Blog written by recruiter Koreena Geisler-Wagner
Ours is very much a culture of “gotta go, gotta do, and busy busy busy.” While being proactive and staying busy are admirable traits we should all strive to put forth, it is extremely important make time for self-reflection, self-critique, and, ultimately, self-improvement. In her article “How I learned to embrace criticism and become my better self,” Tasha Eurich discusses how easy it is to assume that you know all your faults, have overcome them, and no longer need to think about them. She reminds us that the road to self-improvement is continuous and never really ends.
Tasha shares her story about struggling to be more personable in work settings:
The first person who gave me this feedback was my very first boss. Incensed at the mere suggestion that it could be true, I decided he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Obviously, my outer behavior wholly reflected my inner motivations to be exceedingly warm, courageously vulnerable, and might I even say, desperately charming!
But over time, as other people started to tell me the exact same thing, this conviction began to fade.
I realized that I had two choices: I could continue to dismiss what I was hearing, or I could accept that the way I was coming across in professional settings was not, in fact, the way I thought I was coming across. It seemed wise to choose the latter.
If somebody you trust provides constructive feedback about how you operate in the workplace, at home, or in the world more generally– don’t dismiss it! Take it as an opportunity to reflect on yourself as a person. Review certain situations that didn’t play out the way you had hoped; is there something you could have done to produce a different outcome? Don’t be so quick to assume you understand others’ perceptions of you or that you know exactly how your words, behaviors, and actions are received. We are all works-in-progress (nobody is perfect) and we should not be afraid to reflect, critique, and improve.
Today’s message for self-reflection is brought to you by Contemporaries, Inc.
Photo: retrieved from Pixabay, available under the public domain.