Happy whoever has it naturally
Self-confidence is the ability to recognize one’s own strengths and weaknesses, to be conscious of them. This also means being able to talk about them. Self-confidence is very helpful in career planning. Because self-confident people are one step ahead of their more self-critical contemporaries in positioning themselves in working life. This has a positive effect in job interviews, but also in salary and promotion interviews. In this respect, not all equally qualified employees have the same good career cards. Why are not all people naturally self-confident? The reason is that with increasing routine we do things more and more automatically and therefore more unconsciously. Our limited brain capacity must be available for the unforeseen and new. So, it is quite natural that the more experience we have, the more unconscious we are. However, there are obviously people who are more self-confident by nature than others.
All others can learn self-confidence
The good news for everyone else is that they can learn self-confidence. As bad news, you might argue that it’s time-consuming. With my clients I observe that the self-confident ones find it easy to tell personal stories. They do this naturally and describe what they have contributed to mastering a challenge. So, self-confidence is shown in the ability to tell stories (storytelling). Less self-confident people can also learn this. Among other things, this is part of a personal and professional assessment. But it needs discipline. The biggest obstacle is usually the less self-confident people’s dogma of not being able to change anything about this lack. However, there is a consolation: Their ability is self-criticism with the advantage that they are always developing. This is where the self-confident ones have to watch out. Their weakly developed self-criticism may tempt them to invest too little in their personal development.