Most of us are terrible at some things.
Lack of skill, focus, practice, care or just temperament means that we don’t do the task as well as we might. This might be anything from promptness to conflict to high-stakes negotiation. It could include filling in forms, taking notes or brainstorming innovative ideas. Perhaps it’s living with uncertainty…
Once you realize your areas of terrible, choices arise:
- We can choose to put in the effort to become not-terrible.
- We can avoid the tasks, automate or delegate and simply avoid our terrible areas.
- When asked, we can announce we’re terrible, setting expectations so we don’t let folks down.
The one that’s probably worth avoiding is: Accepting tasks and making promises and then quietly doing a terrible job.