No one can be you the way you can be you. Being confident simply means having faith in yourself. What does it mean to be confident in your life and career? How can we build on our strengths to cultivate self-esteem?
Nadia Espinosa, Director FP&A, APAC Talent Solutions at LinkedIn provided valuable advice for the mentors and mentees of the YWLC Pay It Forward (PIF) Mentorship Programme at a confidence workshop on 17 July 2021.
Some of the PIF Mentorship Programme confidence workshop attendees
Here are the key highlights:
Pyramid of Confidence and Success – There are five essential ingredients to being confident and successful - ambition, adaptability, resourcefulness, having the resilience to fight, and faith that you can achieve your goals. Resourcefulness and resilience are the most important steps for success.
Authenticity is the core of your power. Own Your Style – Authenticity is at the heart of impactful and meaningful leadership. It is your distinct competitive advantage. Identify your good qualities, blind spots, and non-negotiables. Use these to decide on the best path for yourself. If you don’t know where to start, you could do so via personality tests (eg. MBTI). You could also review the results of these tests with your mentor. As you move on to another role or environment, do these tests again and reflect on how you have grown as an individual.
Harness these winning traits: Stay focused. “Losers focus on winners while winners focus on winning.” Social media has created a false sense of failure when there are in fact countless opportunities ahead. Focus on your craft while others are distracted. Take risks, don’t underestimate yourself. “Don’t keep your head down. Don’t submerge. Anybody who keeps their heads down does not make a dent on their future.” Dare to take the risks and do what you feel is right. Some of these risks are opportunities for you to be versatile and gain experience to move forward. People who take risks are often the most open-minded and adaptable individuals.
Educate to elevate yourself – The most successful people are not the ones who know everything from the start. It is the ones who continue to educate themselves, work on feedback, and are open to try new things all the time. There are plenty of information and resources (eg. books, podcasts, TEDtalks) out there to help you gain more knowledge. Be proactive and source for them.
Reflect – If you’ve committed a mistake, reflect, but do not get stuck there. Look towards the future and think about what you can do better or try differently. Additionally, whenever you get anxious about something, pause and think about whether it is a fact or fear. If you find yourself in this position, write down your thoughts, and visualise your next steps.
YWLC’s PIF Mentorship Programme is a 6-month mentorship programme in partnership with International Women’s Forum (IWF) and ITE College Central. YWLC members mentor budding young adults from IWF and ITE that are driven to learn. Mentor-mentee pairs from this programme consistently learn and bring out the best from each other.
For more information, join us at their info session on 7 Aug (Saturday), 10am.
Meeting ID: 851 1789 2653
Password: community
For other queries about YWLC’s Social Impact initiatives, email impact@ywlc.org.sg.
Click here to subscribe to YWLC's monthly newsletter and be the first to get our latest updates in your inbox.
Organising Committee: Social Impact Organising Team: Audrey Tim, Nithya Karthikeyan, Stacey Chua Speaker: Nadia Espinosa Author: Joey Ong