Self-esteem and confidence levels are deeply intertwined with many factors in a person’s life, including their health, standard of living, and even success at work. This is a logical conclusion, as confident people act more decisively, are not afraid of difficulties, and attract the favorable attention of others. A confident person will give the impression of a competent and reliable employee. A high level of trust and a positive reputation always influence career advancement.
There are many reasons why employees lose confidence, such as lack of skills, bad relationship with the boss, highly competitive work environment, and fear of losing their job. These reasons should be addressed separately, but there are some general work skills and areas to improve confidence. First, you must build direct, honest, competent communication with the boss and colleagues and develop Emotional Intelligence (Portolese, 2011). When people understand and see how the process is going and what difficulties or tasks are, they feel calmer. Secondly, gradual learning and improvement of job skills will help to feel more confident and show management that the employee is ready to learn and develop. Thirdly, identifying your strengths helps develop and offer your skills at the right time. In addition, some psychologists suggest writing down your deeds and achievements not to devalue the work done and see your growth.
Such advice and many others are common in psychological literature, but in reality often people struggle with following it. The biggest obstacle for me is overcoming previous negative experiences and complexes. For general well-being, I need to work on them with a psychologist or find free support groups. Another limiting factor is laziness and lack of time management skills. Acquiring actual competencies requires daily work, that can be turned into game, especially using different applications for time management, concentration and building willpower.
Reference
Portolese, L. (2011). Human Resource Management. Version 1.0. FlatWorld.