5 ways to build confidence at work

Learn skills to overcome self-doubt and show up with confidence and resilience.

Before You Start

Goal: Build practical strategies for acting with more confidence, resilience, and ambition. Watch video: Members are encouraged to watch beforehand, but a quick recap at the meeting works too.

Meeting Agenda · Approx. 60 mins

  • Member Updates · 10 mins
  • Icebreaker · 10 mins
  • Key Takeaways · 5 mins
  • Activities · 20 mins
  • One Action · 10 mins
  • Wrap-Up · 5 mins

👋 Member Updates · 10 mins

Go around your Circle and share personal updates. Keep them brief and focused on significant changes or important decisions since the last time you met. It's OK not to have one every month. If you have a One Action update from last time, share that too.

🧊 Icebreaker · 10 mins

Invite everyone in the group to share. Keep answers to one or two minutes per person.

What's one situation at work where you experience self-doubt, or wish you had more confidence?

💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins

Lack of confidence at work isn't a personal failure. It can be a rational response to an environment that holds women to a higher standard, and it really can be overcome with practice.

  • Bias contributes to self-doubt. Women are judged more harshly at work than men, which makes it unsurprising that many women internalize doubt about their abilities.
  • Your thoughts are not facts. The inner critic distorts reality. Recognizing and questioning its claims is a learnable skill.
  • Small acts of confidence compound. Taking small steps outside your comfort zone can quiet your inner critic over time.
  • Peer support is a proven strategy. Sharing self-doubt openly with trusted colleagues reduces its power and reveals how widely the experience is shared.
  • Self-doubt and capability coexist. Feeling uncertain does not mean you are unqualified. Many of the most accomplished people experience it regularly.

💬 Activity 1 · 10 mins

Plan to "start small and act anyway"

Write it down:

  1. Think of a big, long-term ambition that scares you—for example, speaking to a large audience, writing a book, or starting a business. This could be related to your current career, but it doesn’t have to be.
  2. Write out a few small initial steps that you could accomplish in the short term to reach this big goal.

Discuss as a group:

  1. Go around the room and have everyone share the big goal and the small steps you outlined (up to 1 minute per person). Applaud each person for their ambition!
  2. Have you ever taken a professional step that scared you (e.g. public speaking, leading a project), and in doing so, built up your confidence? What happened?

💬 Activity 2 · 10 mins

Review evidence of your strengths

  1. In the video, Gladine Frasso talks about creating a "brag folder" to refresh her memory of her achievements. We're going to refresh our own memories now. Write down 3-5 of your greatest accomplishments.
  2. Share your accomplishments with the group, and applaud each other for your successes.
  3. Discuss as a group: Has anyone here used any other strategies to build confidence at work? What worked for you?

🎯 One Action · 10 mins

Commit to one concrete action — big or small — you'll take before next meeting. Go around the Circle and share (1 minute or less per member). Vocalizing it helps hold each other accountable.

Commit to either taking one small step toward a big goal, or creating a "brag folder," and share how that impacted your confidence the next time you meet with your Circle.

📅 Wrap-Up · 5 mins

Before you break, plan your next meeting and close on an energetic note. Go around your Circle one by one and finish the sentence:

Now I am feeling… (choose one word).

  • Set the day, time, and location
  • Choose the next topic or resource
  • Confirm who's leading the discussion
  • Decide how you'll stay in touch in between