As the classic David Bowie song goes: “Pressure, pushing down on me/Pressing down on you, no man asks for (I might add, no woman asks for either).”
No one likes to be under pressure at work, but it’s unavoidable. You can try your hardest to keep organized and expect the unexpected, but sometimes things just “come up.” When this happens, many people tend to panic and run around a little like a chicken with its head cut off. Maybe you do the same. But if you truly want to be able to problem solve your way through some tough pressure, the first thing you need to have is confidence. Why confidence? Why not a clone of yourself to help you manage everything? Well, we haven’t successfully closed a human yet, so that option is out of the running. Confidence is important for the following reasons:
You know you’ll get it done. You’ve faced pressure many other times and each time, you’ve come through with little to no scratches. Knowing that you’ll make it through a crisis or a high-pressure situation can come in really handy when you are stuck in the middle with no apparent way out. Just breathe and think, “I’ve done this before and I’ll do it again.”
You can trust your judgment with coworkers. When it comes to deadlines and crises, sometimes you can’t handle it all and you need to delegate. If you aren’t confident in yourself, then you won’t trust your teammate choices. Trust yourself to trust others and your stress levels will go way down.
You know your strengths and weaknesses. Being confident doesn’t mean being arrogant. It means being comfortable with who you are, shortcomings and all. When you’re confident, you feel comfortable giving tasks to other team members that are stronger in certain areas where you still need work. Sure, you’ll work to better yourself, but a high stress situation is not the best time for self-improvement and a confident woman knows this.
Confidence takes work, but when you feel self-assured, tackling hard projects under a lot of pressure can feel like a breeze.
