By Kate Gaskell
It can be hard work building your professional identity and if you’re feeling that, you’re not alone, with one in three young people lacking confidence in the workplace, there’s a real risk that people are entering new jobs with fear and low self-esteem.
This isn’t just damaging for your wellbeing, it’s damaging for your career. Second-guessing decisions, avoiding challenges, and contributing fewer ideas are all ways low confidence shows up in our professional lives.
Advocacy from a manager is important, but for helping you feel seen and appreciated in your role, it’s self-advocacy that needs to come first.
So, how can you start putting your best foot forward?
Build your self-esteem
As a disclaimer: you are not going to be your best self every day at work. No one is. But professional confidence comes from authenticity, not perfection.
Start by understanding what you’re good at, and identifying the areas where you struggle. For a lot of entry-level talent, particularly young people, this could be voicing ideas, and participating in meetings. Having small but achievable goals to strengthen this can be helpful in building your confidence. Maybe you want to go to at least one networking event a month, or you want to bring at least two ideas to every meeting. Identifying a weakness takes away some of the fear around it and reframes the way we view past mistakes.
Sometimes, confidence can come from the way we communicate our work, down to our language choices. If you’ve made a clear, articulate point, you don’t need to end your sentence with ‘…if that makes sense’. Labelling things as ‘no big deal’ also undermines your confidence in a professional setting. You want your contribution to be recognised meaningfully, so use your language carefully and don’t be so quick to dismiss your achievements.
Invest in relationships
We learn and grow through other people, so it’s no surprise personal networks are held at such a high regard in professional settings. But building your network, especially when you’re just starting out, can feel intimidating and hard to navigate.
A lot of this comes from the pressure to build your network upwards, and to increase exposure to those in more senior roles. But why not try networking sideways, and looking at the peers closest to you. Investing in relationships doesn’t just mean securing opportunities, it means building knowledge and sharing experiences.
Networks are also a great way to get more feedback. In some teams, feedback is only given in quarterly, sometimes yearly, reviews. And this is a catalyst for overthinking. When we know we have a review coming up, and our performance is coming under the microscope, we let this nervousness dictate how we receive the feedback. We go in the meeting expecting the worst, which can sometimes make constructive criticism feel a lot harsher than it actually is.
By having people in your network offer feedback more often, we can lessen this worry, and get more comfortable with the idea that there’s always room for improvement.
Acknowledge every win
When a small win comes along, it’s often dismissed. It feels like there’s little time to recognise the efforts, especially when you’re working to deadlines, and there’s always a ‘bigger picture’ in the background. But you can’t acknowledge the big payoffs without appreciating all the small steps that got you there.
Make a note of these achievements. Record it however works best for you, whether that’s a feedback spreadsheet, writing in your journal, or leaving a note in your phone. You’d be surprised how many seemingly small, but positive, interactions we seem to forget at work.
On the days you’re not feeling your best, or you’re hit with a particularly challenging problem, it can be really helpful to go back to your notes. These records remind you of your capability, and shows you how well you’re really doing.
Building professional self-esteem is a skill that carries you beyond the workplace. When you believe in your value as an employee, it becomes much easier to believe in your worth in other scenarios, like as a friend or a partner. Closing the confidence gap helps your work get the visibility and appreciation it deserves.
About the author
Kate Gaskell is the CEO of Flex Legal. With nearly two decades of experience in the legal sector, she has worked across Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms in London and Sydney, before going on to hold a director role at LexisNexis.
Kate joined Flex Legal in April 2022 and brings a deep commitment to people, championing their development, wellbeing, and the opportunity to do work that is genuinely fulfilling.
