Are you too honest for your own good?
Have you ever wondered whether you are too honest for your
own good? Now what do I mean by that, let me explain. For Example, you go for a
job interview and the interviewer tell you that you’ll have to achieve these
unrealistic targets, do you say yes I will do that even though you know you are
not so sure about it and then your mind starts thinking is that possible. What I
mean to be precise is, let’s say the name of the company is X and you have
heard the name for the first time in your life and the interviewer says that
they have this event and you have to get the top people for that event, then
the mind starts thinking I just heard the name of the company now, so how do I
really manage to reach such top people and communicate to them that this is a fabulous
company and you should take some time out an come for it’s event. So you are
thinking and trying to give the interviewer a honest answer and, the interviewer assumes that you lack confidence.
Even though you know it’s not that you lack confidence, but are trying to be a
realist here. Well to be really honest, you’ll have to be a little realistic
and say I will give it my best shot. But then in this world today even that is
considered to be a lack of confidence.
What a lot of these interviewers expect is a person who
says, yes it will be done. Now, saying yes it will be done is a sure shot way
of getting the message across that table that you do not lack confidence at all,
maybe a little over confident but works. Now let’s get to the point what’s this
about honesty and confidence. Well we all have out flaws, now when we think
about our flaws with a view of trying to overcome them, we tend to think about
them every time some challenges crop up, like in the case illustrated above,
what happened. You went for the interview and then your mind started thinking a
lot of things, like is the company brand good enough to get the kind of people for
the events, how will I manage that, will I be able to deliver, should I tell
him/her yes I will be able to do this job, what will happen if I don’t deliver,
what if I manage to get no one, and then the thoughts start going downhill,
till you start having doubts about your own abilities. And all you are doing is
making an honest assessment.
STOP IT
Stop this assessment now. You don’t need to honestly think of
so many things, with so much doubt. What you need to do is start having some
faith in yourself. When an unrealistic target was given to you, all you could
have done was believed that you are up to the job to get those people and half
of your problems would have solved themselves. The interviewer would have seen
the confident you, would have realized that this person will be an asset to my
company. And automatically you would have said yes sir I will be able to do
that.
Now, understand the point, when you try to be too honest in
your self assessment, you tend to develop a lot of self doubts. This in turn
will make you look like a person low on confidence and that won’t help you
much.
So how do you gain that confidence, no matter what all the
confidence gurus say, it is ultimately you who has to think and figure out a
way to boost your confidence. One of the best methods has been to fake it.
FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
Well this will work, even when you are not a confident person
start behaving like a confident person, to actually motivate yourself to do
this, you do have to change a few things in your life, few simple things.
Groom yourself well, the better you look the more confident
you’ll feel.
Stay clean and hygienic.
Strike the power pose just for two minutes, the one which
every confidence coach says, keep both your arms on your waist and stand with
your shoulders up and chest out of two minutes, even two minutes will work
wonders with your mind.
Smile, this is a big trigger, when you smile you’ll actually
feel happy and that in turn will boost your confidence.
Find one good thing about yourself, maybe you have a caring
nature, good smile, good listener, manage to strike up a good conversation etc.
One good thing and start to be happy about that.
Stop thinking what others will think about what you say or
do, this is easy to say but really difficult to do. So you’ll have to consciously
work hard on this. Every time a thought like this comes to your head, and trust
me it comes a lot of times and it disguises itself in so many ways that it
becomes really difficult to point out when it comes. But you need to stay aware
and negate this negative thought completely.
BE LIKE A BABY, not a worry in the world.
Well all this is easy to type, but not that easy to
implement. But one BABY STEP A TIME and you’ll get it.
Just remember that you are in no way inferior than the
people around you, you have the same capabilities, all you need to do is start
believing that.
I will come up with a few more interesting ideas and tips
about this soon and will post it and share it with you all. Even I am working
on my confidence.
