The Dictionary.com definition of confidence is:
“1. full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing:
We have every confidence in their ability to succeed.
2. belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance:
His lack of confidence defeated him.”
Note how the definition of confidence includes the danger of not having it: defeat in the face of challenge.
To be able to “go confidently in the direction of your dreams” as Henry David Thoreau said, you need to have a clear idea of what makes you strong and the strength of mind to overcome internal and external obstacles that undermine confidence: your own fears and insecurities and external criticism and challenges.
Step One: Own Your Strength
When you can see and embrace your innate talents, and the skills you’ve learned - through life experience as well as what you’ve learned in the classroom - you...
Doubting our abilities can stop us in our tracks. We can all probably pinpoint a time when we've given up on something, out of fear, and ended up missing out. This can be especially debilitating for women.
Co-authors of the book, The Confidence Gap, The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, revealed that confidence struggles particularly damage women’s careers.
A chronic lack of confidence among women leads them continually to underestimate their abilities, fail to put themselves forward for promotion, and predict they won’t perform well when faced with challenges - far more so than their male counterparts.
In one example, a study by Hewlett-Packard found women only considered going for that promotion when they were 100% confident they fulfilled all job requirements. Men were happy to apply with only 60% of the requirements fulfilled.
Even the expected income of graduate students differed, with women...
I remember about 10 years ago sitting in a hairdresser’s chair with foils sticking out around my head, looking as if I’d stuck my finger in an electric socket.
My hairdresser had asked me about my career as a television anchor (oh so glamorous at that particular moment) wondering if I would always want to work in television. I remembered saying:
“No. I really want to help women reinvent: show them ways to get unstuck and move toward their dreams which they keep putting on the back burner. I want to help them get what they really want and deserve in their lives.”
At the time I said this, I was feeling pretty stuck myself. I was on a treadmill of doing nightly news that seemed increasingly superficial and seeing my family less and less often. I desperately needed to reinvent my life.
A half a world away, and what seems like a lifetime since that day at the hairdresser's, I finally realized that I'd reached...
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