How I Developed Confidence at Work

I created positive habits to promote my self-confidence and combat my inner critic, imposter syndrome, and anxiety at work.

The first time I asked for a raise was at my part-time college job. I had been doing the job for two years and thought it was time for a higher salary. Do college jobs even do raises? I didn’t know. But I thought it was worth asking my boss anyway. After all, it only takes a minute and it could lead to better pay for doing the same work. I didn’t think I would lose anything by asking.

It took me two weeks to work up the courage to do it. What should I say? Maybe it’s best to just keep it simple and direct with “Could I get a raise?”. Otherwise, there was a high risk that I would start rambling. Then I would get embarrassed and lose confidence and it might get awkward. One day before a team meeting, I arrived early at the computer lab (I was a computer support technician at the time) and had a private moment with my boss.

“Boss, could I get a raise?”

“Why do you deserve one?”

“Oh. Good question…Let me think about it for five minutes.”

I had some reasons in my head but wasn’t prepared to recite them on the spot. I grabbed a piece of blank paper and wrote them down clearly for myself. Then I read what I wrote to him.

“Ok boss, I deserve a raise for two reasons. First, because I’ve been a great employee for two years. Secondly, I went above and beyond and maintained my duties remotely while studying abroad for three months. I wasn’t required to do it but I didn’t want to let my team down because I was gone so I took the extra time and effort to keep them connected with the new resources we were offering to students.”

“Hmm. Alright. I’ll think about it.”

Two weeks later, I found out I got the raise!

I was so proud of myself. I had taken a risk and was rewarded for striving for more. I carried this lesson forward with me throughout my career and successfully negotiated several more raises and promotions since that day in the computer lab. The funniest part of the situation came when I asked my boss if he often gave raises to my colleagues. I would, he said, except that no one ever asked before me. How surprised I was to hear that. Except it became less and less surprising the more I thought about it. I knew many people either didn’t think to ask for more, or they did but could not muster up the courage. I realized that I taught myself a valuable lesson that day to ask for more for myself.

“Confidence is knowing you don’t have all the answers, but being quite sure you can figure it out.” — A trusted friend.

I wasn’t always this confident at work. I suffered from imposter syndrome and performance anxiety. I wondered if I deserved the job I got or if it was a mistake that my manager was overlooking. Anxiety washed over me instantly when I was asked to do a task I felt unprepared for. I got nervous when I was told I needed to handle a task alone. I was afraid to voice my opinions at work and ask questions, letting many opportunities to speak up slip by or waiting until the last minute in a meeting to give my input. There were a few instances when managers blew off meetings with me. My heart starts beating faster before every public presentation I give. I had the same fears as everyone else: the fear of failure and not meeting my colleague’s or client’s expectations. I was afraid of making mistakes and being criticized for them. I still half-expected someone to yell at me when I made mistakes, like what happened at home.

I was constantly plagued by a sense of panic and crippling critical inner voices at one job. It was a pejorative voice that questioned my work ethic, competence, my value to the company, and my treatment within the company. It made me feel small. My self-doubts warped my sense of reality, imagining the worst case scenarios, and dampening my self-esteem which led to under-performance. These critical inner voices are the unconscious manifestation of my anxiety, dysfunctional assumptions, and negative core beliefs about myself. It was not easy to overcome my critical inner voice, but one of the first steps I took was to identify when it is talking and realize that it is not my true self speaking. It is the voice of my fears and doubts. Once I understood it did not represent my true feelings, I could begin to separate and externalize it. I could begin to confront it and counter its negative statements.

Two incidents show me how much I was downplaying my skills and knowledge in my head. In one incident at work, a coworker asked me how sure I was of an estimate I gave. “I’m about 40% sure about this,” I said, explaining my reasoning. “You are more like 70% sure then,” he observed. It was at that moment I understood that I was underestimating myself and giving off an impression that I was less knowledgeable to others than I was. In the same situation, my coworker would have given himself more credit.

In another instance, while answering questions with my team, I tried my best to follow my gut and pick an answer. My coworker had a different idea. Instead of defending my choice, I lost confidence in my intuition and gave in to his suggestion. It turned out that my first guess was correct. I was disappointed in myself for not trusting my judgement. “Jennifer, no! You were right in the beginning! Why did you chicken out of your choice?” my teammate asked. His comment helped me realize how often I discounted my thinking. I resolved to find a way to trust myself more firmly.

“A part of achieving happiness and maturity involves altering our inner voices, which means encountering equally convincing and confident, but also helpful and constructive, varieties of voices over long periods and taking care to internalize them. We need to hear them often enough and around tricky enough issues that they come to feel normal and natural responses so that eventually, they come to feel like things we are saying to ourselves. They become our own thoughts.” — School of Life, Overcoming Bad Inner Voices

I developed multiple strategies to combat imposter syndrome and the critical inner voice to develop confidence. They are:

• Getting acquainted with other people’s failures to get the perspective that mine was normal and part of the journey
• Keeping a journal of my past successes by writing them down every few days
• Showing up and using my voice even when I don’t feel confident about it

My capacity to remain confident comes from having a correct internal narrative of what success looks like. Whenever I look at successful companies, authors, YouTube channels, any notable commercial venture, I admire how great they currently are while keeping in mind their humble beginnings. Amazon is a giant now, yet it took them twenty-seven years to get to where they are now. Whitney Herd Wolfe of Bumble just led an IPO, yet she had humble beginnings with Tinder where she sued the company for sexual assault. There are many YouTube channels with beautiful animation now, yet they started with crude-looking videos three years ago. At one job, I locked myself out of my laptop on the first day by forgetting my password. It was very helpful when I saw that the company CEO had forgotten his master password too and needed to ask the tech to reset his password.

I realized if I look carefully, I can see the trail of growth and obstacles others have had to overcome. Most news stories won’t go into all these details, but I spend time reading about it because it gives me a sense of the behind-the-scenes journey the person or company went through. I am all too acquainted with my journey, how much of a long and winding road it is, and what mistakes I have made. It is easy for me to lose hope when seeing how far away my goals are. I find it important to keep in mind the struggles are relatively normal and that I am on my way and am exactly where I’m supposed to be at the moment. It helps me to know that everyone is struggling to do the same thing.

I write down my past successes into a journal every few days and review the list periodically to remind myself what I’m capable of. I find it to be a very valuable exercise to calm down the anxious voices in my head and boost my confidence. Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage, states this exercise trains the mind to be “success-conscious” (instead of “failure-conscious), which leads to a more positive mindset and higher work performance. Allison Edwards, the author of Why Smart Kids Worry, advocates the same type of strategy when kids are low on confidence and are having trouble recalling the past instances when they overcame obstacles. Writing down my past accomplishments is how I worked up the confidence to ask for raises and promotions. The exercise helps me maintain my confidence daily.

I take a big step toward confidence when I show up to the meeting, the presentation, the pitch. My internal motivation goes up because I took the first step to empower myself. It makes the second step and all the following steps much easier. When I am present, it is possible to take advantage of the opportunities to share my opinion. I share my viewpoint as much as possible on major decisions. I also have chances to correct any inaccurate statements made, establishing my professional knowledge and authority. These instances of participation may seem small, but speaking up and showing interest are my starting points to bigger contributions. The statements I make, the tone and volume with which I deliver them, how often I speak up, demonstrate my motivation and drive to others. The more contributions I make, the more confident I become in myself.

In addition to these exercises, I have found the best attitude to have to cultivate confidence at work is to understand that successes and failures are normal. When I adopt that attitude, mistakes and failure become acceptable to me because they do not cause my self-worth to diminish. When mistakes and failures become safe, I tend to take more risks. When the risks pay off and I am successful, my confidence and belief in myself go up. The cycle of taking risks and having them pay off is how I grow and face bigger and bigger challenges with a solid belief in myself. I tell myself this mantra: “I can make mistakes and still be loved. I am enough. I am a soft landing place for myself. I believe in myself. I am confident.”