Own Your Suck

Ladies, if you want to move up in your career, I need you to own your suck. 

By that I mean that I am going to need you to get wholly comfortable with being bad at certain things. Rather than investing your precious time and energy into improving those things you don’t have a natural aptitude for (or just wholeheartedly suck at) just… let it go. 

Just… pooooofff…. Stop focusing on it. 

Controversial, right?!

If you just had a total body response of “absolutely not, this is not the way”, then I understand. A lot of overachievers struggle with the idea of sucking at something. 

We learn this at a young age. In school, we have to get a “pass” across the board as a minimum to move up to the next grade. If you have a serious talent for one subject, that won’t offset a lack thereof in another. So we internalise this “must pass at everything” mindset from when we are pretty small. 

And here’s the deal: that doesn’t hold in the workplace. 

You don’t progress in your career because you are mediocre across the board. Sure, it will probably keep you in a job for the rest of your life. Corporates around the world are filled with average people, let’s be real. And most managers seem to encourage that thinking: often appraisals focus on “areas for improvement”, rather than celebrating the parts of the role that you’re an absolute super star at.

But different considerations are at play when it comes to moving up in your career. Then, the focus quickly goes to where you can really make the difference.

As such, in your career you should focus on what you’re great at and get really, REALLY magnificent at that. Delegate the things that you suck at to others – ideally to those people who love that particular thing so they can shine. They will be quicker than you, and better. And you keep your precious energy and brain space to do more of the magic you naturally excel at! 

So, back to owning your suck.

Get comfortable with not being a super woman who can do it all.

I know that’s uncomfortable for most of you, you sweet insecure overachievers of mine, and yet it’s possible. 

How I know? Because I used to be you. I believed had to be fabulous at it absolutely anything and everything at work (and I worked at the most academic law firm in my country, so that was fun…). 

And when I got humble enough to realise there’s no way I can do it all and owned my suck and started focusing my energy on harnessing my natural talents, things change for the better. 

Much better. 

Soooo much better:

Less stress. 

More fun. 

Much better career progression.

So own your suck. Focus on your magic. 

You’ve got this!

PS If you want help on how to do this AND how to communicate your magic without coming across as arrogant, get in touch here.