Here are eight tips to build your competence and boost your confidence:
# 1 Building competence requires courage...courage to face the facts. Seek feedback about your performance. Be ready for what you might hear and be prepared to make changes that might feel uncomfortable but will build your competence.
# 2 Take baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is our competence. Start with just one new skill, one tool or one new area of knowledge. Use it until it becomes a habit. First you form your habits, and then your habits form you.
# 3 Listen more than you talk. Remember what Mark Twain said, "If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear." When you listen, you learn and also prevent "blind spots" — weaknesses that are apparent to others but not to you. The higher your rise in an organization, the more you must listen.
# 4 Build your BEST team — Buddies who Ensure Success and Truth. Choose your team wisely. Ensure each member offers the energy, truth and positive perspective you need to succeed. Connect with your BEST team, individually or as a group, on a consistent basis. Learn from them and help them — it goes both ways.
# 5 Create it once, use it many times. If you know you will perform a task more than once, create a checklist, form or template to save time and improve your consistency over the long haul. No need to reinvent the wheel every time you conduct or coordinate an off-site meeting, prepare a proposal, send out a mailing, plan a new project time line, etc.
# 6 Learn along the way. After you complete each task, ask yourself, "What should I Stop, Start and Keep?"Identify those things that did not go so well (Stop), those you did not do that would have helped (Start) and those that went well (Keep).Continually improving your performance is a powerful way to build competence — it turns good to great!
# 7 Ask the right questions. The fastest way to change the answers you receive — from yourself and others — is to change the questions you ask. Asking the right questions will get you better answers whether you are asking it of yourself or of others. The questions you ask will either limit or expand the possible responses.
# 8 Be decisive! Get 80% of the information you need, then make the best decision you can. Don't let being perfect stop you from doing something good. Remember, good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
