Resolutions 2.0

Whether you make resolutions for the New Year, or establish goals for yourself year-round, maybe it’s time to add another step to your process - reflection. What will determine whether a goal you set is one that sticks, or is just something you intend to do (and ultimately don’t), is the skill of noticing.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

If you've done your resolved behavior...

• What worked about this and why?
• What could have gone wrong that you managed to avoid?
• How does doing this make you feel? Is that better than you felt before you did it, worse, or the same?
• What else has become possible for you since trying out this new behavior?
• Is this the only way to get these results, or do you want to try out any other behaviors?
• Which people or situations are a particular challenge for you?
• Do you want to continue to do this? 

If you haven't done it...

• What have been the consequences of not doing this? Are these consequences you can live with?
• What was your original reason for wishing to do it?        

Best of luck with all of your 2015 resolutions and Happy New Year!

~ Sophie

Unwrapping the Gift of Feedback

Feedback is a gift. I’ll leave that as a given and spend my remaining 197 words on tips for receiving this “gift”:

• Notice the positive. It’s our survival instinct to focus on the negative (see “Skewing Negative,” July 2104), but there’s a school of thought that you’ll make a bigger, better impact by enhancing your strengths than you will focusing on your weakest areas.
• Know that you usually rate yourself by your intentions, while others rate you based on their perceptions (“The Gift of Feedback,” August 2011). 
• And… their perceptions may not be true. Think of market research: Customers may complain that your product doesn’t work the way it should, when really they just don’t know how to make it work that way. This is good information for you about the education you need to provide.
• Feedback is just data, and you get to decide what to do with that data. I’d suggest analyzing it to determine if there is a grain of truth in it (regardless of who delivered it) then designing an experiment to try out some small step for some distinct period of time. My next post (next week) will focus on what to do next...

Happy Holidays!

~ Sophie

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