“I’ve been struggling with one of my managers since my first day on the job.”

In high school and college I used to feel like I had a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities. But somehow I feel like this job has just stripped me of it over the past year. I’ve become quite, timid and no longer voice my opinion, etc. because this manager is so condescending and micro-manages everything. She talks down to me and my self-worth has really taken a beating from it.

I talked with her superior a few months ago, and things got better only temporarily. I’d love to get a new job, but a recession is definitely a hard time to do that and I feel stuck with having to make due for a bit until things pick up. If so, I need to figure out how to survive here. ”  – C in Georgia

I hate it when I hear about situations like yours C, because it means there are still so many ‘managers’ out there who have no clue how to manage.  Just imagine how different things would be across the world if every one of those managers was either taught how to get the best from people or if they were replaced with someone who really ‘gets it’.

Anyway, me ranting about that won’t help you right now.  A couple of thoughts for you:

1. Don’t forget how you used to feel.  That confidence is still there, you’ve simply learned a pattern of behaviour where you don’t exhibit it because you’re not seeing the results or getting the feedback you’d expect.  Look at where you do feel that confidence today and how it feels – you have to keep that close to you and keep connected to it.

The fact that your manager talks down to you and makes you feel small, doesn’t mean that you are small.

Not one bit.  A lot of managers are scared silly (particularly in today’s climate), and they use strategies like condescension and micro-managing as a way of maintaining control and status.  That doesn’t make it the ‘truth’, it just makes it something that happens near you.

2. Yes, a recession is a tough time to find work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there.  You don’t say what it is you do, but it does absolutely no harm to start looking.

The best way to get a job these days is through people you know, not through ads in the paper or even job boards.

I think LinkedIn is a great tool for doing that, and I’ve got roles from it just by connecting with people and having people find me there.  You can use LinkedIn to research people in your field, to reach out to HR people in the organisations you’d love to get into and it also has job postings that never make it onto job boards.  The reason it works is that it’s a network based on trust and recommendation – and that’s worth its weight in gold.

But don’t forget the power of connecting with people offline too.  Who are 10 people you can have an interesting conversation with about your next move?  How else can you research what’s out there?

There are opportunities out there, so catch yourself when you say you’re stuck.  It might feel like that sometimes, but I guarantee you always have choices.

3. Okay, now it gets tricker.  Can you talk directly with your line manager?  A managers job is to create an environment where their staff can do great work – and you’re entitled to flag up where that could happen better.

Don’t criticise, simply state what would allow you to do better work, and give evidence of your work to support your position.  “How I’d love to do this is…“, “I fully understand that you want to get the right result, I really need to do it like this and I’ll keep you in the loop all the way.”

Don’t try to squeeze this conversation in as you pass each other in the corridor, grab lunch together or go for a coffee, sit down and talk like adults.  You always have recourse to go back to their manager if it comes to that.

If it comes right down to it and there’s nowhere else for you to turn, you owe it to yourself to get outa there.

You don’t have to tolerate bad management, and you have to put your own wellbeing first.

You know, the chances are that a move will help your career too.

4. One last thought for you.  I’ve found that it becomes more stressful and more damaging when I resist what I’m doing.  All the time I struggle and fight it, it hurts.  When I make a deliberate choice to throw myself in and do my best work, it becomes so much easier.

Look for the parts you’re resisting and make a choice to engage.

That doesn’t mean you have to forget about what you want to see happen or that you have to put off a job search, it just means you’re making your experience more fun and more valuable while you’re there.

My head nearly exploded recently.  It wasn’t pretty.

10 days ago the Headache from Hell descended, and it stayed with me for a full week.  Non-stop, unrelenting, eye-ball busting headache.  It felt like Joe Pesci had my head in a vice, and I was about as much use as a tit on a fish.  I had zero energy, couldn’t think straight and was sleeping for 14 hours a day.

Part of it was down to my whole post-viral thang (my body doesn’t co-operate when I want to push myself anywhere near 100%,which is sodding annoying, let me tell you), but a significant part was down to stress.  Your basic, slap me in the face and call me Shirley, stress.

Yes, even us coaches get stressed out sometimes.

My current freelance gig is crazy busy, with projects being thrown at me left, right and centre.  There are times – and this is no exaggeration – when I’m sitting at my desk talking with someone about a project, when a cue of 3 or 4 other Account Managers appears, each of whom want something from me immediately or have a fresh problem for me to solve on top of all the other problems already on my desk.

I’d wake up at night remembering half a dozen things I needed to do as soon as I hit the office in the morning, and then I’d wake up an hour later remembering something else that was way more urgent.

It’s full-on, relentless, demanding and highly pressurised work.  And for me, it crossed the line into stress.

Stress is a condition where you feel powerless in the face of what’s happening in your life, and somehow I’d let that happen.  Aren’t I supposed to know better?

Maybe, but this proves that shit happens and that it’s how you deal with things that makes the difference.  If only I’d remembered that sooner, I’d have acted sooner.

One morning last week on my way to catch my train, feeling exhausted, light-headed with my eyes blood-shot and burning, I said to myself, “Hold on peppy, this isn’t how I want things to be and this isn’t how I want to feel.  What’s missing and what am I going to do?”

I stepped up and out of the stress and drama, and here was my answer to my own question:

1.  I’ve done the same job many times before and sailed through.  That means I can do it again, with knobs on.

2.  It just doesn’t matter.  Being a Producer is something I’m good at and earns me some good money, but coaching is my ‘thing’.  No baby’s are going to die because an ad goes out late and no hospitals are going to burn down because the animation on a banner isn’t perfect.  I do my best work when I stop taking things so bloody seriously.

3.  I realised I’d stopped smiling, and I’d stopped smiling because I’d stopped having fun.  I needed to make my day fun again and that meant engaging with the work and with the people around me.  Stop resisting, start engaging – that’s what makes me feel like I’ve had a good day.

4.  Eat 8 portions of fruit and veg a day, to give my body a fighting chance.

5.  Go buy some jelly beans.  I love jelly beans.

This was a big reminder to me of how easily I can forget what’s important, and how much that can affect me.

All I did was remember I could make a choice.  And it’s made all the difference.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things are getting pretty hairy out there.  Redundancies are increasingly commonplace, and there’s a good chance that you know someone who’s been laid off or that you’ve already been given a box for your desk plant and family photo’s.

The media are busying themselves with talking everything down and making things look bleaker than a moonless night in Minsk, but the fact remains that lay-offs are happening all over, and redundancy has the potential to shake your world apart and send your self-confidence crumbling to the ground.

I know, because that whole world-shaking, confidence-crumbling things happened to me.

Losing your job sucks, but it doesn’t have to affect your confidence and self-esteem.  Looking back to my own experience, here are my tips for finding your feet and finding your confidence after redundancy.

1. It’s not personal.

I was made redundant in 2001 when the Internet bubble burst.  I was on long-term sick leave for stress and depression at the time (I was a barrel of laughs, let me tell you), so the news came pretty hard and felt personal, like they were victimising me.

Of course, they were just looking after their business and did what they had to to keep it going.  It wasn’t personal, it was business.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true – if you’ve been made redundant they made your job redundant, not you.  You’ve lost your job, you haven’t lost your identity, you haven’t lost your values, you haven’t lost your experience and you haven’t lost the gazillion tiny things that make you you.

2. Use the space provided.

I was depressed before I lost my job, and continued to battle depression afterwards.  Without the space afforded to me by not working, there’s no way on Earth I could have climbed out.

The space I had saved me.

That space is worth its weight in gold, and it’s an amazing benefit of redundancy that you’d be foolish to underestimate.  You have the space to explore things – your hobby, your passion, your relationships, your next career move – your whole life is there for you to explore.

It’s an opportunity you can’t turn down.

3. Get back to what matters.

I used my redundancy to do a few things.  I watched a lot of day time TV (I still have nightmares), I drank a lot of coffee and I found a couple of cool bars.

A tad more important than those things, I also rediscovered and reconnected with the things I’d lost – the things that I really cared about and the things that I wanted to bring back into my life.

I wrote a novel, I trained to be a coach, I made new friends, I discovered my inner confidence and I laughed again.

I found a renewed confidence in the things that mattered to me that invigorated me from the heart out — I got back to being me, and discovered that I was okay after all.  It felt amazing.

4. Learn what you learned.

It’s understandable that you might want to draw a line in the sand and move on as quick as you can.  The bastards let you go so you’re gonna let them go too, right?

Don’t be so quick.  Look at the experience you gained from that job and look at what you can learn from it. The biggest thing I learned from the job I was laid off from is that I can never again squeeze myself into a box that’s too small for me and pretend that it’s okay.

Being able to learn and derive useful meaning from your experience is what separates you from a garden slug.  That and the whole opposable thumbs thing (that’s why you don’t see slugs driving cars).

My point is that if you simply draw a line and move on you’ll be taking away from your experience and side-stepping the opportunity to add to it.  By looking and learning you’ll be able to add to your sense of self, your life and your confidence, and that creates potential for real and important change.  It’s not to be sniffed at.

5. Don’t go back.

After my redundancy I eventually climbed out of my deep, dark hole.  On my way back up, my first instinct was to get a job.  I prepared my CV and launched it at every agency I could think of, trying to get a job doing the same thing as before.

What a brainless, stupid decision that was.

That garden slug might not be able to drive a car or open a can of peaches as well as I can, but it could have made a better decision than me.

I automatically thought I had to go back to doing what I’d done before, and it was only with the extra space I had that I slowly figured out what mattered and that I could do something else.

After redundancy, please don’t assume that you have to get the exact same job as before.  You don’t.

If you loved your job then great, (but even then take some time to look at what else you could be doing that could be great), but the point is use the opportunity to look for how you can move forwards, not how you can go back or stay still.

6. Get out of the drama.

When I was laid off I rolled around in the drama of it like a pig in shit.  How could this have happened?  Didn’t I do a good enough job?  What if I can’t get another job?  Am I washed up?  What did I do wrong?

Being in the drama of it all only did one thing – kept me in the drama of it.  Living in the drama of a situation isn’t helpful, unless you’re looking for material for a soap-opera or looking for publicity (hellooo Britney).

All the time you’re looking at the drama you’ll only see all the problems and you won’t be able to look at the solutions.

Get out of the drama and get real – that’s the only way to make good decisions.

Thanks Mr Redundancy.

At the time, redundancy hit me like a spade in the face.  Now, I thank my lucky stars for it, and shudder at the thought of who I might be today if it hadn’t happened.

So here it, Silly Season.

Decorations go up in your office, Barbara from Finance starts wearing a Santa hat, your annoying colleague starts playing the same Christmas CD over and over in an effort to be more popular and the dreaded Office Christmas party looms large.

While I simply adore the Holiday season (I’m a sucker for the whole home and hearth, donner and blitzen, bah and hambug thing) I recognise how awkward these office Christmas parties can be, particularly if you’re a bit on the shy side or can think of nothing worse than socialising with your co-workers.

A recent survey found that nearly a third of British workers actively hate the office Christmas party, with almost 70 per cent not wanting to socialise with their co-workers. That’s a lot of pissed off people in a lot of awkward social situations.

There are all kinds of do’s and don’ts for these occasions that can confuse the pants off you (better than having the pants seduced off you in the stationary cupboard) and even though a lot of companies are scaling down their parties, the chances are you still have some function or other in your diary.

Whether it’s drinks in your office or dinner someplace else, here are 7 ways to be confident and comfortable at your office Christmas party:

1. It’s just 3 or 4 hours

This is the tiniest little chunk of time out of your year. Yes, it’s time that you won’t get back but Christmas is about giving, right? Suck it up, and even if you’re not enjoying the night be comforted by the fact that you’ll soon be out of there.

Also remember that everyone’s in the same boat. If you’re feeling like you’d rather not be there you can bet that other people will feel the same way. Make a joke of it, get over it and you’ll stand a better chance of having a good time.

2. Don’t be on your best behaviour

I know. A lot of sites tell you that an office Christmas party is not a time for you to relax or let your hair down, and that if you put a foot wrong it’ll be remembered and used against you in the future.

Now, this is just my opinion, but how flippin dull does that sound? If you can’t relax and let your gurard down at a Christmas bash, then when the hell can you?

I’m not suggesting you start a naked conga or demand that your boss does a dozen flaming tequila shots with you, but if it’s being led from the top you can most definitely relax and let go of yourself.

How would you be if the room was full of your friends? I always think that Christmas is a time to be at your best and most generous, so be generous with yourself and don’t be afraid to surprise people by showing them a different side to you.

3. Have a flexible exit strategy

You need an exit strategy for 2 reasons. Firstly if you’re stuck in a conversational cul-de-sac that’s making you squirm, you’re allowed to excuse yourself and move on. Say you’re going to top up your drink, off to visit the bathroom or off to mingle.

Secondly, you need an exit strategy for the evening itself to make sure you can leave when you think you’ll be ready. Book that cab to take you home or get your partner to pick you up – just make sure there’s some flexibility in case you find yourself having fun and want to stay a bit longer.

Why have an exit strategy? Because it closes the circle and makes you feel better about the fact that you have a concrete way out at the end of the evening.

4. What do you regret about last year?

Look back to last years Christmas party and what you learned. Did you wish you’d let you hair down more and had more fun? Do you wish you’d booked a cab to get you home? Do you wish you kissed that dishy guy from Sales?

3 years ago when I was doing my 4 hours a week at my local Gap store, I went along to the big Christmas bash and had a whale of a time. I drank, ate, made merry and spent the latter part of the evening in a tongue sandwich with Shelli, a co-worker with whom there’d been much flirting back and forth in the store. I could have behaved myself and kept my tongue in my mouth, but you know what, I’m so glad I said ‘What the hell’ and that we ended up ‘sucking face’. Otherwise I’d have regretted playing it safe and (as it was mutual) we both had a brilliant night.

5. Have 3 people you can laugh with

Make sure there are a minimum of 3 people you can relax with, chat with and laugh with. This not only mean

you more than enough scope for a great evening but says a lot about how you’re being at work. Being nice goes a hell of a long way at work, and helps to build all kinds of relationships.

If you feel uncomfortable in large social gatherings, having 3 people you know you can laugh with means that you‘re only ever a few steps away from some easy conversation and laughter that feels comfortable.

6. Throw away the memes

You have to throw away the memes that make you dread the office party without any good reason. The Christmas Party is the butt of many jokes, and we’re conditioned to turn our noses up at it or look for ways to avoid it. Throwing away all those limiting expectations and memetic beliefs makes room for having a good time.

7. Suggest your own ‘do’

If you really can’t handle the big company bash or if the big party has been canned by the guys in their corner offices, how about suggesting that you have a smaller, team-focused do of your own design?

That gives you the chance to spend it with the people you work closest with (which are hopefully the people you get on with the best) and to do something that suits your own requirements. Have a long lunch with your team, go for drinks after work, take an afternoon out to visit a Christmas fair – whatever it is, plan something that can fill you all with Christmas spirit.

So that’s how you can have a confident and fun Christmas party (I could go on but I know you’ve got stuff to do), and while we’re on the subject let me leave you with a a clip from one of the best Christmas parties I’ve seen…

I once had a boss who I’m sure was insane. I don’t mean to be insulting (although I’m probably being just that), but nothing else could explain her madly erratic behaviour, lack of judgement in making decisions and complete loss of memory when her decisions turned out to be the wrong ones. ‘Why didn’t you do that?’ she’d ask me when things blew up. ‘Because when I mentioned I was going to do it you explicitly told me not to and to do this instead’, I answered.

There was no getting through to her, and I’d have disagreements with her pretty much every day about the best way to go about things to get the right results. She didn’t listen, and I left within a month.

That’s an extreme case, but there have been times in other jobs when I’ve had to stick my head above the parapet and persuade all kinds of different management folks that I knew what I was doing and would get them the right results.

I know this is tough for people because I’ve struggled with it myself. Telling someone more senior than you that they’re wrong or that they should really try things your way is a scary thing to do, even more so when your boss or manager seems to have more experience and power than you.

While to some extent that’s true, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the value that you can add and the results that you can get.

There are 3 strategies I’ve used effectively that help massively when you need to stand up to your boss. Get these right, and the rest is easy.

Establish Trust
When there’s trust between 2 people it opens up honest discussion, because there’s no need for blame, ego’s, empire building or one-upmanship. If your boss doesn’t trust you, something’s very wrong. You were employed to do a job because you were the best person to do it, and if you’re not trusted to do it then why the hell were you hired?

If your boss doesn’t trust you, call him on it. Trust is earned by demonstrating capability, but if your boss isn’t willing to see that then you need to point it out. Let them know that you can do the job, that you’ve been doing the job and that they can trust you to do the job.

Establish Autonomy
When you’re able to get things done by yourself and off your own back it shows that you know what you’re doing. Owning your work, getting things done and delivering results rapidly builds a track record and demonstrates how capable you are. If you need to check in with your boss on everything you do they’ll have a disproportionate amount of power over what you do and how you do it – and you’ll undermine yourself all the way to your exit interview.

Establish Credibility
Credibility comes from establishing trust and autonomy, but it also comes from the quality of the work you deliver and the quality of the relationships you build. Deliver great work and have a strong focus on your relationships with your colleagues and you’ll attract credibility like a magnet.

If you get those 3 things in place, you’ve nailed it. Your boss will have seen how good you are at your job and you’ll have clearly established both the value you provide and the method by which you provide it. That makes it so much easier for you to call your boss on something and persuade them to try things your way.

If Your Boss is a Negative Swimmer…

Of course, those strategies are moot if your boss hasn’t given you the opportunity to establish them and if there are no clear signs that those opportunities are coming. That really sucks, because a managers job is to create an environment where you can do great work. If they’re not doing that they’re simply making things more difficult and getting in the way of their empoyee’s future – I sometimes call these kinds of people ‘negative swimmers’.

When you’re swimming you move forwards through the water, using your whole body to propel you; your movements are co-ordinated; your breathing’s in sync; you move through the water with power and grace. Negative swimming is the opposite of those things, and you end up thrashing around, expending twice as much energy, fighting for breath and swallowing half the pool.

Some people just don’t get it.

In that event you need to balance 3 things:

Raise it with your boss
If your boss is being unreasonable, micro-managing your work or getting in your way then you have the right to sit down and talk about it. You don’t have to put up with it.

Make an appointment for first thing in the morning and try to do things away from his or her office. Don’t point fingers, don’t blame and don’t get emotional – state your case and the facts as simply as possible. What happened? What was the result? What was the impact on you? What would make you better able to do great work?

Your boss is human and will have their own character flaws, priorities, workload and personal stuff going on, but also remember that you were hired because you were the best person for the job. Tell your boss just that.

Raise it with someone else
If raising it with your boss goes nowhere or if you want some advice before you talk, raise it with someone else. This could be a colleague you get on with particularly well – someone with whom you’ve established trust, autonomy and credibility with. Have an off the record chat with them to get their perspective and see how other people might have dealt with the situation.

Another port of call is HR. Again, you can do this off the record so don’t worry about getting heavy handed and having to kick off disciplinary procedures (although if it’s serious enough it might warrant it). As long as your boss doesn’t have HR in his or her pocket, they’re there to make the people side of the business work effectively and are ideally placed to advise on the situation and what might be the best route forwards. You don’t need to follow their advice, but do consider it.

Raise it with yourself
If neither of those discussions proves fruitful, you need to raise it with yourself – at the highest level.

Do you want to work in an environment where you’re not given the room to do your best work and where your views aren’t listened to? Do you want to be in a workplace that lands you with a whole load of stress and frustration? Do you want to be in a workplace where you learn to doubt yourself and lose confidence in your ability to do great work. You don’t need any of that, so don’t persuade yourself that you do.

Standing up for yourself starts with having confidence that you’re good enough to get things done in the way you think is best.

If you have that central belief then finding the confidence to stand up for yourself becomes easier. Of course, you need to watch that you don’t doggedly stick to your guns when the evidence clearly shows that another route is better – that will only undermine your trust, autonomy and credibility.

Listen to other viewpoints and consider other factors, but then make your decision and have confidence in it.

I love being interviewed for jobs. Being in a room with a couple of people where I get to quickly build rapport and do a whole lot of trumpet blowing is great fun, and while I haven’t given a bad interview in many years I remember what it’s like to strike out.

Giving a bad interview makes every self-doubt you have real, and it brings to life every fear you have about how crappy you are at what you do. Bad interviews suck. Big time.

Interviews can be blown in the first 30 seconds if you make a bad first impression. Enter the room and throw up on the interviewers shoes, tell them they remind you of a fat Simon Cowell, or take your shoes off and put your feet up on the desk are clearly not going to win you any brownie points, but there are other more subtle mistakes you need to avoid if you want to make a confident and congruent first impression:

2. Don’t forget to smile. An obvious one, but a key one. Entering the room looking nervous, anxious or worrisome will send the message that you’re a nervous person. It’s okay to be nervous in an interview, but that doesn’t stop you from being warm and friendly. Remember to smile, just not too much so you look like a nutter.

3. Look them in the eye. Eye contact is about building rapport and connecting with people. Without it there’s no connection, so be sure to look your interviewers in the eye as the interview progresses. Don’t stare fixedly at your interviewer like a wired Will Ferrell, this isn’t a Saturday Night Live skit.

4. Don’t shake hands like a trout. There’s nothing worse than greeting someone with a handshake only to feel like they’re pressing a tepid trout into your hand, and I’m still amazed at how many wet-fish handshakes I get when I meet people. Smile, make eye contact and give a firm 2 second handshake with a simple ‘Good to meet you’.

5. Know what to wear. I’ve got jobs from interviews where I’ve worn tshirt and jeans, because that’s what was appropriate to the environment I was interviewing for. That’s the point – you need to be dressed appropriately to the environment in which you hope to be working. Go for an interview in banking dressed in tshirt and jeans and you won’t stand a chance, wear the same to an ad agency and you’ll fit right in.

6. Don’t forget their names. Please, please, please remember the names of the people interviewing you. It allows you to put them into conversation where appropriate, and I’m not talking every sentence (that’ll make you sound like Hannibal Lecter). It allows you to refer back to a previous comment (e.g. “As Mandy said earlier…”), to buy yourself time with a tricky question (e.g. “That’s a good question Randy…”) or to use it as a sign-off at the end of the interview (e.g. “Thanks for your time Brandy”). The interviewers name doesn’t have to rhyme with ‘Andy’.

7. Don’t let your body language scream ‘Danger’. If your shoulders are hunched, you’re slouched in your seat, you’re wringing your hands or continually scratching your head you’ll be sending the wrong message. Having a relaxed but confident body language communicates a relaxed and confident individual. Don’t be rigid – you’re free to move in your seat and use your hands to demonstrate key points, just watch you’re not waving your arms around like you’re swiping away fruit flies. A balance between sitting back in your chair and sitting forwards is good – you can give emphasis to points and show you’re listening by sitting forwards, and communicate a sense of ease by sitting back.

8. Leave your shit outside. Interviews can be scary and often you don’t know what to expect. Don’t bring that uncertainty and doubt into the room with you and certainly don’t bring in any personal problems that might be bothering you, put that all to one side before the interview starts. Picture the interview room as a safe place with people who want you to get the job, and remember that the interviewers want to see the best of you, not the worst. They’re on your side.

9. Don’t jump into the first chair you see. Don’t enter the room and grab the first chair you see – it’s not a competition. Move into the room and let the interviewer find their place first. If you’re in a meeting room don’t sit next to them on the same side of the table, and don’t automatically sit directly opposite them. Try to sit diagonally from them if possible – it gives provides a good space between you but doesn’t act like a wall.

10. Pace yourself. Rapport building is about building a connection and a rhythm between you and another person, a rhythm that allows both of you to communicate openly. Many of the things I’ve already mentioned help build that rapport, but pace is one of the most important. If you go racing off at 100 miles an hour, telling them everything about you when they’ve only asked you if you found the building with out any problems, then you’ve screwed the pace up and they’ll be wanting to get you out of the room as quickly as possible. Let them set the pace and follow it.

When people get together for an extended period of time, groups will form. It happens naturally, something left over from the tribe instinct that we mammals still have. I’ll bet that there are groups in your organisation or even within your friends, groups that you may or may not be a part of.

Some people might be into sports and huddle at break-times to discuss the latest game. Some might go to a bar after work to vent about the office and share a drink or three. Others always seem to get the latest, shiniest project to work on and others might be privy to inner workings of the company.

If you’re in a particular group at work – whether the group is connected by a hobby, company politics, demographic or anything else – you’re in that in-group and you’ll have a sense of loyalty and respect towards the other members. Every group you’re not a part of, you’re in the out-group.

Psychologically this can be pretty disconcerting, as every group that you’re not in has the potential to make you ask questions of yourself and introduce competition between groups. Ask yourself enough questions and you’ll start doubting yourself. Compete in the wrong way and your self-esteem becomes tied to the results you get.

I’ll give you an example. When I look back to every work environment I’ve been in, there’s been a kind of inner sanctum that’s separate from the management team, a small group of people from different levels of the company that somehow gathered a disproportionate amount of power between them. If they didn’t like an idea or project or didn’t like the way a piece of work was going, any one of them could change it knowing that they’d have support from the other members of the in-group.

People were aware, even subconsciously, that they had to watch themselves when one of these people were around, some people became very defensive and others would be on the attack. I remember one woman who wasn’t in this group; they were one of her out-groups. She’d take input from any of them very personally, thinking that her work wasn’t up to scratch and she wasn’t valued as a fully-contributing employee. Later, she took everything personally and her self-doubt grew. She left the company after waiting too long, and I saw that she left as a nervous and reactive woman who lacked self-confidence rather than the talented, capable and confident one I knew her to be.

The people in these in-groups aren’t bad or conniving people (or rarely aren’t), it was just the way the day to day power had taken shape in the organisation. The same goes for other groups – it’s simply down to people coming together subconsciously because they share similar values and boost their self-esteem from the sense of belonging they get from being a member.

These groups aren’t right or wrong by themselves, it’s the impact they have and your perception of that impact that can be called right or wrong.

Engage with your in-groups but watch how much attention and the kind of attention you give to your out-groups. You can’t be in every group, and trying to be is a waste of your time and energy just as the time and energy spent being negative about an out-group is a waste.

Looking enviously at an out-group is a clear case of the grass being greener, and if you look disparagingly at an out-group it’s a clear case of ego-stroking – “I’m better than you are” – and probably denial.

If you let your out-groups influence your thinking to the point where you change your thinking and behaviour to win their approval, then you’re already damaging your self-confidence and self-esteem. Stop it right now.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a leadership position or not, allow your self-confidence to be affected by your out-groups and you won’t stand a chance of doing your best work. Great work comes from trusting what you’ve got and giving yourself the freedom to do your best work, not from putting your attention onto your out-groups.

When I started out as a coach I gave away coaching sessions because I thought I had to. I figured that I wasn’t a ‘proper’ coach yet, and that I had to practice as much as possible to get to a point where I felt like I could charge someone for a coaching session.

When I’m working with a client who’s starting up a service business, whether it’s a coach, and interior designer, a yoga teacher, a sales consultant or a photographer – there’s inevitably a point where they’ll have to decide whether to work for free.

As I commented on Allena’s article, if you have a skill that’s valuable, a talent that’s marketable and you (hopefully) love what you do, don’t’ believe for a second that you need to give those things away for free.

As I experienced myself and as I see with clients, a lack of confidence can get you thinking you have to work for free to get started – and you need to be brutally honest about whether you really need to work for free or if it’s a case of being more confident in your capabilities.

If you work for free because you feel like you have to to get where you want, that you somehow have to pay your dues to succeed or because you feel you’re not ready or good enough to be paid yet, then you need to take a step back and look at things differently (and more confidently).

Do not give away what you can do for free because you lack confidence in what you can do. It devalues you and it devalues what you do.

That devaluation is true for your own sense of self, but it’s in others people’s heads too. When I gave away coaching sessions they rarely worked out, simply because people held the perception that if I’m giving it away that it can’t be worth anything. With the belief that what I was offering had zero value, they weren’t committed to giving the coaching a try in the same way as if they were paying.

Starting out, you need to be willing to figure out a pricing structure that works for you and your target market. Of course, there are always exceptions, and there might be times when it might be wise to work for free. Those times are when it will give you valuable experience, make a valuable connection with someone (which might lead to all kinds of other work, experience and connections) or if it’s something that’s important and relevant to you.

If any of those things are true then go for it – it’s a worthwhile thing to do. Just know when enough’s enough, because there’s always someone out there who’s willing to take advantage of someone who’s generous.

Right now I’m a happy and very relieved man. The Big Messy Project I’ve been running in my ad agency in London is over. Finally. Done with. Delivered.

The sense of satisfaction and relief is enormous – I’ve finally got some room in my head and space in my day for other stuff other than the often spiralling, politically charged shenanigans concerning Big Messy Project.

The good news is that it’s delivered right on time and doing exactly what it’s supposed to – it’s a successful delivery, which is what I’ve worked my butt off to achieve.

But there were times early on in BMP when I wasn’t sure at all whether any of it would be get delivered, and times when I wanted to run away and pretend that it was just a bad dream (worse than the one I have about being eaten alive by a 50ft Tony Robbins).

Those early please-let-me-run-away moments happened once or twice a week. I’d look at the huge to-do list and feel intimidated by the apparent impossibility of delivering everything, leaving the odd task or two sitting on my list in preference of sticking my head in the sand.

And, wouldn’t you just know it, the more I left something sitting there on my to-do list, the more work stacked up around me. The more I ignored something the bigger it got, and the more I let my work slip, the worse I felt about my ability to deliver great work. The worse I felt about my ability to deliver great work, the worse I felt about myself.

I could have said ‘No’ to taking on BMP, but that still, quiet voice in my head told me, ‘Steve, don’t run away just because it’s Big and Messy. You’re better than that.’

In a recent article, Holly Hoffman hits the nail on the head by saying ‘I don’t want to put mediocre work out into the world… I may not be passionate about my 8-5 job, but I am passionate about being a quality employee and co-worker.’

Nice insight Holly. It reminds me of a scene at the end of the movie ‘City Slickers’, when Billy Crystal comes back from his cattle-driving adventure, having previously thought about quitting his job because he just doesn’t enjoy it or get satisfaction from it any more.

With a renewed sense of vigour and a baby cow in the front room, he turns to his wife and says ‘I’m not going to quit my job. I’m just going to do it better.’

All the time you resist the crappy parts of your work that you’d rather not do you’ll never do great work, and perhaps worse, you’ll damage your perception of your ability to do great work. I’ve experienced this myself, and I know that many of my clients do too.

Make a choice to engage with the crappiest parts of your job and you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes to both the quality of your work and your level of confidence.

That’s me when I was around 4 years old (funnily enough I have a very similar polo shirt that I wear now!). Of course, at that age I had no idea what was in store for me, and just a couple of years later when I was around 6 years old I remember being asked by my primary school teacher what I wanted to be when I grew up. I reflected for a moment and torn between two options I said ‘I’m not sure. Either an artist or an inventor.’

I had two pictures – one of me in a huge studio, being swept along in the moment as I created magnificent works of art that would make people weep, and another of me in a lab coat with crazy hair surrounded by bubbling test tubes and all manner of electronic devices as I used all I knew to build Something Amazing (TM). Those two sides have always been there for me (I’m a typical Gemini) – the art and the science, the creative and the logical, the head and the heart.

In my 20’s I got sidetracked by a successful but personally damaging career in IT, which lead to me hitting my quarter-life crisis, losing my self-confidence and having to rebuild myself piece by piece, and I can see that part of the reason for hitting that crisis point is because I came to live purely in the logical part of me and pretty much ignored the creative side.

As a 6 year old boy I’d identified that both themes were hugely important to me, but ended up paying an extremely high price for it when I went forward with a life that didn’t reflect that.

Those two themes persist for me to this day, and a day where I can use my logic and my creativity is a great day because I get to use the things that have always been there and still persist for me.

Another memory that’s been a puzzle until fairly recently, is when I was 13 or 14 in my Religious Education classes. In some classes we’d ditch the normal teaching format in favour of a debate, where the teacher, Mrs Evans, would lead us all in a debate on particular topics related to religion in the world. One day, she asked me to come up to the front of the class, invited me to sit in her chair and told the class that I was going to lead the debate that day.

It felt great – I was sitting in the big chair at the head of the class, I was letting people speak and counter, and I was managing the flow of the whole thing. I remember clearly how much I enjoyed it.

Mrs Evans asked me to lead the class in a debate 3 or 4 times, and never asked anyone else. Why would she do that? I think the only reason can be because she wanted me to see something. To be honest, I’m still figuring out exactly what, but I think it has to do with leading people and bringing out what’s important to them.

Thanks so much Mrs Evans.

The great thing is that my work now – both the coaching and the ad project management – is a fantastic combination of head and heart, thinking and feeling, creativity and logic, orchestrating and leading – and that’s why it works.

I share this all with you because I’ve worked with hundreds of people who come to me with low confidence, not knowing what they should be doing, and they want to figure out how to be more confident so they can go forwards with something that feels right.

They feel stuck, like they spend just a tiny amount of time doing what they love and want more out of their lives and careers. Some of them even wonder if wanting something more is too much to ask for.

In my opinion and experience, having work that includes the things that have persisted for you is absolutely critical in terms of loving your work and getting more richness out of your working experience.

So figure out what your themes are. In your early days at school, what did you want to do when you grew up? What did you want to be when you were a kid? In your teenage years or at college or university, what did you really want to be, regardless of whether you took that route or not? What have been the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the jobs you’ve had?

What patterns can you see? What are the themes that come out and what still persists for you to this day?

Look at the patterns and themes that have always been there for you. Those things aren’t going anywhere, and ignoring them is ignoring who you are and who you’ve always been, and that’s a sure-fire way to lose all confidence in yourself.