Welcome back, readers!  I’m so glad you’ve joined me for Totally Confident Tuesday.  It’s such an important day for our success!

I was reading in Harvard Business Review over the weekend about a newer recruiting concept called “returnships.”  The idea, like an internship, allows someone to experience a relatively short-term job commitment, while “learning the ropes” and allowing the company to gain insight and value from their brief employment.  The shining stars, of course, are often asked to become permanent employees, and the ones who don’t “fit” go on to find other permanent positions that suit them better.  Win-win.

What’s particularly cool about a returnship, versus an internship, is that instead of targeting college students, the returnship is focused on professionals re-entering the work force after a period of time off.  Predominantly, this includes professional women, most with ten or more years of successful work experience, who have taken time off to raise young children.

This is an outstanding idea, which was pioneered by Goldman Sachs and is now being successfully leveraged by several other major companies.  (Isn’t that great?!?!)

Part of the success of a company’s returnship program is setting up the proper support for both the program, as well as the professional re-entering the workforce.  One thing I took note of was the mention of classes in confidence-building.  In my work with women, I have found confidence to be a  consistent issue.

In fact, prior to launching my company in 2008, I remember interviewing several highly respected female leaders in top positions in their companies.  I asked them about confidence; specifically wondering when did they feel fully confident in themselves.  Their answers often included some amount of laughter and some version of I’ll let you know when I get there…

I think it’s something that every woman – even the most successful ones – can struggle with.  We can often allow those little voices in our heads to question,

What if I really can’t do what I think I can do?  What if I’m not good enough?

Why do we give so much power to these awful little voices, which are evil, lying saboteurs?  How do I know these voices are lying?  Because, for many of us who have thought things through, we can point to more reasons to be reasonably hopeful and more data points of success that line our track record than the one self-questioning confidence-sucker that we’re allowing to have far too much power.

Your Daily Dynamo To Do:  Make a list of the successful data points in your history.  Look at what you’ve survived, overcome, achieved, earned and accomplished.  Keep this list handy and add to it often.  Ask others to help you brainstorm items to add to your list.  Review it, celebrate it, call out and be grateful for the skills, experiences, characteristics and talents that got you through or were enhanced by each item on your list.

The bottom line?  You likely have much to be proud of; many things that can fuel your belief in yourself.  Spend more time focusing on the many good things, instead of that one bad voice.