Things I Am Bad At

Things I Am Bad At

• 06 July 2018

I haven't been on a ton of job interviews, but I have been on enough to be asked the classic "What are your weaknesses" question at least a handful of times.

The answer is obviously chocolate and free food. Did you really have to ask?

I always strive to channel a politician, aiming to skirt my way around the issue. Spinning the weakness into an asset. Attempting to turn it back to the interviewer. Maybe I'll try an insightful question to wrap it up. 

By the end I find myself almost convinced that maybe this weakness isn't such a bad thing after all. Maybe I'm actually kind of awesome, which never really lasts very long. The self-talk over here can be truly brutal at times, but that's not unique. Aren't we all our own worst critics? Besides the truly narcissistic among us. You likely don't know who you are, but we do. 

With that said, I'm not trying to spew negative self-talk all over this post, but I do want to take some time to acknowledge some of the things that I'm just not awesome at. 

Some of these things I want to improve upon and I hope that my public acknowledgment will prompt me to make some changes. Some of these things just do not matter to me and I hope that my acknowledgement of that will help me move on to things that I actually want to spend some time on.

Things I Am Bad At That I Do Not Care to Improve

Running

I hate running. It's so boring. It hurts my knees and I wish that Doctor would have taken me seriously and written me a doctor's note saying that I am only to run in the event that mine or my children's lives are in danger. 

Painting Rooms

Again, boring. Also messy. I almost always end up with paint on the ceiling, even when I take forever with the taping step. Whenever I paint a room I always find myself wishing that life could be just a little bit more like Sims.

Networking

When I am consciously attempting to network or watch others really network it just makes me cringe. It almost always feels insincere and slightly sleazy. How can we use one another to further ourselves? I will say though that I would like to improve upon my ability to have worthwhile, memorable conversations with others with no strings attached.

Things I am Bad at That I Would Like to Improve

Follow Through

I have all of these ideas of things that I want to do. I'll be super gung-ho about them and then I just kind of fizzle out. I think it's a combination of laziness and not being realistic enough about time and my current capacity of what I can handle. I think the key to this is to start being more realistic. Start scheduling my time better. Stop wasting time scrolling through the lives of others via social media.

Being Thoughtful

Growing up I moved a pretty decent amount and back then when you moved it was a lot harder to stay in touch with others. I just elected to not do that, but now I truly suck at keeping in touch even with people who are fairly close by. 

I find myself thinking about people and then let it slide on out without doing anything about it. I really want to work harder to stay in touch with others and make time for them. Maybe I need a spreadsheet or something. 

Riding a Bike

I am really bad at riding a bike. Something about the two wheels and my lack of coordination just don't mesh all that well. I also flipped over my handlebars quite a lot as a child, so even a little dip in the road can be frightening. I would really like to get better at this though, because it's going to wound my precious ego when my kids can ride better than me. I mean, unless they are like BMX kids. In which case I never really stood a chance anyway, right?

Tell me about your most thoughtful friend.

Also, be honest, what are you really bad at?