goals, celebrating the small ones is just as important and it is crucial in making those long-term ones feel more achievable. Ensuring that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable and time-effective will set you up for success. This is the SMART method which has set up success for many businesses time and time again. A goal that isn’t too broad, can be easily measured and doesn’t seem too unattainable is a straightforward and logical approach to higher success, and once the end is reached can be amplified just that little bit more, bringing you closer to that final end point.

If you are constantly striving for that big goal at work, you will never stop along the way to admire how far you have come. When you celebrate the big and small wins, you are able to gain a stronger sense of confidence at work. Big goals may feel easier to celebrate, but they wouldn’t come to be without the smaller acts of work effort that helped achieve such in the first place. Failure celebration also comes into this- and when you encourage your employees to remain united in moments where things don’t go as planned you will foster a strong working relationship with your colleagues and your clients. 

 The workplace can be an extremely stressful atmosphere and these stresses can act as dark sunglasses that prevent the light of small success filtering through. If those around you at work tend to only focus on the end goals then there is a high chance you too will be less inclined to focus on the small and clear milestones you pass along the way to get to the main goal. Rallying team morale by frequently mentioning how far you have come as a team before discussing what needs improving is a simple way of passing this motivation down to those around you. If you still find that there is a negativity about what needs to be done running through your team, pushing for your own personal feedback from your boss is another way of being able to work on your own personal goals. When setting smaller goals in an attainable time period, it is just as important to ensure the goal aligns with both the company’s broader objectives and expectations. Fostering an open and communicative work atmosphere is a step within itself to achieving your wider goals, and makes coming to the workplace feel a lot less like a chore. 

Encourage Job Crafting 

As a method, job crafting can harness the best qualities in all of your employers and involves modifying the type, scope or quantity of tasks they handle to better suit their skills and interests. When put to the test, this method can work like a machine which brings about the best results for the whole company. This approach isn’t only refreshing but it also means everyone will be assigned the tasks they know they are most capable of doing, boosting everyone’s overall confidence and attitude to work. This may seem like an approach that is already practised, especially when you apply for a very specific job and end up landing such but it can always be harnessed that little bit more to bring in amazing results. 

This can be put into practice in the most streamlined of ways possible. The employee who enjoys public speaking could talk more on presentations, while someone with strong analytical skills could focus on data-driven projects. By focusing on tasks that align with their strengths, employees are more likely to excel, leading to increased job satisfaction and confidence. 

Practical steps to implement job crafting include opening up dialogue with higher management about how you can evolve in your job. When managers are supportive of small adjustments, job satisfaction will flourish and organisational goals will not be disrupted. When open dialogue is also encouraged through conversations between employees, discussion regarding what tasks you may feel more aligned with will surface and you can step up to roles that you feel more comfortable doing and excel individually within the team.