The spa owner smiled warmly at me and set her notes to the side.
“Alright, Joan, I’m going to review everything and call you this week either way.”
I returned her smile nervously and gave her outstretched hand a shake. I had just interviewed for a massage therapist position, at what would be (if I got it) my second job in this field.
I really hoped I’d get it. I was working at another spa, and it wasn’t really… working out. I was a newbie in this industry, a little on the timid side, and so far, I hadn’t been able to inspire a lot of confidence from clients. Or my boss.
Maybe I just needed a fresh start. This lady didn’t know me; I could do it all over here - really wow everyone this time around.
Hopefully.
Unless it all turned out the same way, and proved that I had no business holding a license. And gosh, then this nice lady would’ve wasted her time hiring me, when she could’ve found someone great. Crap – she probably just wasted her time with this interview.
We were both standing now, and it was obviously my cue to turn to the door.
But I had to go and make it all awkward.
“Um, hey – please don’t hire me just to be nice.”
Oops. I’m still not sure why in the world I said it out loud, but there was no taking it back.
My interviewer looked startled, then stern, and she launched into the story of all she’d done to earn this spa of hers, and how it required good judgement and professionalism. She didn’t make business decisions to be nice.
I stammered out some reply, knowing my face matched the cheery, apple-colored bag I’d chosen for the interview. I hurried to my car.
About a week later, I got a call from the spa owner. I was still too embarrassed to pick up the phone, so I let it go to voicemail and listened to her message. She regretted to inform me that the position was filled, but she appreciated my time and would keep my resume on file for the future.
Want to know the Word of the Day?
It’s CONFIDENCE.
[kon-fi-duhns].
I love its definition: “belief in oneself”.
It took me a good long while to find some belief in myself, and not having it really affected everything. Including everything about work.
So this is Step 2 to using your job to get what you want, and this step is vital.
Step 2 is: Have confidence in yourself.
I talked about this a lot on my YouTube channel today, so I’m just going to boil it all down to a summary here:
Every hour on the clock is an opportunity for situations that could make us question ourselves, and those situations fly at us from all sides.
We need to feel good about ourselves.
You could know the best tips and strategies for excelling at work and making your job work for you. But if you don’t believe in yourself and your ability to make those strategies work – you might not do them, and then they... won’t.
So on that note, let’s get into some tips and strategies right now!
They’re a bunch of little habits I came up with for myself, when I decided to see if I could change the way I felt about being me.
I just have to toss out though, that I’m not an expert, or a professional, or anything else that would make me qualified to give advice on this subject. But I wanted to tell you about my experience and what worked for me, like I would any friend. Take this all with a grain of salt.
And just to warn you: it’s not earth-shattering stuff. They’re really simple things. But they’re that way on purpose. I needed to be able to do them every day, and I needed to be able to go through the motions with them, before I actually felt them. Does that make sense?
Anyway, here we go:
Smile at yourself in the mirror
Make eye-contact with, and smile at everyone you pass
Smile and say, “Thank you!” when you’re given a compliment
Do something every day that makes you feel attractive
Do something active every day
Save 10% of any money you make
Listen to something positive, inspirational, or instructional each day
Once you get used to appreciating compliments, start agreeing with them
Give at least one compliment, or show appreciation to someone each day
Start laughing a lot
Read something good each day
Give encouragement
Give back
Do something each day for you
Set and work toward a huge goal
I don’t really know why these worked for me. But I did them consistently, and gradually, over time, I changed. And everything changed for me.
I feel so different than I used to. I’m really happy with myself now. I believe in myself. And thank goodness, because it’s really been a useful thing at my last few jobs.
Try these out and see if they give your confidence a boost too. Even if not, they aren’t bad habits to have. And even if you already feel so fantastic about yourself that you cover every surface of your house in mirrors – join in on this too!
You need to have belief in yourself. You need to in life, and you need to at work.
This is something I’ll be referring to again and again. It’s a requirement for so many work-related issues, questions, strategies and topics I’ll be going into.
And it’s Step 2 to using your job to get what you want.
I feel strongly about this topic, and I talked about why in my YouTube video (below). I also went into each of the daily habits I listed in detail, to give some context and examples of how I did each one.
Please let me know your thoughts! Confidence is something near and dear for me, so I’m really interested to know what you think/feel about it in general, or what you think about how it affects our work, or just what you think about what I think about it. Leave a comment and let me know!