Those "aha moments" of insight are key to ongoing personal development.

I’ve struggled with personal confidence most of my life – growing up I was introverted and shy. I married early looking for acceptance and belonging and found neither. The man I married became physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive switching almost overnight.

Two children, a career, and seventeen years later, I fled a dire situation with our children and his mother. That was in 2005. I came out of the marriage with the bonus of having low confidence and self-esteem issues. I still struggle with these, if not on a daily basis anymore.

So where does this “aha moment” come in?

Well, it’s easy to get confused about which behaviours and traits you need to rebuild and adjust. I’ve always been humble; the very thought of tooting my own horn creeps me out. I thought that this was a weakness, one that needed firmly stomping on. It entangled in my mind with a lack of confidence.

Enter Chris Montoya and his suggestion that I take the Fascination Test on Sally Hogshead’s website. The test was a revelation that started a cascade of warmth as I realised that I’d been struggling to change the person that people actually valued me for. This is the opposite of what I thought I was doing!

That warmth continued to spread upon reading session five of the Blog topics Master Class, where Chris Brogan talks about confidence and humility being a powerful combination. The very traits that Sally Hogshead and numerous other people had suggested I was valued for.

My lesson from this is to be on guard because it’s easy to see your traits as a negative. In this time of resolutions, we should step back and question whether we are resolving to change something that’s a strength and that ONLY YOU see as a weakness?