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23 May 2022

Give me any topic to talk about and I am articulate, confident, and persuasive.  Make me talk about myself and I am jelly.

Does this statement ring true for you?  It is something I hear too often from intelligent, creative, resourceful, strategic, personable, engaging, amazing people.

This can be a hurdle as you take steps to advance your career.  Apart from the obvious impact on performance in job interviews it can have you not claim your achievements, not articulate your potential in networks, and not advocate for your ideas when you want to create change.

Here is a tip that will go towards shifting this in higher stakes situations.  Forget yourself and be someone else.  Specifically be the person that others have told you you are.

Become diligent at collecting the positive feedback that others give you.  Curate the compliments, the well done's, the praise, the acknowledgements, the thank you's, the positive reviews, and the congratulations and put them into a file/document that you review before high stakes situations such as interviews.  If useful (and many people find it useful) name the person in this file - Amazing Amanda, Invincible Irene, Jazzed Jevon...

Then play/act that character when you need to talk about yourself.

This tip uses research showing that many of us are much better persuaders and influencers when we are acting on behalf of others.  So in your next performance review or your next job interview go in representing Nifty Noah!

As always wishing you a flourishing career

Katherine