Why there’s no reason you should not trust In your abilities to deliver despite your youth, and how you can see it too
Do you constantly doubt your ability to deliver the results you promise? Truth is, you are not alone. Many young professional, especially those starting out, struggle with confidence in their abilities. This post seeks to dispel the fears associated with young people and with their ability to deliver.
Truth is, the faster you realise you have to genuinely trust yourself to deliver the results you promise, especially as a young professional, the faster you will reach whatever goals you have laid out for yourself you. There’s no magic to this.
Too many new guys (a better term would be; job entrants; fresh outta schoolers) walk around with zero confidence in their ability to deliver results. As though, they feared to fail or to deliver a wrong answer, but that’s totally not it. Granted; trust and confidence are developed, in most occasions, and ultimately, from a place of merit…
Yet, it can be hard to have confidence with no experience – you’ve got to see yourself do the deed, to be able to do it without supervision and micromanager. See, truth is you need to step outside the comforts of waiting-to-be-directed-first, and more into this-is-what-I-gotta-give. See?
Here are three ways to build that trust in your ability truth: and they are so simple you can start applying them today:
1. Never Stop Learning; Educate yourself
I dunno how to stress this enough! The first step in your personal trust-building is to educate yourself.
When I was little, my mum would come home from work, literally, with a new book, EVERYDAY. It didn’t seem like a big deal till we entered our friends’ homes and saw how few books they had. I was reading before I knew who Bugs Bunny was. What I mean here is to never stop reading books, watching educative videos, taking courses, joining related webinars, everything and anything that will teach you what you need to know about your business.
It’s critical to start now, if you’ve never been intentional about it. The other day, I deleted my Netflix. Before you jump at me with “there’s educational stuff on there too!” –It was becoming a distraction. The app had perfected learning my taste in weird, foreign language, mini-series, and just kept dishing them out. I needed a permanent way out.
Know this and know peace: The more knowledge you have, the more confident you will be in your ability to deliver results. You don't have to know everything right away, but being willing to learn and constantly improve is key to building confidence.
2. Practice, practice, practice
At this point, I’m probably sounding like a cooked-up Inspirational speaker. Please don’t imagine Tony Robbins saying this in his gruff voice, “As you already guessed; Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes” – I burst at laughing at this, but again you should know how perfectly sound this line is. Anything that’s made of muscle in your body has memory. Ow, you thought it was just your brain, sorry champ, it’s every thing.
See, even your little toe remembers when it took that hit on the corner bed. It remembers your limp and how in 5 days the pain left. Every part of you remembers everything. So it stands to reason that they can be taught things. This is true for even plants and cheese. Same thing as confidence. The more you practice it, the more confident you will become in your abilities. Take 10 mins every day, on your commute to work, or your morning prep, to practice confidence, to practice speaking up, to practice saying, I’ll try this or that. Every opportunity to hone your skills and try new things, take it! Don't be afraid to make mistakes, for they are an important part of the learning process.
Embrace them, learn from them, and move on. Simple.
3. Get coaching, get mentorship, get a support system
It's important to surround yourself with supportive people who believe in you and your abilities. And these people can be anyone; friends, family members, or even other young professionals who are in your shoes.
I tell young people all the time; gang up! Get together and share ideas for valuable shared gains. If you notice y’all having a confidence issue, come together and offer yourselves the encouragement and support to push through it. Build yourselves up a support system for professional advancement.
Next, get yourself a coach and mentor. Same thing, or different depending on how you look at it. But the premise here is that you constantly have an ideal you look up to, an image you seek to attain as a professional, in someone who has done it before, towed that path you wish to tread, and can guide you along. Most entrepreneurs are hit and miss, they made it big, but can’t guide you to a similar victory, but professionals and corporate giants are a bit different. They can break down the steps in a more practical manner. Get you one. It’s not difficult. Use LinkedIn, or talk to someone in your organisation, book an appointment or send a cold mail. 80% of the time, they’ve been waiting for the opportunity
It’s a shortcut to the confidence booster you should have long taken.
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Fun fact: I wrote this sitting on the edge of my bed in an awkward posture, and now I have strain. That’s how much I value you. Enjoy!
TLDR;
Nothing can take the place of confidence. But it’s a shame so many young professional don’t have it, nor do they trust in their own abilities.
I show them how to build that confidence so they can make the professional advancements necessary for upward growth:
Never Stop Learning; Educate yourself
Practice, practice, practice
Get coaching, get mentorship, get a support system
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
He will put some things behind; will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
End.
Weekly Product Find
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