Celebrate your incompetence: how to benefit from the things you are rubbish at...

This is me aged 10. Note:

• The jumper hand-knitted by granny (She did a matching one for my Cindy doll. I was well cool).
• The 1980's playground complete with dog-poo-surprise-sand under the climbing frame (double jeopardy if you fell off)
• The broken foot (3 metatarsals and a cracked heel if you’re asking).

I had injured myself by jumping off a garage roof whilst wearing platform flip flops. This was just one incident in a long line of incompetence:

• I would later be banned from athletics after running through a hurdle rather than over it
• I jumped out of my bedroom window to see if it would be a safe escape route in a fire (answer: no it wouldn’t).
• I was so bad at roller skating that I pushed the emergency doors open at the local roller-disco (whilst trying to stop myself) and shot out onto the road outside like a mini Frank Spencer

SO WHAT??

It feels so horrible when we are incompetent at something, that it’s easy to miss how useful it can be…

Fast forward to my early 20s and I joined a corporate coaching company at the same time as another new starter… who – to my horror - turned out to be: an Olympic Gold Medalist. I was instantly put off. If I hadn’t been utterly incompetent at sport, I don’t think I would have been so baffled about why someone would dedicate so much time to it, asked this guy so many stupid questions, wondered what the relevance to the ‘real world’ would be, and then written the answers down … which became the book ‘Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? Olympic-Winning Strategies for Everyday Success.'

When your incompetence is bugging you, uncover the benefit by asking:

1. What deliciously different perspective is it giving you?
2. What is it teaching you? (e.g. perhaps in terms of patience, questioning, networking…?)
3. What useful support network is it encouraging you to make?
4. How is it genuinely helping you?

Enjoy! Take care when jumping off garage roofs in flip flops, and if you want to pre-order the second edition of the book (with 2, brand-spanking-new chapters) click here: https://bit.ly/wimtbgf