How successful people practice persistent self-assessment …

Whether in business, ministry, or any aspect of your personal life, most of us want to be “successful” (I’ll leave you to supply your definition of “successful”).

None of us will be very successful if we’re stubborn about not only responding to change, but being proactive in initiating change.

Jack Welch, the former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, offered this wise advice:

“Change … before you HAVE to.”

If you wait until you HAVE to change before you begrudgingly begin any changes, you’re probably about to face troubles caused by not changing sooner.

How do you avoid that and keep yourself on track to better succeed at achieving your goals? By adopting a personal practice of persistent self-assessment.

Allow me to give you an example of how you can build into your life a practice of persistent self-assessment that will help you to make small adjustments (or whatever size change is needed) or “course corrections” to keep you on track for achieving the objectives you’ve set for yourself, your business, your ministry, or whatever you’re striving to succeed at. This is a method I have developed and used for myself for a few decades, and it has served me well.

I’ll assume you already understand the need to first establish clear and concise goals, followed by developing a strategy for achieving your goals, along with detailing the tactics you will use, and finally executing them with diligence. From there, you need to exercise self-discipline to implement a practice of regular self-assessment. My practice is as follows, explained in reverse order to give you a better understanding:

Annual assessment. Before the start of a new year, I conduct a comprehensive self-assessment. This includes praying and thinking about any goals or changes to existing goals for the coming year, then adding to that where I am at with my current goals, how my current goals will be carried into the new year, and any adjustments I need to make with my current goals, including strategy, tactics, and how I am executing them. I spend whatever time I need until I have a comprehensive plan for the coming year that integrates existing goals with any new goals for the coming year and make sure I have in place the right strategies and tactics to achieve all of my objectives.

Quarterly assessments. Before the end of each quarter, I do a fairly comprehensive assessment regarding my progress toward my goals. This is a critical assessment because if you don’t catch any veering off course or changes that need to be made within the timeframe of a quarter (three-month period), you will likely find yourself so far off course you’re creating troubles for even being able to get back on track without significant work to repair the needed correction.

Monthly assessments. At the end of each month, I make time to sit and assess how I am doing in moving toward achieving my goals, and measure the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics I’m executing. This is an ideal time to identify any corrections that need to be made so that I don’t wind up spending a quarter veering off track.

Weekly assessment. At the end of each week it is beneficial to sit with a cup of coffee and review my progress for the week. With the timeframe of a week, it can be easy to see any immediate missteps or minor changes that need to be implemented during the coming week.

Daily organization and “think time.” There’s an old saying, “Plan your work, then work your plan.” Not only does that need to be done in initially setting goals and crafting strategy with tactics, it’s also very beneficial to do that on a daily basis. This is done by making time before a day is done to have a good plan in place for the next day, or at least put a good plan in place for your day at the start of each day. Organize yourself so you can focus on simply executing your plan for that day. For decades, I have practiced building into every day what I call my daily “think time,” which is time just to think more deeply and in a more focused manner rather than trying to always “think on the run” as the day unfolds (for more about that, see my blog post on “5 reasons for adding a daily ‘think time’ to your life” by clicking here).

This example of persistent self-assessment does require of a person a diligent application of self-discipline, but the outcomes are usually well worth building in such a persistent practice of assessment and focused time for thinking and organizing yourself. Make sure to put each of these assessments on your calendar and mark them as a priority so they don’t get bumped.

You might discover you don’t need as quite a stringent level of self-assessment as this, but if you want to consistently succeed in achieving your goals you will need some level of ongoing assessment, organizing, and thinking that is effective for you.

Scotty