Is confidence a natural ability or can it be learnt?

I understand it's not generally the nature for introverts to actively attract attention to themselves. They're often rather in awe of those who can speak to anyone with ease, raise questions in meetings and address groups of people while actually seeming to enjoy themselves doing so!

But just because it’s not in your nature to do all of these things, doesn’t mean you can’t learn to do it. After all, public speaking and networking is a skill like any other, right? After all, you couldn’t swim before you learnt, you couldn’t ride a bike or drive a vehicle before you learnt, even something natural like walking and talking took months to learn and years to master all those years ago when we were very young.

The other thing that's true, and that we routinely take for granted, is that learning all of these things took courage to start, felt awkward at the beginning and required countless mistakes during the learning process. In fact, they still do feel awkward from time to time.

One of problems I see, is that the older and more experienced we get the less comfortable we are with not being ‘good’ at things, and the higher the expectations we put on ourselves. We all know with our logical minds that making mistakes is human and natural, that the learning process just takes time, and that we can’t all be naturally good at everything. Yet, that doesn’t stop us from excluding ourselves from these standards, expecting perfection and berating ourselves when we don't perform to a certain proficiency.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the higher up the pay scale you go the more pressure individuals put on themselves to be perfect at something. Particularly when that thing is something others are seen to be doing effortlessly. Like networking, speaking up in meetings and generally being visible at work. So basically, all those activities that extroverts not only do with ease, but actually genuinely enjoy and even gain energy from doing!

The fact is that for an introvert visibility is a big deal. Enough to cause feelings of vulnerability, anxiety and even panic attack. After all you don’t need a stage to get stage fright! Where extroverts gain energy from these social interactions, us introverts actually lose energy. Making networking something that needs to be carefully planned to safeguard our energy and prevent overwhelm.

If social interactions have always exhausted you, the chances are that it’s never crossed your mind that it could be any other way for you. You probably just accept the fact that this is how you are. What’s happening here is that you’re identifying so closely with the experience that you never even get curious about what’s happening or why, let alone investigate how you could be different.

So what if I told you that you could be different, that no matter how awkward you feel making small talk or speaking up in meetings with your peers, that you could find a different way to be? That you could learn to speak with confidence?

Think about it this way; if you can be confident and relaxed in other situations, it means that you possess the ability to be confident and relaxed. You can be relaxed, you can be confident, right? It’s not an ability you don’t possess?

Once you accept that you can 'do' confidence, it’s just a matter of finding a way 'do' just that in situations where you need to network and speak up in front of your peers. Of course how you do this is the magic question that I can’t answer for you here in this article, because everyone is different. Everyone has a unique although probably similar set of reasons surrounding why they get anxious networking or presenting. And therefore everyone needs to find their own different yet somewhat similar way of getting over it.

I use the term ‘similar yet somewhat different’ because in my clients I see similarities in the cause of these anxieties; and the techniques I use to help these clients overcome their anxiety is pretty much the same. But it’s addressing their unique situation and it’s tailored to their particular needs, working at their pace according to their environment and taking into consideration their temperament and their team.

It basically involves awareness, belief and desire. Awareness of what your triggers are and what your anxiety is all about. Belief that if you can 'do' confidence in one situation, you can learn to do it in another, and desire to do just that. You've got to actually want to speak up in meetings, present your data, progress your career. You need to find your reason for doing this, because this reason will be your fuel, driving you on to success. All those people in history who achieved great things in their lives, it rarely just happened to them, they wanted it, they worked hard and made it happen. I imagine if you asked any of them (whoever 'they' might be) what it was that drove them forwards, they all had a back story, a reason, a 'why'.

If you’re interested in working together to find out a strategy to help you overcome your challenges and find the confidence you need to start speaking up and gaining more visibility at work; if you already know your 'why' and you're ready to start doing the work, send me a DM.