Six Techniques to Boost Confidence (for Self-Promotion)

If you came here to learn practical tips focus on the six points below. I gathered them from Google Digital Garage’s course titled “Build confidence with self-promotion”  If you want a bit more context then read on. If you have 17 minutes do the free course yourself.

So without further due here are six simple yet great ways to increase your self-esteem:

1. Make a list starting with “I am remarkable because…”
2. Create a (professional) accomplishment list
3. Ask friends and colleagues what they value about you
4. Practice talking passionately about your skills, talents, and past achievements
5. Confidence backpack: Put all the things you are really proud of in a mental backpack. Then when you go into a situation where you are nervous or you are concerned remember them.
6. Power pose: Stand with your feet firmly on the floor, and your hands on your hips. It changes your physiology, helps you feel more confident.

The six points above proved to be the essence of the course for me.  However, focusing only on the “hows” is missing the context of the course: The purpose to boost self-confidence is to do better self-promotion. For that one needs to understand what self-promotion is and why it is difficult yet important. All of these topics were addressed in the three, 3 minutes long videos that make up the course. These videos are available on YouTube and anybody can watch them, even without taking the course, just click on the titles here:

1. Introduction to self-promotion
2. Explore what makes you stand out
3. How to practice self-promotion

From all the important lessons from these videos these are the main ones: Self-promotion

• is something that you need to exercise just like a muscle;
• is about educating the relevant people about the skills and values that you can bring to the organization;
• can help you reveal your untapped potential;
• feels icky because culturally some people find it really difficult to show off and promote themselves.

Now go on and self-promote without feeling bad about it!