One of the key ingredients to your relaunch is building your
confidence to get out the door and head back to work! Perhaps you know
which path you want to pursue, you are comfortable with your resume and
LinkedIn profile, and have a list of people to contact. But, you are
having a tough time pressing the “Go” button. This is when you want
your confidence to kick in! If you find that it doesn’t happen
overnight, you are not alone. Confidence sometimes needs a nudge, and
there is no better time to start nudging than right now.
Confidence is being the best you can be and believing you can
succeed. Confidence takes your intentions and creates action. For
relaunchers, confidence has you ask for an informational interview.
Confidence moves you to apply for a position, and it is confidence that
convinces you that you are ready, qualified, and deserving of a seat at
the boardroom table.
Not there yet? That’s okay. Confidence can be learned and built, using these strategies:
1. Manage the Inner Critic: Everyone has to manage the voices that
send unhelpful messages, such as “You aren’t skilled enough. You aren’t
good enough.” The inner critic can be overly active and very inaccurate
during a career relaunch.
- What does your inner critic tell you when you think about
relaunching? Write down the messages you hear, and then start talking
back. Acknowledge the fears that you feel and then, for every
self-defeating thought you have, come up with three arguments to the
contrary. When you practice talking back to your inner critic, it
eventually gets tired and eases up.
2. Take Action: Confident people make decisions, take risks, and
follow through quickly without looking back. Set an intention each day
to take a risk and you will see the compound effect it has on your
confidence.
- Start small. Like a toddler learning to walk, baby steps work.
You can tell your friends you are going back to work, and no longer just
‘thinking about it.’ You can ask a friend to help brainstorm career
paths, sign up for a course to refresh specific computer skills, and
block off one hour daily to focus on your relaunch. As you take one
risk each day, your identity will slowly shift and along with it, your
confidence.
- Play to your strengths: Write out a list of twenty things you do
well, and come up with actions and risks that employ your strengths. If
you feel confident as a runner, talk about your relaunch in your
running group where you already feel safe. If you are an excellent
volunteer, take on a new challenge within the organization to learn a
tech skill you may need for your relaunch.
As you follow these steps for greater confidence, remember that you
are only out of practice when it comes to work. You likely weren’t
confident on your first day of college, the morning you started your
first job, and the first time you became a parent. But with practice
and perseverance, you learned. You took it one step at a time, failed
and succeeded along the way, and found your confidence.
Relaunching your career is another first, but the formula remains the same. Start today and get ready for the results.
