Personal Development : Stage 1... The Baseline

Before setting out on any course of action to fulfil your personal aspirations on who you want to be you must first of all give real consideration to who you are.

With a clear understanding of your personal make up, drivers, attributes and strengths you can lay out a clear plan of where you want to be utilising each of the above as building blocks in your personal elevation.

 It is critical you get this clarity of your personal baseline in place before you head out on any progressive path. This will serve as the benchmark to measure your progress.

Without this reference point it may be difficult to measure forward progress!

Everything that happens in our daily lives is determined not by a single individual but from situations created through the interaction of a number of individuals and their decisions. Economies, communities, political environments are constantly changing through beliefs, opinions and decisions of individuals being expressed to and gathering support from others. 
 

Where that support gathers momentum, the situation establishes a higher profile and at the same time reduces the likelihood of being challenged by any one individual. Without being part of the early decision making or influencing, people can end up in situations they would prefer to avoid. There are those of course who do challenge, in some cases they will succeed in their challenge; create their own support infrastructure and build popular and powerful status. These individuals will be recognised and consulted, ultimately using that recognition to gain position.

Such individuals are generally successful because they have set out with a clear view on who they are and what they want.  That may have been accelerated by a situation they have found themselves in which they are not happy with. Nevertheless this individual will know their own mind what they want to do about it and how they will go about achieving that. Even if they don’t always succeed, they will look critically at what they could have done better in such situations and apply next time round!

There are those individuals from history we all know and have opinions of and each of whom had strengths and weaknesses.

There are those who will influence these factors and those who will be influenced by them.

 
 It is for you to decide if you want to be influenced or the influencer. The former is easily achievable, the latter not so much but surely any influence you have in your own life, no matter how small, is surely preferable?

Knowing who you are you will help you move forward.  You may in fact be pleasantly surprised that when you do this “self review” and discover that you are not that far away from the person you aspire to be; you just didn’t recognise it!

 
This reinforces the need to get to know yourself better.

Recognising who you are is not only looking at those personal elements you see are of value, you must recognise your entire make up. By only recognising your qualities, there may come a time when your weaker ( development areas) kick in and you struggle to control them by not recognising or acknowledging their presence.

Early recognition of development points would give you the opportunity to dilute and control these as you go through each stage of your personal development.

People are reluctant to recognise their qualities and if asked find themselves having to think of the answer- there are those who do know their qualities, they often  remind themselves of them. This builds greater self confidence.

What is your best feature ?

If you cannot think of this immediately you have not given any real thought to yourself, either that or you feel it is arrogant to be self praising. If you want to progress you have to recognise your inner qualities. As you do and when you start to build on these, others will similarly recognise them.

You cannot of course do this on your own. We all have our own opinions on how we see ourselves and how others see us, how often however do you actually test the ccuracy of that ? The simplest way to do this initially is to write down what you believe are your qualities, your development areas with supporting rationale.

 The next stage is to test that with those around you- partners, family, friends, work colleagues and even your manager. Ask for their honest opinion, you may not like some of the responses but take time to understand their responses. If they don’t agree with you it doesn’t conclude you don’t have those attributes- you may just have to make them more visible. Remember however that if those closest to you don’t recognise the attributes how do you convince those who don’t know you and who you may need to impress in a business or social environment.

 The following outline the areas you should consult on for assessment

 Workplace

 

Do I

o   Listen to others

o   Take guidance and coaching

o   Do as I say

o   Stand up for my beliefs

o   Put ideas across

o   Contribute to the team

o   Support my management

o   Manage stakeholders

o   See the bigger picture

o   Take control of situations

o   Articulate myself in a professional manner

o   Positively represent the business

o   Gain respect as a leader/innovator

o   Inspire others

o   Deal with difficult situations or avoid these

 

Let’s look at the possible answers from one of these questions from the different feedback and understand what this illustrates.

Q : Do I take control of situations ?

Your Answer : Yes I believe I manage situations well.

 

Peer : Yes always  speaks up and wants to get involved

Manager :  Not afraid to get involved but needs guidance as to the objective and steps to achieve.

Your initial reaction may be that as your colleague agrees with your own assessment, your manager is wrong. Regardless of what you think you must consider who in this scenario can influence your career path. The above illustrates a scenario where you speak up and certainly want to get involved but that does not necessarily mean you are “taking control”. You must therefore sit down with your manager and understand what you need to do better and make this part of your development plan with a clear timeline and review of progress.

When doing your assessment really focus on what is being asked. Below the questions are replayed. Hinge on the words highlighted and really consider what positives are looking to be identified. With this approach you may find your initial answer is now different ?!

Question	Positive
o   Listen to others	You take ideas on board. You engage others well.
o   Take guidance and coaching	You are seeking to learn and progress. You are interested in your actions and what can be improved.
o   Do as I say	You actively follow up.
o   Stand up for my beliefs	You are not afraid to express opinion.
o   Put ideas across	You are creative and willing to share and engage on new approaches.
o   Contribute to the team	You are a team player. You look to develop relationships with your peer group. You want to make the team successful.
o   Manage stakeholders	You use stakeholder relationships and steer towards the objective.
o   Understand the bigger picture	You are a strategic thinker who can contribute on various levels.
o   Take control of situations	You assess situation, desired outcomes and put in place a plan to achieve.
o   Articulate myself in a professional manner	You come across well at all levels as knowledgeable .
o   Positively represent the business	You exude a confident and upbeat persona which endears others to you and the message being conveyed.
o   Gain respect as a leader/innovator	Others look up to you as someone to follow and create positive change environments.
o   Inspire others	Others want to learn from you and reflect your approach in their development.
o   Deal with difficult situations or avoid these	You lead from the font and drive through the objective.

 

Social

Some of these will of course traverse :-

Once you have answered these questions then share your answers with your colleagues, family and friends. Choose three people in each. Analyse their feedback against your answers and see how they compare. It is important to be honest with yourself, don’t go into a strop because you don’t like some of the feedback. Similarly where there is disparity question the reasons behind their answers and again take and shape the feedback to your benefit.

Who You Want to Be (and Why)

 You may attain the position or status you desire but without knowing why you wanted it in the first place you will never be truly fulfilled. You must therefore have clear goals and clarity on what you deem to be successful returns. This may be greater wealth. position of power, happiness or all three. Some people may relate to wealth and power being the driver whilst others may look for fulfilment through helping others. Contributing to the community or just being able to have a good time. Whatever your bag; know why you want it, so you can establish when you have achieved the desired outcome.

As you progress you must re-baseline yourself at each elevated stage. It is crucial to  constantly check that you continue to do the basics well. If you lose sight of the basics you are removing the foundations of your progress, causing it to be unstable.  In business the next stages of progress will always be more demanding. The more elevated your position the more people will expect from you. Therefore your Personal Rate Card success criteria must become more stretching.