As professionals, our work lives tend to be important to us. We have achieved the professional status that we enjoy, we cherish our roles, we identify with the values, brand and culture of the firms we work for: we love our work self. We show up at work as a competent, engaged, useful and collaborative player on a team that has a worthwhile reason for doing what it does. (I may have my rose-tinted lenses on here, but bear with me)
Our working lives began with our professional development, and most of us have continued this through courses, qualifications, CPD, supervision or mentoring. Most people have also developed their personal attributes; this process happens as we mature and can be accelerated, given attention. With luck, we have grown in confidence, personal efficacy, self-awareness, self-esteem, and all the many virtues preached in the self-development literature.
Work in progress
But we may not have had this luck across the whole spectrum of our development; we may have missed opportunities or made poor choices with long-lasting repercussions. Further, we are all still ‘work in progress’ as we change and rebound against the VUCA world in which we operate. Those who stop learning have either accepted their limitations and are not unduly hampered by them, or else they are staring unseeingly at a blind spot (they don’t know what they don’t know). Most of us want to keep going at growing.
How do you know where you’re at?
Feedback is a common way to find out what you need to work on. 360-degree feedback, colleagues’ comments or the gap between your desired outcomes and reality can all be useful in highlighting personal or professional areas needing attention. There’s no doubt that feedback processes like these are invaluable but they are seldom frequent enough or of a calibre that means we can rely on them for completeness. Feedback from colleagues may focus on perceived gaps rather than highlighting our untapped potential or new opportunities.
Reflection DIY
There is another way to explore our areas for development: through reflection. Deliberate reflection, or ‘spacious thinking’, helps us work on self-discovery. To fully benefit from reflection takes motivation, effort and dedicated time. Tackled alone, a process such as journalling or mindful meditation can enable us to gain insights. However, for many people, it is difficult to dedicate the time and effort for these practices. It can feel uncomfortable and time-consuming, and the rewards may not seem certain.
A reflection partner
Working with an experienced reflection partner is an effective method for achieving insights with greater ease. A good reflection partner creates a safe and calm environment for thinking, applies enough structure and process to suit your needs, and helps ensure that the time you set aside doesn’t disappear into the rest of your working week. In other words, your partner facilitates so that your time and energy can all be focused productively for your own learning and growth.