Changing This 1 Thing Made Me Super Confident and Popular at Work

During my university studies, I worked part-time as a programmer in a small software company. While I received a warm welcome in the team initially, I slowly started losing respect and popularity among my colleagues. This was caused by subtle mistakes in my behavior, of which I was unaware at the time.

After university, I got a full-time job at a different company. And this time, it was different. I was very popular among my colleagues. Everyone liked me and respected my opinions. Looking back, I was wondering what caused such a big difference from my previous work. And then I realized that I’ve made a crucial mindset shift between the jobs. If you’re also struggling with being confident at work, perhaps you can learn from my story…

Underestimating my Abilities

Without being aware of it, I was exhibiting behavior that was communicating low confidence and low self-respect. This is because however you feel on the inside, it is visible for everyone from the outside.

These were usually just some small and subtle behaviors. For instance, if somebody complimented me on doing a good job, I would downplay it by saying something like “Oh that’s nothing, it wasn’t a complicated task. Anyone else could do it. In fact, they would probably do it better”.

On the other hand, anytime I made a mistake, I would always over-blow it. I would say things like “Oh I can’t believe what an idiot I am. How could I’ve made such a dumb mistake…”

This kept on accumulating over time and I was slowly “training”, my colleagues to see me as this incompetent guy who breaks everything he touches (even though my skills were actually pretty good). They gradually joined me in downplaying my good work and over-blowing my mistakes. Anytime I did a good job, it would get ignored and when I made a mistake, my colleagues would be talking about it for days.

Having to Do the “Dirty” Work

Thanks to the reputation that I was building for myself, I would always be assigned to work on the worst projects. That meant inheriting some old poorly written piece of software from a person who didn’t work there anymore and having to just fix bugs. For all of you non-programmers, this is basically the most frustrating job you can get. As opposed to building new projects from scratch (which is the most creative and rewarding work).

But it all made sense. After all, I was profiling myself as the “incompetent guy”.

Ignoring my Suggestions

The company was experiencing serious issues with product quality and constantly struggling to meet deadlines. All the problems were blamed on poor management by my colleagues. While there was no doubt that the way the company was managed needed to improve, I could see a lot of issues on our (the programmers) side. I could see a lot of issues in our development process. These issues were causing low quality product quality and as a result, we had to waste a lot of time on fixing bugs instead of doing actual development.

If I tried to suggest any improvements, it would usually go like this: At first, my colleagues would tell me all sorts of excuses why the old way of doing things is the best and why my suggestions wouldn’t work. If I rebutted their arguments, they would just say “I don’t want to talk about it anymore…” and the discussion was over. I was almost never able to convince them.

Constant People Pleasing

I was trying to make everyone like me and to fit in, afraid to criticize anyone for doing something wrong. If somebody was acting in a way that made me feel uncomfortable or angry, I would just suppress it and pretend like nothing happened or as if I didn’t mind.

Constantly analyzing what I was going to say, and “walking on eggshells” in order not to offend anyone. And I would apologize profusely in rare instances when I said or did something controversial.

I was unable to say “no” to anyone out of fear that if I refuse their request, they wouldn’t like me. As a result, I was being used as a doormat anytime someone needed help, or even is they didn’t want to do some unpleasant task. I even went so far as “forcing” my help on others. If I heard someone talking about some problem, I would immediately rush in with my advice or offer to help. It could get quite frustrating though, because usually my advice was completely ignored.

When Nobody Likes You

I was the guy who nobody likes, but has to tolerate, because he works in the same office. This was apparent in several situations.

A good example was going to lunch, where it was a custom that the whole team went together to the cafeteria. When it was time, Carl(1 of my colleagues) asked everyone on the team whether they’re ready to go. If they had something important to do, they would say “just give me 5 minutes” and the whole group would wait. Well actually, he didn’t ask everyone. I was literally the only person in the whole office, who he skipped. I just had to get up whenever they decided to go. If I didn’t react fast enough, they would leave me behind without saying a word.

Needless to say, I was also never invited to any after-work activities of the group, such as getting beers, playing cards, wine tasting, etc.

However after graduating, I got a job at a different company, and I had a completely different experience…

New Work, New Start

The new job gave me a fresh start with completely new colleagues, who haven’t been “trained” to dislike me yet. I wasn’t really sure what to do with my life. Do I stay in the same city or do I move? I was in a 3 month trial period, which meant that I could quit at any time, if I changed my mind. This meant that I didn’t care about my reputation. And that made all the difference.

I didn’t care about the new colleagues either. I didn’t care what they thought of me. I wasn’t afraid to say no to them. I wasn’t afraid to make stupid jokes, or to voice my opinion and “stand my ground” when I thought my way of doing things was better. This often resulted in long and “heated” discussions with my team members and even with my boss. There were a couple of times when I thought I will get fired for this, but since I didn’t care about the job anyway, I just kept doing it.

But I didn’t get fired. Actually, quite the opposite happened. I noticed, people started respecting me for my knowledge and skills. They even started asking me for advice. I also became quite popular in the collective. It turned out people loved my crazy stories, my twisted sense of humor and my my stupid jokes and. I was invited to every cool after work activity and I became an integral part of the group. What and interesting contrast to my previous job.

What I Learned from This

On the surface level, we can look at my story and determine some practical tips on how to (not) behave in the work environment. For example:

• Don’t down-play your level of skills and experience .
• Don’t be afraid to voice and defend your opinion.
• If somebody acknowledges your work, let it land. Don’t diminish your successes.
• Don’t exaggerate your mistakes. Learn from them and move on. It’s human to make mistakes.
• It’s OK to say no. You don’t have to do everything you get asked to. It doesn’t mean other people won’t like you.
• Show your personality. Make that stupid joke, tell that crazy story. Don’t be afraid of getting embarrassed or judged by others.

What About the One Thing?

So the tips above are cool and all, but the title promises just one important thing. Well, I started doing all of the things listed above naturally just by changing this: I stopped caring what other people think of me.

Try to think about it: If you have low confidence, you tend to care way too much about what others think of you. You are constantly afraid to look stupid or to offend someone. This leads to walking on eggshells, filtering what you can say, and hiding your personality behind a mask. You just become this shallow grey character in the background. And that’s why you have trouble connecting with others.