You must have heard of the term ‘personal branding’, haven’t you? It means that you need to answer how you can differentiate your good self from others, publicizing and portraying your uniqueness. It directly associates with your reputation and impression about what you stand for. This concept was originated by Tom Peters back in 1997. In his words, we all are the CEOs of our own personal brands, no matter what company we work in and what our designation is, we should never stop promoting ourselves like a service or product.
Personal branding, in today’s competitive world, is the trendiest way to showcasing your potential and make good growth in your career. However, as we know, even a one rupee coin has two sides, here comes the flipside. The idea of marketing yourself can feel very uncomfortable if you are an introvert!
“Sometimes I feel you are invisible, my dear!”
“You really need to speak up more, you know!”
“Why are you so shy?”
Having been surrounded by many extroverted people, it is really easy to misunderstand the introverts in workplaces. The misconception is people usually mix up between shyness and introversion where both are two different things. All the introverts are not shy. It is their choice to be somewhat themselves in a preferable environment whether alone or with a small group of trusted fellows. But, misunderstanding their unique personalities, people keep giving such free advice to them which literally can create mental pressure.
All right, don’t get scared if you are amongst those individuals who like to observe more rather than partaking immediately. Always remember that personal branding doesn’t mean to win a popularity contest. It is all about focusing on and proving your efficiency.
So how can you be you and set up your personal branding effectively then?
Here’s how
First of all, ensure the recognition that you deserve. Why do you deserve the position? Prove your worth by giving a hundred percent effort to your work because personal branding begins with what value you can bring to your workplace. Usually, introverts have the natural advantage of being able to reflect themselves deeply. Making it as your strength increase your self-esteem every single day and promise yourself to be much more productive than yesterday. Thus, you will be able to know thyself better proving your capacity of work. Eventually, people will start recognizing you. Your potentiality about work can make you counted as a trustworthy employee.
Always stay focused. To be dedicated to your work, you must have the characteristic of being focused. Rushing with all the works at once can put you in chaos and it will be hard to get out of that mess. Be honest with yourself about the category of work you can be comfortable with and make it done one by one. Give priority to the important ones first and foremost. Just because it is mainstream, you don’t need to showcase yourself online. If you don’t want to post and update your workload on a regular basis, leave it and be yourself. The thing that matters the most is your level of commitment and you get done with it accordingly. On another note, about updating your works, you can do it on a weekly basis instead of compact information.
Share your ideas with the boss. It doesn’t matter if you are a talkative person or not because you don’t have to chit-chat to share your ideas. Do not lag behind and open your mouth when the right time comes. Talk about new ideas and share the opinion with your boss that you observe. It will make your boss aware of your contribution to the company, therefore, a strong personal brand will be created.
Do not be an over-thinker. In an office full of extroverted people, if you overthink and overanalyze your performance it will not only bring mental pressure on yourself but also diminish your self-confidence. Even if you make some mistakes, don’t lose against the little errors when you have got a lot more potential to prove. Since you are a human being, inject the line in your mind that, “There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, but one should always make new ones.” You have to learn from your mistakes and be attentive about it the next time so that it doesn’t repeat again.
Be prepared before the situations that are out of your comfort zone. Generally, giving a presentation or speaking in a public place is something that introverts don’t like to do. But in this era, these are the part and parcel of work life. Rather thinking about running away, you must utilize the opportunity by taking a little preparation before the event occurs. Trust me, if you rehearse properly and be prepared, you will stand out from the crowd which will take you towards ultimate success. Only your content and confidence will appear in front of audiences and you will shine no matter there are extroverts around or not. So, take a moment to lay out a plan and rehearse to conquer.
Well, there are some factors that the introverted people should understand though:
So if you have to stay around all the extroverts, you don’t really need to compete with them according to their energy; rather you compete with yourself to be the better version of you.
Utilize your strength of having a good ability of observation. From your observation, you can become a good researcher and gather useful data to solve problems. Therefore, you can be a reliable worker.
As you are also a good listener, utilize it as a strength too while in a meeting or other events. Listen carefully and ask the right and insightful questions that will put an impact on your respective work.
Take advantage of text-based communication whenever needed. Be compact and useful in that platform.
At this point, I must say, life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself. So, don’t look down upon you just because you are an introvert. It’s perfectly okay to be you and branding yourself in your own way!
