Before I headed off to the start of a new school year, I got coffee with one of my closest high school friends. We are both small in stature, but definitely not small in aspirations as we both want to be attorneys. It takes a lot of work to even make it into law school and thinking about heading into a cut throat world was becoming daunting to us. How could two fragile girls like ourselves be able to cooperate in that kind of environment?
The conversation about our futures continued on in that manner: stating how we're scared to get internships because we feel like we don't deserve them, how the thought of a boss yelling at you for doing a minor thing wrong is overwhelming, how we don't feel that people can take us seriously with our bubbly and girly mannerisms and voices.
However, then it finally hit us. All those negative things were not the problem...the problem is that we were thinking these negative things. We needed to change our thinking into a more positive thinking. I don't believe that anyone we know would describe us as unconfident, but it is clear to see that we were lacking that confidence when it came to the professional world. I'm not sure what caused this feeling in the both of us. Whether it was the fact that we are still in our early years of college and don't necessarily feel qualified for the work or because of are shared self deprecating humors doesn't matter. I always thought it was important to have confidence to be able to ignore the mean things people can say or to feel comfortable in social situations, but there is such a higher level of confidence that is required for the transitiion from college student to full blown adult and that is professional confidence.
I've realized that if you go into an interview feeling scared, unconfident, and undeserving of the position the employeer is going to take notice of your attitude and probably won't put you on the top of the list of people he wants to hire. It is important to remember that out of all the people who applied for a position you made it to the interviewing stage, which alone gives you merit. You need to keep that confidence booster in mind and think that "they believe in me enough to offer me an interview, so I believe in myself enough to know that I am a good fit for this job," even if you're interview is with someone successful and intimidating.
One motto that we took to heart once our coffee cups were emptied was "fake it til you make it," which is literally what I'm going to be practicing for a long while. No matter how I'm feeling in a situation, I'm going to force myself to think more positively and confidently until eventually it becomes so second nature for my mind to think that way that I won't have to fake it anymore. Because we, and everyone, deserves to feel confident in any situation.
