This month’s challenge might sound simple, but I have seen first-hand how hard it is for my brilliant speaker clients to do!

So I dare you to do it, and do it again…

My challenge to you:

AFTER YOUR VERY NEXT TALK WRITE DOWN

3 THINGS THAT YOU DID WELL.

You don’t even need to wait until you have a talk. Do it after you’ve spoken in a meeting. Or pitched an idea on a call.

3 THINGS YOU DID WELL…

I don’t know about you, but the awesome, driven people I coach are GREAT at telling me what they did wrong, or what they missed out.

One recently gave me a detailed breakdown of his talk, minute by minute, with numerical scores out of 10. But when I asked for 3 things he did well, his face contorted like he was in physical pain. And he couldn’t think of ONE thing. He said it ‘was like a wall had come down in his brain’.

Isn’t this interesting.

How hard we can be on ourselves.

I am all for improvement. It’s my job as a coach to support my speakers to be the very best that they can be.

But it makes no sense to be so hard on ourselves that we can’t acknowledge what we did well – whether it’s in the preparation or the delivery.

As I write this, I’ve just received a message from one of my conference speakers, who wrote:

‘Thank you again, Danielle, for your wonderful, heartfelt support. You were a calming anchor through the stressful process of putting together a great talk. You gave great positive, reinforcing feedback to boost confidence as well as actionable, constructive feedback to boost quality.’

In our final coaching call before his conference talk he shared how much it had mattered to him to hear what he was doing well, and what was working – as well as areas for improvement. How that had helped him want to keep going, and understand what he had to offer.

So do your brain a favour, and give it some positive reinforcement, as well as areas to improve.

Deal?

You’d do that for a colleague or a loved one, so definitely worth doing for yourself.

Take a moment to rock your own awesomeness like this mossy-maned horse!