Imagine the feeling you get when you do something you don’t think you’re very good at.
You try your best to learn but still struggle to complete tasks and feel like you’re getting it wrong. The idea that you’re not succeeding gets you down, and leaves you a bit deflated. Now, picture spending the rest of your life doing a job that makes you feel that way.
As you can probably guess, ending every day on a downer puts a massive dent in your confidence.
It affects not just your working life, but everything else as well.
That’s why understanding who you are and finding your strengths is so important.
How it feels to use your strengths
When you use your strengths, you’re doing things that you have a natural flair for.
You’ll be able to pick things up quickly, get things done and accomplish your goals.
It’s important not to think of this as a magic switch – you won’t suddenly become more confident overnight. It’s more like steadily turning up a dial as you use your strengths more and more.
You’ll start to achieve success, and make progress. You’ll feel good. And those things put together, start to add up to make you feel more confident.
With confidence comes resilience – so even if things do go wrong, you don’t feel like giving up.
You see how you could change things for the better and say, ‘What about trying this instead?’ rather than ‘I’ve had enough’.
Show your confidence
As Scots, we’re often brought up to be very modest and talk down our accomplishments.
But being confident isn’t about bragging or boasting. It’s about being assertive – recognising what you do well and putting that to good use.
Discovering who you are and what you’re capable of makes it much easier to see how you can achieve what you want in work (and in life) – and gives you the confidence to go for it.
Finding your strengths is a good place to start.