attributes to avoid

Something I need to work on:

Self deprecation - I know there is a time and place for it. But constant streams of, "I'm such a clutz" "I'm such a dork!" only serve to reassure people that you are at face value what you say you are: a dorky clutz. Personally, I always find myself saying, "I'm directionally challenged." What a cop out. I let myself get off easy there. I really do struggle to find my way around sometimes, but I think its made worse by the fact that people expect it of me, because I told them to.  Instead of forcing myself to get better at spatial reasoning, I continue to fail at it, because people around me expect and allow me to. For an entire year of nursing school, a classmate and I carpooled. As in, she drove, I paid her gas money. Because I didn't want her to see me drive the freeways, in fear that I would get lost and look like a douche bag. She thought I hated freeways - I actually love freeways, when I was driving alone! I let (implored, begged) her to drive because I hated finding our new rotation sites, where to park, how to find the location we were meeting the rest of the group at, how to find my way between different sites at the hospital. It worked out like a charm, but it enabled my "I cant find my way" complex. Eventually we stopped carpooling and with the help of my iphone maps, I found my way around just fine. Now I just try to show up early and ask people when I cant find my way. Seems to work just fine.

I need to trust myself more.