Last year I attended a conference for women in business and found myself confronted with a chilling task. One of the inspiring guest speakers, a confidence expert (and some sort of sadist, it seems) challenged us to turn to a stranger and spend 60 painful seconds telling them what we were good at. Let me tell you, you don’t know how slowly time can pass until you’ve done a task like that. Those seconds passed like years.

As women we are dreadful at self-promotion, which is not surprising when you unpick the decades of conditioning that have led us to believe we need to be team players who never ever ‘brag’ or ‘show off’. Which I find ironic when the same amount of seconds on LinkedIn will show me a stream of men telling me what an absolute bloody hero they are for rocking up to work that day or repeating someone else’s insight with the authority of Einstein delivering his first talk on the theory of relativity.

Visibility is the number one factor that influences our progress at work, which means it is an absolute necessity to learn how to talk about your own achievements without wanting to rip your own head off. Here are seven habit upgrades to help you get comfortable saying, “I’m brilliant in every possible way, thanks.”

Self-promotion can feel uncomfortable – here are 7 ways to make it easier