Читать книгу Dealing with Difficult People - David Brown, David Brown - Страница 16

‘Confidence’ comes from the Latin confidere, which means to trust. If you are to handle difficult people, they need to trust you, which means that you have to trust yourself. You need to trust your motives, your decision making and your people skills.

Confidence goes hand in hand with assertiveness, which is distinct from aggression or over-confidence (see Secret 1.5) It’s other people’s perceptions of you that matter here, but there are steps you can take to ensure that your confidence is at an appropriate level. You should first ask yourself a few questions:

• When do you feel comfortable, and when do you feel out of your comfort zone?

• How comfortable are you with what you have achieved in life?

• Where do you add value, and where do you add little value?

• How well equipped are you to do your job?

• When might you need to be more decisive or inclined to take risks?

• When do nerves inhibit your performance? When does your body language betray you?

• When do you ever feel the need to cover up a lack of confidence?

“People become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I can do things I acquire the ability to do it.” Mahatma Ghandi

• Do you harbour any self-limiting beliefs about yourself? Do you contribute as fully as you should?

• Do you feel in control of your life at work?

• Are you overly concerned about what people think of you?

Reflect on your answers to the questions. They can be connected with many things – meeting the ‘big boss’ for the first time, speaking to 30 people, an unpleasant experience or a lack of key skills. The trick is to look for clues and patterns, and then do something about it:

• Remind yourself of your successes. What are you good at?

• Treat yourself. Maximize your time spent with people who appreciate you and in situations in which you excel.

• Address your development needs. Share your ideas with a trusted colleague. Consider training, coaching or mentoring.

• Visualize being successful. Top sportspeople do this; it breeds success!

• Open an achievement bank. Create a log of your successes.

• Learn from your mistakes. But don’t be inhibited by them.

• Set achievable goals. Recognize that you can’t be good at everything.

In short – take stock of yourself; know what you are capable of; keep learning; be prepared to develop your capability by stepping outside your comfort zone and live with ambiguity.

For others to have confidence in you, develop your own confidence.