It is not a myth that you may find yourself in the no confidence zone while discharging your duties as a young journalist. Coming into the media environment may hold lots of uncertainties and they can be a threat to your confidence.
Personal confidence is a state of having an assurance to boost your efficiency and effective discharge of your duty. The media industry is not accommodating for people without confidence, The newsroom is referred to as madhouse. There are lots of stories to be written in a short time, facts to put straight, personalities to interview and other tasks as assigned by your editor.
Low Esteem will be an impediment to career success and job satisfaction, lack of confidence will result in inefficiency on the part of the professional.
The prestige of the institution you attended or your family background isn’t enough, there’s a need for intentionality in building confidence at all levels. To develop high level of self-assurance in discharge of your duties, the followings are workable steps for young journalists:
Definiteness of purpose: If the purpose is not known, they say abuse is inevitable. Defining what one set to achieve is a good way to start pursuing goals. Proper definition of purpose and sticking to the same will help a young journalist highlight what to do at different stages.
This mean a young journalist should stick to a defined purpose. This may also imply that you choose one out of the very many specialised areas in the media field and stick to it. This will help you maintain an undivided focus and learn to grow fast in your chosen field. Be sure of what you really want to do, if it will require writing it somewhere to read every day, do what you can to register your purpose on your conscious self
Mastery of self: Knowing yourself, mastering your abilities and inadequacies will help you. Nobody can know you better than you do, understanding your personality will help you adjust and deal with situations as they come. There are people who have specific times of the day in which they get more productive. Remember during your school days that while others read at night There are some brilliant students who can’t read at night but still perform excellently in their studies. Knowledge of what works best for you will help you develop strategies to approach your tasks.
Learning from adversity: Mistakes may happen because of the imperfections of humans, however instead of feeling deterred, doing an assessment on what went wrong and need for improvement. It doesn’t have to be your own mistakes you learn from; you can learn from others’ mistakes too. In summary, whenever things don’t work out well, go back to the drawing board, look at what you did right and where there’s need for adjustment.
Controlling your environment: There are lots of things that may want to create a tense atmosphere, just like it was said earlier, the newsroom is a madhouse. However, it is possible for you not to be moved by what’s happening around you. Just like mastery of self, controlling your environment requires mastery of the environment you are in. If you can’t work under pressure, do well to ensure you don’t push yourself to the pressure zone. Even when the atmosphere isn’t favourable, you can create a wall of favourable atmosphere around yourself, find out things that make you feel at ease.
Controlling time: There may be 24 hours in a day but if not well planned, it will look insufficient to achieve objectives. Time management is a core for everyone that wants to achieve a set objective. Choose your priorities, set deadlines and have a time frame for every task you have to achieve. Plan and choose time for break, you need it too. Good control of time helps you complete your tasks and still have time to spare.
Creating harmony: Just like playing notes together in a single chord for music, there should be an agreement in your plans, what you do, the environment you are in and your personality. When all these factors are harmonized, it creates familiarity with the terrain you are in, thus, the confidence level is high. You should not be a stranger in the field you work, you should create the love for what you do.
The media world may have its peculiarities and challenges, the young media professional should be prepared before going into the field so as not to fall short. There is no limit to what you can achieve, nothing should limit your career acceleration. You are the best version of yourself, you need to beat some confidence into yourself.
AFYMP holds staff retreat
For two days, the African Foundation For Young Media Professionals held a management staff retreat. The retreat held at Hocal suites at Nigeria Institute for Medical Research Yaba was to create more understanding and delivery of duties in line with the organizations objectives.
Some of the staff members who attended the retreat were the Executive Director, Project Manager, Finance and budget officer, Communication associate.