cultivate a confident demeanour

Today I facilitated my first ever workshop – me, ‘in charge’, of a whole group of people (including my boss!) discussing proper issues! :)

It went pretty well, I think – feedback has been pretty okay, too.

And d’you know what? Having managed that – I feel I could take on a ton of stuff! :)

Yesterday I gave three presentations (one twice), and while hardly a standing ovation, I think they were quietly well received. Best bit – I wasn’t really that nervous about it. That I knew more about my topic than my audience, and knew the audiences, really helped, but still!

Today I was in danger of hitting one of my big negativity traps: being absolutely shattered. However, I actually rode it out in a vaguely spacy half-chirpiness, and coped well. Couple of quick wins when colleagues helped me answer questions. The ‘big scary’ meeting of the day was hugely helped by the fact that I summed up what I wanted to say to my manager, before she accompanied me into the meeting – and could then have confidence in what I was saying and back me up! Good lesson, when it’s possible! (another confidence boost: deciding someone else in the meeting is rather cute – certainly makes you want to look impressive ;))

And finally was chased re the final project I was working on: okay, I did make my “I’ve not been here” excuses – must learn, excuses bad! – but redeemed myself by actually going over there and then to ask someone for the code I needed to continue, and said encouraging things about how soon it could all get done.

So… not bad, methinks!

During a quick review this morning I was told that my performance has been praised and that I performed really well but in order to go that extra step towards a promotion, I would need to become more ‘vocal’ and more ‘out there’.

So, will definitely need to think about how to achieve this as this has always been my weak point.

I had an absolutely fantastic (if late!) end of year review today, first with my new team, and most amazingly positive feedback session I think I’ve ever had. Definitely worth remembering it, and holding on to the smiley :) If nothing else, it strikes me as a great place to begin working on this goal – both because lack of confidence was raised as one of my areas of improvement, and because being told people think you’re fabulous does amazing things for that confidence :)

So, while I’ve felt I’ve struggled along through my first five months at this job, picking up a lot but near-drowning in everything I still don’t know, covering less than half of what I thought I was supposed to be taking over, turns out that my team is hugely pleased with my progress. I was praised for picking up as much as I did – particularly the IT-esque aspects. In fact, my upcoming plan for the year is going to lean as much in that direction as possible…

Ping! :)

As if I haven’t droned on enough about it by now, I’m currently reading Finding Your Own North Star. One of the early ideas, which tied back to my own long-held beliefs, is that doing something you’re good at and drawn to is much easier than the less well-fit stuff… but just because it’s not as much of a struggle doesn’t mean that it’s not every bit as worthwhile!

I think sometimes we’re sort of conditioned to think we must focus on our weaknesses, at school, at work. One of the most convincing things my now boss-boss said to me when I was discussing applying for the role, was that he didn’t believe in that approach. Well, a bit – yes, you should improve if you can, but for the most part there’s no point in hiring a numbers-type only to have them spend their entire career struggling to improve their wordiness, so to speak!

Add in Martha Beck’s North Star thoughts, and suddenly I’m seeing the sense in this so much more! I was told today that my team was impressed with my communication and interpersonal skills, in taking on a project independently, etc., but at the end of the day what I like doing is messing with data, and coding and all things geeky. And suddenly here I am in a team that has that kind of role available – and all I have to do is speak up and push myself forwards for those tasks, leaving as little space as possible for the dealing-with-stupid-people type work ;)

Which is a hugely long-winded way of saying, it’s much much easier to project confidence when you’re doing something you enjoy and feel suited for.

I’ll revisit this goal – and reword it into a positive phrasing [new phrasing inspired by The International Hog of Mystery :)] – after all the hospital-bleh, but today I actually got scolded by my (very lovely!) manager for completely putting myself down in a meeting. I’m cringing at the thought of it, actually. Not one to dwell on: I am stonkingly tired, which is the worst time for displaying any confidence, but in future I really really want to!

Thing is, I learned this terrible habit in early childhood: I was the hugely bright one in school, and emphasising my weaknesses was a way to stop people hating me. Ack! No excuse – I’m not that child any more, and I’d actually rather like people to find me intelligent and confident and all that! :)

So: fake it. If I’m unsure about my ability – fake it! Say I’ll look into it, find the info, work on the skills, whatever. Thing is, I am bloddy brilliant, and it’s time to live that!!