In work and at home, having the wrong skills for a particular situation can be just as damaging. If you’re asked to take an important client out for lunch, but your interpersonal skills are lacking, you’re likely to get in trouble with your boss later. If you take your kids for a walk and get lost because you have low visual/spatial intelligence, then you’re likely to feel like a bad parent.

You’ll feel much better in these and similar situations if you can take a step back and realize that you weren’t being asked to use your best skills. Maybe you should have stayed at the office and written a stellar report that made the best of your verbal/linguistic skills. Maybe you should have taken your kids dancing instead because you could have called on your musical intelligence.

Teachers who are aware of the impact of multiple intelligences try to use this knowledge to foster self confidence in their students. They offer assignment options whenever possible and design activities that allow everyone to find success while also developing skills in their problem areas.

You don’t have to be in school to take to heart the lessons of multiple intelligences. Find your skills and capitalize on them. If you’re doing what you’re best at, your self-confidence will soar. You can most likely figure out your strongest intelligences just from reading the list of characteristics, but if you’d like a more objective opinion, a quick search online turns up numerous tests.

They’re most likely not scientifically calibrated personality tests, but they can be useful as a baseline reading and food for thought. Just because you have a natural ability in certain intelligences, it doesn’t mean that you can’t develop yourself in other areas. Learning new skills and improving yourself are also surefire confidence boosters.

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