Does my bum look big in this??

Skills are like clothes.  Some have more hanger appeal than others.  Some look really fabulous just hanging on the rail along with all the others.  Conflict Handling.  That’s a good one.  Look at me swirling my conflict handling cape around my head!  Look at me go!  Handling conflict here and conflict there.  Begone conflict!  I can see myself as a regular superhero wearing that one. 

Some skills have no hanger appeal whatsoever.  Time management perhaps.  Yes, I know I SHOULD wear that one more often.  It’s popular and everyone says I look good in it, but I just don’t find it attractive.  Isn’t that so last season anyway?

There are some really daring skills-clothes too.  The ones I look at out of the corner of my eye when I go in the skills shop.  Presentation skills.  I’d love to have the nerve to wear that one.  It’s so bold.  A little ostentatious maybe.  People would go ooh and aah when they see me in that one.  But I couldn’t wear that colour.  Could I?  Dare I?  No.  Maybe I should just surreptitiously sneak a little self-confidence off the rail and ask them to put it in a brown paper bag.  I can wear that one at home, when there’s no-one else around.  And while I’m wearing it I can pretend I’m wearing the bright and dazzling presentation skills instead.

The trick to dressing well, I’m told, is to wear what suits us in the way of colour, texture, pattern and style.  And if there’s something in our wardrobe that isn’t quite right, there are ways we can dress it up so that it works for us.  Well the same goes for skills.  There are some skills that don’t come naturally to me at all, but that’s the beauty of skills.  They CAN be learnt.  They may never be our go-to place (we do, after all, tend to wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time).  But, on those special occasions, we can take that skill out of its dust cover, send it to the dry cleaners, put it on and surprise those around us by just how dapper we look.

I’ve been recommended to do a ‘wardrobe audit’ from time to time (and I do!).  It’s a good opportunity for me to remind myself of those items that work well with others; which ones suit me and which ones don’t.  I’m invariably surprised by just how many outfits I actually have when I take a moment to look closely at the individual pieces in my wardrobe.  Maybe now’s the right time to do a ‘skills audit’.  You may surprise yourself with just how good you look in those wonderful skills hiding at the back of your wardrobe.

What are you wearing this season?