You know what your problem is? I do.

At the beginning of the year, we had an assignment for our Careers course that required us to collect positive feedback from a variety of people who know us well so that we could look for trends, thereby helping us acknowledge situations in which we shine. It was, of course, a fun assignment, because everybody likes to read compliments. Some of the main themes in mine were that I'm good in small groups and creative.

Now we're doing a miniature version of the other side of that coin, collecting "negative" feedback, or improvement opportunities. Mine have been unsurprising -- that I could improve my skills in large-group networking situations and that I need to project more optimism and confidence. Comments about optimism and confidence always have a particular ring with me because I've been getting that feedback since I was very little. A couple years ago, I was re-reading some old elementary school report cards, and even in fourth grade, my teacher said I was bright and brilliant and wonderful and beloved, but that I needed to be constantly reassured of all these things or my confidence would crumble and I'd stop participating. Beyond intense psychotherapy, there's not much I can do about this today, although I can certainly work on faking it.

This MBA program, and maybe business schools in general, seems particularly keen on self-analysis. I can't even count the number of assessment tests we've done about our personality, aptitude and leadership style, and that's on top of papers about our strengths and weaknesses, values, commitments, future plans, etc. But it's very important to look deep down inside and not be distracted by minor ... oh shit, I have laundry to switch out. Be back later.