Confidence is the secret sauce of personal and professional success. I don’t know about you, but I am envious of those individuals who seem to be so naturally comfortable in their skin. They are oblivious to what others think of them (or at least they seem to be). They live their lives courageously and without concern about the opinions of other people.
Related: What’s Confidence Got To Do With A Job?
There is no doubt that having confidence in your abilities is key to your success in your job search. If you aren’t convinced of your ability to do a job, how can you possibly convince anyone else that you can do the job? You need confidence and you need to convey that confidence during every interaction that you have with your future employer.
Don’t mistake confidence with cockiness, however. Displaying an overly confident demeanor that is fake or contrived can convey a lack of confidence and an interest in trying to cover the underlying insecurities that you may feel. Likewise, over confidence that is based more on the power of your personality than on your ability to perform is also a big turn off. Confidence is something one can build, but it is not really something that you can fake long term. People sense quickly if you are being inauthentic or not. They will know if you are truly confident or if you are a pretender.
So how does one display confidence in oneself when one is experiencing the vulnerability of job hunting? That requires an ability to be real and true to yourself while owning your vulnerability and not letting it handicap you. If you are job hunting and having trouble with your confidence level, try these strategies for building your self- confidence up.
Develop an exercise regimen and stick with it.
You may wonder what working out has to do with building confidence, but the truth is that it is a key to your ability to believe in yourself. Confidence is all about how you feel about yourself. When you make a commitment to work out and you stick to it, not only do you gain the obvious health benefits of the work out, but your self-esteem grows because you have made a commitment to yourself and you have kept it. It is a win-win all the way around. So, if you need to build your confidence level, start a work-out routine, and stick with it.
Stop comparing yourself to others.
This is
your life
. You lose out every time you waste a single second in comparing yourself to someone else unless it is someone who motivates you to take your performance to the next level. Do you have a hero (or a shero) who inspires you and makes you want to do better? Great! If you are comparing yourself to someone based on what you perceive to be going on in their lives and you wish you had their house, their job, their car, their relationship, and so on, you are doing yourself harm. First, you never know what their real story is…so it is impossible to know if they have it better than you or not…and secondly, if you are living your life fully and authentically, you won’t have time to pay attention to what other people have. Strive to be the best YOU can be…but don’t compare yourself to others unless you want to be
miserable.
Use positive affirmations to disrupt negative self-talk.
We all have those nasty little voices in the back of our heads that are determined to undermine and derail us at every turn. Even the most seemingly confident person on the planet has moments of self-doubt. It goes along with being human. It is okay to have those voices…it isn’t okay to listen to them without interrupting them and disrupting them. One way to disrupt them is to have a positive affirmation to bring up when you catch yourself falling victim to the negative chatter in your head. My particular favorite is one I learned as I was studying to become a minister: “I am perfect, whole, and complete, just as I am.” Choose one that works for you and write it on a card to carry with you until you remember it on your own.
You are always going to have that negative voice in your head, but you choose whether to listen to it or not. If you choose to listen to it without interruption, your confidence will be shredded to pieces on a daily basis. You will never be able to convey your true worth to anyone else because you will not believe in it yourself.
Confidence springs from knowing that you are doing what you were meant to be doing with your life and with feeling that you are living for yourself and not for other people. When you stop comparing yourself to everyone else and you learn to disrupt the negative self-talk, you have come a long way toward developing the confidence you need during a job search. The recommendation that you work out will have many other side benefits, but it will also add to your level of confidence. Try it and see.
The bottom line is that people are more attractive when they convey an air of confidence. Likewise, we are repelled energetically by those people who convey a sense of neediness or a lack of self-worth. If you want to be successful in your job search, you must convey confidence and an upbeat attitude. While you can try to fake it, you will be more successful more quickly if you develop your sense of self-confidence so that it exudes from you naturally and without overt effort.
Employers are just like everyone else. They want to be around people who are confident in their abilities and who are upbeat in their disposition. They don’t want to bring aboard negative people because they tend to infect the workplace with their negativity.
So, work out, stop comparing yourself to others, and choose a positive affirmation that can help anchor your feelings of confidence so that you can approach your job search with a sense of anticipation instead of fear and dread. Job hunting doesn’t have to be a negative event in your life. In fact, it may lead to the greatest opportunity you have ever had! You just need to watch your perspective.
Happy job hunting!
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