Grow your confidence based on your personal values

Our personal values are an integral part of who we are, guiding our decisions, actions, and priorities in life. They shape our identities and influence the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. One may wonder how these values impact something as seemingly unrelated as confidence. Confidence, assertiveness, they are just connected with behaviors, the way we show up, right?

To explore this connection, let's consider the case of a person I've worked with and keep them anonymous. For the purpose of this article, we'll call her Sarah.

Meet Sarah: A Champion of Justice and Compassion

Sarah came to me for 1 to 1 sessions to work on her confidence and assertiveness. She works in a team. The job she does is divided into process groups where everyone shares workload and delivers to the common target. Among other things, she's responsible for onboarding new comers and training them in the job. Of course it requires time to train a person and a lot of answering questions and ad hoc help providing before the new person gets independent in working and decision making. As a remarkably empathetic individual she is, Sarah would sacrifice her plans to help others and won't say a word if a repetitive question from a person she already answered a few times pops up on an important meeting or other development activities she has planned for that time. Neither would she oppose it if the plan was to just do her part of the job in a high quality and because of all the help she had to give, she had to stay over hours to finish her job after she helped others to finish theirs. And we’re talking about people she trained in their job 6-9 months ago!

The Dilemma: Balancing Values and Work

Sarah is highly competent and passionate about her work. The team work she treats very seriously and she loves it. She needs people around her. She loves to help, she needs to feel needed for them and she contributes to the team's work helping others solving their problems.

However, she has noticed a growing concern in her daily routine. Many of her colleagues often come to her for help with what seems like simple tasks, and they rely on her expertise rather than going through training materials, other members and so on. While Sarah is more than willing to assist, the time she spends helping others on these routine matters starts to eat into her working hours. Consequently, she struggles to move forward with her planned projects, which are vital for developing her career and show her full potential in her work. When she came to me, she was feeling unfair that people she's taught their job have enough time to do their job and more (like develop on some additional courses and workshops). And she has so many development plans and cannot move forward. Ugh...

Fortunately, she has another strong value she won't let go as much as feeling needed - JUSTICE. And that's what brought her to me - she needs to feel that the job is fairly divided in a group and that everyone has the same chances and opportunities to grow if the workload allows. YEY!

The Confidence Conundrum

Of course, what you've just read is the outcome of our sessions when we went deep in her situation. Lots of questions and analyzing examples of situations she described. So the conclusion was that she wants to release some of her time from those “time thieves” and be able to focus more on her career while still being helpful and caring for others. Fair treatment was a solution.

We did a few exercises to see what is in scope of Sarah’s daily job. What additional responsibilities she has. What stage are those time consuming trainings in and what has to be still done to complete some of the longer lasting ones to the stage where Sarah’s decision is needed only in exceptional cases (I mean NEVER). We did a matrix of what is crucial/important (thank you Mr Eisenhower!) in a day and list of usual questions for her so she can already plan which can be ignored for an hour or two before the task she performs ends. She knows her and the team's priorities now and can navigate in ad hoc situations according to them. She has a list of things she wants to spend her freed up time on so whenever even a 10 min slot is available, she doesn’t spend it thinking on what to start from but just focuses on what she planned and continues her work.

Being flexible when needed and strict when it’s not an urgent situation - that requires confidence and knowing it’s boundaries set by your values. But what else her values say to Sarah, is that when she seeks fair treatment, everyone including her should be given that. So when she helps others to finish their job quicker (instead of letting them search themselves for answers) and have additional time to grow, she should do the same, or even ask from others for the same, FOR HER. For Sarah, the breakthrough question she heard from me was: “how often do YOU ask for help in performing your job or making decisions?”

I believe she has it in her to do such a self-reflection session herself and plan the confidence growth accordingly by changing the behavior step by step starting from less urgent situations. However, Sarah is one of the people I work with who claims that for such deep analysis and understanding of her situation, she needs another pair of eyes and ears, a sparring partner if you will, to see her from another perspective. And that is why our sessions work for her.

Conclusion

In Sarah's case, her personal values of justice and caring for others are closely intertwined with her confidence. While these values inspire her to help her colleagues, it's essential for her to maintain a balance to prevent her own professional development from stagnating. The key takeaway from this scenario is that aligning our values with our actions can enhance our confidence, but only when we find the right equilibrium.

Ultimately, your personal values can greatly influence your confidence. Whether it's justice, compassion, integrity, or any other deeply-held principle, understanding how your values impact your actions and self-assurance is essential for personal and professional growth. Ensure your values and your self-confidence complement one another rather than hinder your progress.

How your personal values relate to your confidence?