My strategies for developing business confidence

Boss, can I have a raise?"

"Why do you deserve one?"

"Oh. Good question... Let me think about it for five minutes."

I had some reasons in my mind but I wasn't ready to read them right away. I grabbed a piece of blank paper and wrote it clearly to myself. Then I read what I wrote to him.

"Well, sir, I deserve a pay raise for two reasons. First, because I was a great employee for two years. Second, I did my best and kept my homework remotely while studying abroad for three months. I wasn't required to do that but I didn't want to let my team down because I left, so I took extra time and effort to keep them connected with the new resources we were offering students."

"Hmm. Fair enough. I'll think about it."

Two weeks later, I found out I got the raise!

I am very proud of myself. I took risks and got rewarded for striving to achieve more. I have carried this lesson with me throughout my career and have successfully negotiated many bonuses and promotions since that day in the computer lab. The funniest part of the situation came when I asked my boss if he gave raises to my colleagues often. He said, "I will," but no one ever asked me. How surprised I was to hear that. Except that it gets less surprising the more you think about it. I knew that many people either didn't think about asking for more, or they did but didn't summon their courage. I realized that I had taught myself a valuable lesson that day: to ask for more for myself.

I wasn't always that confident at work. I suffered from impostor syndrome and performance anxiety. I wondered if I deserved the job I got or was it a mistake that my manager ignores. Anxiety immediately swept over me when he asked me to do a task for which I felt unprepared. I felt nervous when I was told I needed to deal with a task on my own. I was afraid to express my opinions at work and ask questions, which missed many opportunities to speak or wait until the last minute in the meeting to give my opinion.

I have been constantly experiencing panic and critical inner voices in one job. He was a pejorative voice that questioned my work ethic, my competence, my value to the company, and my treatment within the company. It made me feel small. My self-doubts distorted my sense of reality, imagined worst-case scenarios, and weakened my self-esteem leading to poor performance. These critical inner voices are the unconscious manifestation of my anxiety, dysfunctional assumptions, and underlying negative beliefs about myself. It wasn't easy to overcome my critical inner voice, but one of the first steps I took was to determine when he was speaking and realize that it wasn't my real words. It is the voice of my fears and doubts. Once I realize that they don't represent my true feelings, I can begin to separate them and show them externally. I can start confronting her and countering her negative statements.

Part of achieving happiness and maturity involves changing our inner voices, which means confronting a variety of persuasive and confident voices, but also useful and constructive, over long periods and being careful to absorb them. We need to hear them often enough and everywhere difficult enough issues make them feel natural and natural responses, so that they eventually feel that the things we say to ourselves become our own thoughts. — School of Life, Overcoming Bad Internal Sounds

It has developed multiple strategies to combat impostor syndrome and a critical inner voice to develop confidence. Make believe:

• Recognize the failures of others to get the view that my point of view was natural and part of the journey

• Keep a diary of my past successes by writing them down every few days

• Show my voice and use it even when I don't feel confident about it

My ability to stay confident comes from having a correct internal narrative of what success looks like. I realized that if I looked carefully, I could see the growth path and the obstacles that others had to overcome. Most news stories don't go into all these details, but I spend time reading about them because they give me an idea of the journey the person or company went through behind the scenes. I am fully aware of my journey, how long and winding it is, and what mistakes I made. I write down my past successes in a journal every few days and periodically review the list to remind myself of what I'm capable of. I find it a very valuable exercise to calm the anxious sounds in my head and boost my self-confidence. Sean Accur, author of The Happiness Advantage, says this exercise trains the mind to be "success conscious" (rather than "fail-conscious"), leading to a more positive mindset and higher performance at work. The more contributions I make, the more confident I am. In addition to these exercises, I found that the best behavior to follow to develop confidence in the work is to understand that successes and failures are normal. When I adopt this attitude, mistakes and failures become acceptable to me because they do not diminish my self-worth. When mistakes and failures become safe, I tend to take more risks. When risks pay off and I succeed, my confidence and belief in myself rise. The cycle of risk-taking and making it come to fruition is the way I grow and face bigger and bigger challenges with strong belief in myself. I say to myself this motto: "I can make mistakes and remain loved. I'm enough. I am a quiet place for myself. I believe in myself. I'm sure.