Is movement your sole yardstick for growth and development, regardless of how much, where, or how long it takes?
Are you overconfident in yourself to the point of arrogance that you find it unnecessary to observe and analyze your actions for flaws? Or are you one of those who have adopted self-assessment that they diminish their freedom to speak and act as they please?
These people find time every week to sit by themselves and review all events, reactions, decisions, and scenarios that take place to improve the way they deal with life and people, enhance their wisdom, maturity, and sophistication, and seek real change in life.
You will not be able to rise or succeed if you do not assess yourself at every stage of your life. This is what we will cover in this article.
Self-Assessment
It is an important and recurring stage in human life, as people review their actions, thoughts, and steps to rate their performance and progress. Self-assessment helps a person reach their goals and aspirations and live an enjoyable and responsible life. Self-assessmet enhances a person's sense of responsibility towards their words, actions, thoughts, intentions, and plans and leaves no room for randomness and distraction in their life.
Criteria for Self-Assessment
1. Honesty
Here, a person must be 100% honest with themselves. They must have an hones session with themselves and mention all the situations that happened over a period of time without trying to cut the truth or hide any parts of it.
2. Neutrality
A person must be neutral during self-assessment by mentioning the positive and negative events, those that show their good and bad sides, their kindness and their nervousness, and the details that show both their understanding and their lack of cooperation.
3. Predominance of reason over feelings
A person must tame themselves and control their feelings to prevent their emotions from controlling the assessment process, which makes them tend to leave an excellent mark on all situations and events. Instead, they must allow their mind to take control to give a rational and logical judgment on matters.
4. Roles
A person must define their roles in life, in which they want to rate their performance, such as focusing on eight aspects of life, like work and specialization, health and sports, relationship with parents, financial situation, marital or emotional relationship, social relations, self-development, and the spiritual aspect.
5. Imperfection
A person must accept their bad qualities before their good ones, because life is not perfect but a mix of negative and positive experiences. Negative experience helps them search for themselves, discover their shortcomings, and address them.
6. Congruence
A person must prioritize congruence with their values and principles during the self-assessment journey so that their actions and attitudes intersect with their values and morals. As a result, their view of themselves improves.
How to perform self-assessment
You can draw a table in a notebook and then list the positive and negative situations that occurred to you recently. You can also write down your roles in life and rate your performance in these different roles (bad, good, very good, excellent). Then, analyze the reasons for the low result.
Reasons for low self-assessment
1. A distorted self-image
When a person has a negative self-image, they consider themselves incompetent, not worthy of success and achievement, and lacking in capabilities and skills that help them reach their goal. The negative self-image is caused by previous negative experiences, such as being exposed to a lot of negative and critical speech by family and friends or to a lot of harsh comparisons between them and others, like when the mother says, “Look at your polite, kind, and hardworking friend; why can you not be like him?”
The distortion of a person's self-image comes from a defect in fulfilling their psychological needs, such as the need to be loved or desired or the need to be safe and sound. High expectations about life, which are crushed by reality, also cause many psychological issues for the person.
2. The absence of value system
When a person does not define their basic values, this means that they are floundering in life without guidance.
3. The absence of a mission
When a person does not have a clear mission in life to act according to, this means loss, dispersion, and the absence of a compass in life.
How to improve your self-assessment?
1. Positive self-talk
A person must change the way they talk to themselves, filling it with positive, encouraging words, like saying, "I am capable, I am strong, and I can reach what I want."
2. Drawing a new self-image
Here, a person draws the image they want for themselves and repeats it until it is embedded in their subconscious. It does not matter if they, at first, fake the new image through their actions. What matters is its final fixation within them.
3. Accepting mistakes
Here, a person must accept their mistakes, whatever they are, as no one is infallible. Also, they must fix their mistakes because what matters is learning from them.
4. Self-discipline
A person must learn commitment and discipline to improve their self-assessment by taking responsibility for their life and its details. Instead of blaming circumstances and others, they tend to ask themselves, “What if I am the reason for what happened to me? What if I have to search within myself, discover my shortcomings, and work on them?"
On the other hand, they must learn time management so that they can eliminate the surrounding distractions, like social media, phone calls, annoying friends, etc. Also, they must face their fears and pursue their passion with vigor and enthusiasm, without caring about others' criticism.
5. Setting goals
Set clear and specific goals for yourself to add value to your life, get the opportunity to live your life to the fullest, not live on its sidelines, and feel enthusiasm and desire to go through life's challenges and obstacles.
6. Prioritizing yourself
Prioritize yourself, do not delay taking care of yourself, and love yourself with all your energy. You will be the first to dry your tears at times of sadness, and you will also be the first to rejoice at your successes and progress. So do not deprive yourself of that love, entitlement, and kindness.
7. Patience
You have to be patient. You might fail to achieve your goals and dreams, but this does not mean giving up. You have to accept it, and strive and try again until you reach what you want. Take advantage of and learn from the negative experiences in your life. Do not expect life to be perfect and rosy, as it is full of challenges and tests.
8. Building habits
Build small steps that will contribute to changing your lifestyle, such as deciding to read for 15 minutes a day. Start with small but continuous steps, and you will notice the change in your habits and behaviors. If you are addicted to a negative habit, you have to understand the way in which a negative habit is formed.
If you are used to eating a hearty meal while watching TV, turning the TV on will trigger you to do something else. Then you will perform the routine action, which is eating an unhealthy meal, up to the feeling of reward, which is comfort and pleasure. After that, you have a great desire to repeat the behavior.
If you want to turn the negative habit into a positive one, you can modify the usual routine to include a healthier alternative, such as replacing the unhealthy meal with a healthy one, while maintaining the comfort and pleasure you get from eating. You can eat bananas and mangoes, if you like, instead of fried potatoes.
9. Intention
Eliminate all distractions that hinder you from your goal, like your phone, and set a specific work plan that obligates you to perform tasks at a specific time, on a specific day, so that you can rate your progress and performance.
In conclusion
You can develop yourself if you really intend to do so and if you strive with all your strength for your goal and mission in life.
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