When you were a child learning to walk you didn’t think for a minute that, just because you were exceptionally good at crawling, you were destined
to crawl for the rest of your life because, well, crawling was your major strength. Even if when learning to walk you fell over more than most of the toddlers in your playgroup, you didn’t let that put you off for long. Sooner or later you developed the ability to walk just as competently as you could pre- viously crawl, and chances are you were a lot less anxious about the whole experience than your fond parents were.

Trouble is, most people get rather bogged down in attaching labels (such as ‘I’m a hopeless speller’) to themselves as they get older. You start noticing things that seem to come easier to you and begin to ignore the stuff that is a bit harder. Other people, perhaps your teachers and parents, reinforce this

behaviour by telling you how good you are at music but maybe art isn’t your thing. And because you learn early on that doing things well gets approval and rewards, you tend automatically to shoot for maximum points in the areas that feel most comfortable to you.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, and it’s probably got you a lot of goodies so far in your life. Passing an exam in your best subject with flying colours? Winning at your favourite sport? A rapid promotion through using your natural abilities at work? Hardly results to be sneezed at!

But you’ve probably also had a few frustrations along the way, feeling that some things just seem to be out of your grasp. Maybe, no matter how hard you try, you still feel like a nincompoop around computers, or you’re on your seventh driving test and it’s not funny anymore. People are very good at adapting, though, so you come up with solutions that mean you don’t have to do the things you don’t like or find tricky. You leave the computing to your partner and get to know the bus timetable by heart. You can avoid and evade, and often other people don’t even notice. But you don’t fool yourself, right?

Now imagine if you could feel able to tackle anything and everything? Picture yourself with loads of things you are really good at and also some other things that are as yet undiscovered talents. Envisage that your ‘weaknesses’ are just an aspect of you and not the most significant aspects by a long way. You can begin to change your mindset by thinking about the following:

• There are many more things that you can do than things you can’t.

• The things you can’t do are often simply skills that you haven’t yet mastered or prefer to avoid. You have the choice to put in the time and the effort to become competent at almost anything, within the bounds of what’s realistic and achievable for you.

• By focusing on your positive unique qualities you make more progress than trying really hard to excel at something you’re less strong at. And the confidence this gives you makes tackling those trickier challenges easier because you’re in a more relaxed and productive state of mind.