When building confidence in your professional abilities, a good place to start is by making a list of all your work achievements. These can include special skills you may have learned in the past year, certificates of merit, additional degrees you've earned or notes of congratulations from your boss or co-workers after completing a particular project. If you're new to the company and have yet to accomplish much, consider writing a list of your strengths.

These can include the following:

* Ability to handle client issues
* Ability to avoid conflict or diffuse it before it gets out of control
* Ability to write effectively
* Ability to create and give presentations
* Meet all deadlines
* Ability to compromise with others

After creating your list, review it to see how far you've come since your college days or your last job. This exercise should give you a sense of pride and help you along the way when building confidence.

What is Confidence?

Understanding what being confident means to you is the next step in becoming more confident. For many people, being confident is being able to handle many job tasks at once. For others, it's being able to lead projects and manage several people at a time. Defining what being confident means to you can help you set realistic goals. By taking some of the mystery out of why some people are more confident than others, making confidence a goal and outlining ways to achieve it is much more productive than imagining yourself as more confident. If you feel your confidence would improve if you were a better public speaker, for example, take a class in public speaking or join a corporate group where other professionals meet to listen to mock speeches and critique them. Being proactive on your quest for confidence will make it much more attainable.

Learn from Others

If there is someone in your department who is confident, watch how they conduct business, run a meeting or communicate with others. Talk to them about how they accomplish daily tasks and how they've learned to become more confident. Most people are more than willing to offer advice. You can also learn from other professionals by attending business seminars, social events and by talking with friends who are confident as well. You can overcome fears you have about your own abilities by listening to the experiences of others.

Learn how to become a better listener and take the advice of others and use it to make changes in how you feel about your abilities.

Copyright (c) 2008 Sharon Alexander