Archie Hayes 
Starting a new job can be nerve-wracking. It can even be a struggle to stay confident in a job that you’ve had for several months or several years. If you find that your confidence isn’t matching the level of your work ethic, then you could be in a funk self-esteem-wise, and it could be affecting you more than you realize.
It can be challenging to see your colleagues easily interact with other colleagues and higher-ups in a way you think you can’t. It’s inevitable that throughout your career, you’ll have some co-workers at multiple different jobs that just seem to have it when it comes to confidence. They’re confident about themselves, which stems to confidence in their work, and hence the confidence their superiors have in them to get the job done.
If you’re looking at them with envy, you should know that confidence like that isn’t completely out of your reach, especially if it comes from a place of knowledge and rationality. You can have confidence like this, too. You’ll just need to take small steps in getting there. You can get close to being this confident if you try to improve how you interact with others. But then, so much of the degrees of confidence needed should come from within.
Confidence can be everything, whether it’s at work, in your dating life, or relating to your overall self-esteem. Confidence can truly get you anywhere. If you’ve found that your low confidence level has been affecting your performance at work, you might need some tips as to how you can improve it. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Here are some tips on how to be more confident at work.
Talk to yourself as you would to a friend
This is an essential step in greater confidence. So much of the negative self-talk we give ourselves stems from the habit of doing so. While it’s easy to beat ourselves up over a mistake that we make, and we’re often our own worst critics, it doesn’t mean that continuing this habit is necessary or valuable.
In fact, this negative self-talk can affect you in areas outside of work also, and you definitely don’t want that to happen. It can lead one into a depressive mode that can be difficult to climb out of.
If you find that you’ve made a mistake at work, or weren’t as productive as you’d have liked, then don’t rain on your own parade just because you can. Talk to yourself as you would a friend you’re trying to comfort. There’s no value in making yourself feel worse for a small mistake. If you find that you’re getting into a mode where you’re extremely hard on yourself for mistakes at work, or just for not working hard enough, don’t beat yourself up. Think about how you can do better next time and act on that instead.
Be willing to learn all that you can
A lot of confidence comes from outright knowledge. If you find yourself struggling because of not knowing as much as your colleagues do, work on building your knowledge on different subjects associated with your job. There are so many resources you can use, including your supervisors’ own knowledge. They’ll appreciate that you want to learn and contribute that knowledge to being a better employee.
You can also use outside resources to build your knowledge. This can be done in several ways. You can simply read quite a bit about related subjects, do online research, talk to experts in your field, or even get more formal education like advanced degrees or take part in a CBAP certification training. In many scenarios, your employer could even be willing to help you pay for these degrees and certifications because it will help you to do your job better, which in the end is valuable to both you and them.
Ask questions
Along with learning all you can, asking questions can be extremely valuable in the workplace. Before going off on your own to figure out a difficult task individually, make sure that you understand all that goes along with that specific task, as well as how you can get it accomplished in the best and most thorough way possible.
Asking questions doesn’t denote weakness. It actually denotes strength. Your willingness to learn and to take a step back to admit that you don’t know everything (and really, no one does), will be impressive to your superiors and your colleagues. It will also help you to understand best practices and implement those in future tasks. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you need to.
Focus on what you’ve already accomplished
Going back to negative self-talk, focusing on your successes is much more valuable than focusing on your failures. You should be focusing on what you’ve accomplished rather than what you haven’t. Seeing yourself and your career as a whole, rather than a series of missteps, can help you to find clarity and understand what you’re good at rather than what you aren’t.
When you realize what you’ve achieved, it can help you identify what your strengths are. Focus on what you’re good at to give yourself momentum for the future.
Enjoy yourself
One thing that can really help you to reach the confidence level you need to succeed is by enjoying what you do. Focus on what you like about your job and how you can be getting more enjoyment and fun out of your position. What can you do to make sure that you’re having fun at work? What can keep that fun going while maintaining productivity?
If it feels like an impossibility to be having fun, you might need to change your job altogether, which can instill another type of confidence in putting yourself and your mental health first.
