Ill be honest, its been a little while now since I’ve had to sit in a job interview however the fine art form of balancing a pounding heart and nausea with a confident calm friendliness still haunts me.

There is one question I never understood. It just slips in the scripted reel of classics- “give me an example of when you gave great customer service”, “where do you see yourself in 5 years”. You never know when its coming, you just know it is…. and …..BOOM. “What would you say your weaknesses are? (Internal vomit).

The very second you answer- the anxiety hits, the rush of regret no matter how much you try to soften the blow that you are in fact human and not good at absolutely everything. You know full well no one is, but still beating yourself up for it anyway.

I’ve grown up in the last generation of people who have been made abundantly aware of these…. shall we say ‘idiosyncrasies’. The only comment that was ever spoken of in 12 years of school reports was “Kate has verbal diarrhea”. True story. This would now read “Kate is a great communicator”. So our kids are in good hands and are being taught to see, celebrate and design a life around their strengths, but what about us?

How do we create a solid mind-set shift when these weaknesses so well known to each of us are tattooed on our makeup? I’m glad you asked! Here are my 5 tips !

1. Firstly- recognise and write down your strengths in fat black texta and put it somewhere clearly visible to yourself and others in the house. Let it be a discussion point, let it be confronting, uncomfortable and empowering. Every time you glance at it – soak it in and celebrate each time it feels less foreign to you- this means you are making progress!
2. Ask yourself if what you are doing with your life gives you a chance to utilise these unique super powers? Could your life hold more purpose and meaning if you harness this?
3. Get in the habit of celebrating others strengths & wins or even help them to identify them! This will help you brain training too! Set yourself a challenge to wake up each morning and message a friend with all the reasons why they make this world a better place. Start the cycle of normalising this thought process.
4. Call it out! When you hear someone say “I’m not good at that” even a stranger… CALL IT OUT! For everything we are not good at, we have millions we are! It would be awfully boring if we were all the same! Identify immediately this embedded weakness mentality and you will begin to self-correct when you have the same thoughts.
5. Never be the arsehole who asks someone what their weaknesses are. You have no use for that information, only power to gain and criticisms to make.