Our jobs reflect who we are, whether we like it or not. While some of us are content with our jobs and our work/life balance, others are finding it difficult to find harmony in the workplace, are looking to lock in that promotion, or are even mustering up the courage to request a well-earned raise.

While confidence isn’t something you might consider a necessity in your career, we’d like to argue otherwise. Confidence is the meat and potatoes behind following any intention through to the end and even determines its results. If you start a task with confidence, you’ll finish strong. Self-doubt, lack of self-esteem, and hyper-awareness will seriously throw your game off and interfere with your progress through the corporate ladder or can even hinder relationships with coworkers. Those with low confidence tend to isolate themselves within social constructs, work environment included.

How we perceive ourselves plays a vital role in our output and performance. It may not seem like the two are correlated, but confidence even determines how others view your capabilities and qualifications. So, what are some steps towards creating workplace confidence? We break down 4 tips here that can help you realize your worth and potential:

1. Change Your Body Language

Altering your body language can make massive impacts in the quality of communication with a superior, coworkers, or potential clients. Increasing eye contact, reducing excessive fidgeting, and adopting a power stance can shift the energy in conversations and have you expressing yourself more freely, feeling more confident, and standing a little taller.

Why is body language important? Think about how we interpret, without trying, certain body positions, such as crossed arms, averted gazes, and slouched shoulders. Your body exudes your interior. How you’re feeling on the inside is often manifested on the outside. However, by consciously influencing your outward posture and movements, you can directly and almost immediately change your interior mapping.

Our advice? There’s no reason to go overboard. Subtle changes in body posture can send a message that you mean business. Standing straighter, reducing fidgeting, maintaining more eye contact, and putting gusto into your handshakes is a wonderful first step towards training yourself to believe that you’ve got this.

2. Adopt a Workout Regimen

This one should be a no-brainer, but many people don’t realize that how we feel in our bodies trickles into our waking life. If we feel inert, lazy, and out of shape, it’s no wonder that we find ourselves struggling to execute tasks in the workplace with finesse.

Adopting a workout regimen is a fantastic way to contribute to your health and confidence. When we set goals and execute them, our brains release a feel-good chemical called dopamine. After a while, we begin to associate goal setting with positive energy and reinforcement.

Exercising also releases endorphins, a special hormone that has been proven to burn at cortisol levels. What is cortisol? Cortisol is known as the stress-chemical, a hormone that the body produces under duress, and which increases blood sugar levels, damages internal organs, and contributes to weight-gain and other health factors. Endorphins can drastically reduce cortisol levels in the body and what better way to induce this behavior in the body than with consistent exercise.

So how is incorporating a workout regimen going to help you in the workplace? Managing your self-confidence isn’t just about thinking a certain thought or attempting to believe you’re worth it. Oftentimes our brain and body chemistry can be off balance and taking care of ourselves on a holistic level can alter our modes of self-interpretation and affect our output and confidence. Work at the root and set realistic goals for yourself. Exercise, sleep well, and treat your body with the respect it deserves and you’ll begin seeing massive changes in the way you carry yourself.

3. Incorporate a Skincare Routine

This one meet seem a bit unorthodox, but did you know that skin conditions can affect as many as one in three Americans? From acne to dry skin, scars to blemishes, skin plays a huge role in our self-confidence. When we look in the mirror and notice these conditions, we may feel more inclined to hide our faces, avoid people and coworkers, and experience a drop in self-esteem. Though adopting a skincare regimen may seem like a superficial way to increase work self-confidence, it’s actually a logical approach and first step towards feeling more comfortable in our own skin.

Moisturizing, cleansing, exfoliating, dermarolling – these are all examples of skincare activities that can give you extra glow and confidence. We definitely recommend products by Gin Amber Beauty that are vegan, cruelty-free, and incredibly effective.

4. Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Being successful means taking risks, though this doesn’t necessarily mean in a reckless sense. Taking risks can be as simple as stepping outside of your comfort zone, taking on tasks you wouldn’t normally, and stepping up to request that promotion or raise you know is long overdue.

Stepping out of your comfort zone is an important psychological shift and directly influences confidence and self-esteem. Learn more about new situations, take on additional trainings, step up for leaderships roles, or work in teams you haven’t considered collaborating with before.

All of these steps and more can contribute to your overall self-esteem and self-confidence. By nurturing your mental health and improving interior interpretations and external expressions, we can make massive changes in our day-to-day lives. We can begin to train ourselves to walk a certain way, talk a certain way, and perceive ourselves and others in a different light. It won’t be an overnight change, but it will definitely trickle into not just your social life, but into your career, hobbies, and passions.

Confidence is the electricity which charges our self-esteem. It allows us to live life with more intention and influences our brain chemistry. It is an important aspect of anyone’s life and if you haven’t given it much though, now is the time to start. Do what you can each day to nurture your confidence and incorporate healthy and positive regimens that leave you feeling recharged, refreshed, and more animated. Do this and you’ll begin seeing these shifts take place in no time, we guarantee it.