A feedback based personal review: you! (part3)

In the part 1 and 2 of this series I explained “why” and “how” you should run a personal review and its benefits. Now let’s see how you can use all the data that we have gathered!

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool”
(Richard P. Feynman)

Be honest with yourself and be ready to flip your mindset! Probably I’ve been lucky to watch this presentation of Linda Rising on “The power of Agile Mindset”.
The important lesson I learned is to be ready to recognise that you were wrong and you have done some mistakes! Correcting our own mistakes is the greatest learning point of a self-review.

The most important part of this personal review is about you and reflecting on yourself!
Now you have collected lot of data, you started thinking what you really value and what are your long term expectations: it’s time to create your actions plan!!

Do you want to contribute more? Start writing more blog posts, be more active in you communities, be ready to help your friends whenever they need you!
Do you want to learn photography? Choose a photography club in your area, choose and attend a photography course.
Do you want to eat more healthily? Start taking a log of your meals and setting some constraints to your diet.
Do you want to do more sport activity? Haven’t started yet your gym subscription?!? London marathon is next April!

Ehy! wait a minute! Don’t commit yourself to too many actions: is important that you do and give whatever you can without burning out!

One of the major changes that happened to myself during my review is the one of a mindset flip. Like many of us I’ve always felt very busy and with too many things to do wishing I had a 36hrs a day!
Don’t make my same mistake! Now you can look at “what really matters” and choose your priorities. Everyday now I don’t feel to busy anymore, but I’m feeling more positive and with a lot more of enthusiasm!

I’m still feeling that I’m probably doing too many things but with the conviction that is the right direction given the information I had at the moment of my choices.

“Intelligence is Diverse, Dynamic, Distinct”
(Sir Ken Robinson)

…and the same is true for your life and work. In your actions you must be specific and tight to you context and allow you to keep a good balance.
You can transform some of them in a TODO list to follow daily. Split big actions in smaller ones so that you can measure and accomplish something new every day.
If you want to learn more on how to create better actions read this short article on S.M.A.R.T. goals.

We tend to create new actions and adding something new to our behaviour to achieve a goal.
Sherlock Holmes in “Silver Blaze” solved a crime by deducing who was the criminal because “the dog did not bark”. Similarly is very easy to recognise that you should do something new, but is very difficult to acknowledge you should stop doing something or that something in a common situation is missing.

Finally acknowledge what you’ve already learned!
In the last year during my first two work projects I recognised that I had received almost constantly the same feedback from may colleagues. Recognising it and acknowledging that in my last few months I fixed it has been one of the most positive experiences that gave me a whole new injection of confidence.

So, what are you waiting for?!? It’s time to put your plan into action now!