Tell People Your Weaknesses

It helps trick your brain into improving on them!

People like to do what they’re good at.  Annoyingly our brains actively encourage us to do what’s likely to result in success and to shy away from risk, uncertainty and failure. This is why Positive Reinforcement is critical when learning a new skill.

At school its easy. Parents and teachers know you’re trying new things and offer regular praise. But as adults, unless we tell people we’re working to improve they’ll have no idea and aren’t likely to offer any encouragement.

When we’re praised or complimented our ventral straitum (the forebrain) lights up.  This is part of our brain’s reward system and responds similarly to praise as it would to being given money, which you’ll find more about that in my post ‘Words are Stronger than Money’.

Although at first glance it may look like our brain’s reward system is actively designed to prevent trying something new, it’s remarkably easy to use the forebrain to encourage learning and practising a new skill.

Research suggests that, while trying out a new skill such as learning a musical instrument, if the student receives praise they’re significantly more likely to remember what they’ve learned the next time they come to practice. (Sugawawra).

So, how does this apply when you’re working on your weaknesses in the workplace? Because of the way our brains are wired a lot of people try to fix their weaknesses in private. They’ll read up on skills they want to develop, test new methods of interaction and spend a lot of brainpower on trying to figure out if they’ve nailed it yet. All because they don’t want to be seen to fail while they’re trying.

But, what happens if you tell your team what you’re working on? Your brain may very well freak out. Suddenly you’re advertising something you are ‘failing’ at, it may try to convince you that you’ll only receive negative feedback and everyone’s going to think less of you. But what if they don’t?

If you tell key members of your team what you’re working on and how you intend to practice these new skills you can ask them to let you know when you’re doing it well. This praise will make a huge impact on whether you retain and continue using these new skills, or if you give up never knowing whether you’ve improved at all.

This feedback will give your brain a little reward every time you hear that you’re doing a good job or improving. It’s positive reinforcement and it works on every level – even if initially you’ve had to ask for it.

Not only does it compliment the natural wiring of our brains, but it helps to hold you accountable for not slipping back into bad habits. It will also stop you from hitting the wrong notes when you think you’re getting it right – which can then be much harder to unlearn.

Positive reinforcement isn’t just about being nice, it’s about giving someone the confidence to keep going, even if they don’t always get it right. Pick people who you trust will support you in your journey and ask them to give constructive feedback your brain will thank you for. With this small change, learning moves from something to be avoided at all costs to something you (and your brain) love to take on board.

Jenny Sanders