That time of the year is fast approaching when people start talking ‘New Year Resolutions’. Most of them don’t go beyond talking. When the entire junta (public) starts talking something – I know that something is fishy. That is what I also think about the New Year Resolutions – it’s fishy. If there is some change one wants to see in their life, then one needs to start working on it right away and not wait for the New Year.
There is also no reason that a true, meaningful resolution will strike us around the New Year time – unless we actually are affected by some personal sorrow or if we consciously do some self evaluation activities that lead us to resolve something relevant. Simply jumping on the bandwagon because there is a change in the date, will most likely only be flippant and random.
For me the New year just happened right after Diwali in November – The Jain New Year. So technically, for a large number of us who follow other cultural calendars – we already had a New Year. And usually these cultural new year ensures many relevant and thoughtful activities around it. For example, around Diwali we have a plethora of artistic activities which can act like an emotional release of sorts. Prepping us for a meaningful resolve for the next year. Some people may indulge in many spiritual austerities – fasting, pooja, chanting and such – these may also lead to a deeper clarity in life.
Instead of waiting for meaning or clarity to happen in our lives, it is very useful and transformative to have an active self evaluation process for ourselves.
Either ways, New Year resolutions or any resolutions they are, the fact still remains that you need to do some Self Evaluation before figuring out what change is needed in your life.
Give some meaning to that often used expression, “How are You?”. Ask yourself – How am I truly? Evaluate.
When you think about it, at an ad hoc level you will have some thoughts about How you are doing. But I urge you to go one step beyond. Figure out the framework, figure out how to measure your well being!
Those ad hoc feelings about How you are – can be highly misleading. Has it ever happened that someone around you is very happy one moment and just a few moments later they go ballistic – angry/sad? Or someone spends a great deal of effort in one direction (like a marriage) and then they joy and excitement simply fizzles out.
I am sure you have seen someone or have experienced it happen to yourself. So these ‘feelings’ about ourselves are often just not true. And even if they are overall true, doing a more thorough evaluation will only help.
As with any evaluation, to do an impact-ful evaluation one needs some clear framework and metrics.
For example: When I run a digital ad campaign, I have clear metrics which I measure to evaluate whether it was Awesome, Good, Ok, Bad or Terrible. I see the number of clicks it gets, the business gained from those clicks, the price per click and so on. For each ad campaign the metrics may differ a little, but more or less the framework remains the same. Even without seeing the detailed numbers, I have some idea about the campaign impact, but looking at the actual numbers & doing the analysis most of the times delivers surprises, insights I didn’t realize. It is really important part of the work.
I would urge you to set up this framework for self evaluation. But I am also going one more step beyond this and offering you a framework. This is something I made for myself. Previously I had blogged about the need for self evaluation. I had also then shared some of my thoughts about the various aspects of life I look at for self evaluation. Here I have added more details within each aspect so we can evaluate how we are doing in each of those aspects….
(update: since writing this article, my self evaluation practice has evolved a lot. I hope to update it here soon, but the current framework is still a pretty good starting point)
The benefits of such an evaluation are immense. I cannot under-estimate the value of this practice.
For me, an additional evaluation exercise happens because of all these blogs that I have. This one, my Travel blog & Work blog. I write a year-end post for each of these blogs & that becomes a mini evaluation in itself of the various spheres of my life. I truly look forward to these year-end blog summaries.
All in all these evaluation exercises are truly wonderful. So, take at least one step towards self evaluation – and share with me how the experience was, I am curious. 🙂
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