1 question you MUST include when evaluating yourself
I know you, high achiever.
You’re always striving to improve and often scanning yourself for what you’re doing wrong.
You’re very rigorous about asking yourself what you need to do better in order to get to the next level.
I’m going to give you ONE question I want you to include in every self-evaluation going forward.
(Both the formal ones you do at work and the informal ones you’re always running in your head.)
I can guarantee that you’re not asking it now (or if you are, that you’re not spending enough time on it).
And it will change everything about your relationship with growth, your improvement areas, and your journey to becoming who you want to be.
Here’s the question—
What am I doing WELL? What’s going RIGHT?
Do NOT just skim over this question.
Do NOT fill it out quickly just so you can get it over with.
Do NOT look at the answers and say “yeah but that’s just baseline, so who cares.”
Take your time and answer this question in full depth and detail — with as much attention as you give to your improvement areas.
Here’s why this is important.
The first question you ask in an evaluation sets the tone for everything that comes afterward.
Your brain anchors to whatever comes first.
Or said another way: Whatever you say first creates a halo effect that affects how you interpret everything that comes next.
Let me prove it to you with a classic Solomon Asch psychology experiment:
What do you think about Alan and Ben?
Alan is: intelligent—industrious—impulsive—critical—stubborn—envious
Ben is: envious—stubborn—critical—impulsive—industrious—intelligent
Alan and Ben have been described with the exact same set of words, just in a different order.
But I can bet you anything that you have a more favorable impression of Alan than you do of Ben.
That’s the halo effect.
That’s why the ORDER matters tremendously.
In real life, the bias is often even worse…
…because your brain will often forget the good stuff altogether.
The good things don’t just get listed LAST.
The good things don’t get listed at ALL.
That’s why you’ll wrap up a full, jam-packed, busy work day and say:
I didn’t get anything done today.
Or why you’ll have 2 awkward minutes in a 60 minute meeting and say:
I’m terrible at presenting.
Or why you’ll have 2 off-track days and 10 on-track days and say:
I have zero consistency.
That’s your brain forgetting the good stuff and zooming in 100% on the bad stuff.
And when you anchor 100% to the bad stuff…
It creates a “dark halo” around the entire pursuit of improvement.
It puts you into a Deficit Mindset, where you feel like you’re starting below baseline and you have to desperately claw your way out of the hole by any means necessary.
This way of improving is both less fun AND less effective. It’s a lose-lose.
But when you take the time to actually name and notice all the good stuff…
When you fully anchor to the good stuff FIRST…
It creates a “bright halo” around the entire pursuit of improvement.
It puts you into a Surplus Mindset, where you feel like you’re starting well above baseline and any improvements are just fun icing on the cake.
Notice how different it feels to say, after a jam-packed, busy work day…
What went RIGHT is…
I answered 75 emails
I attended 10 meetings
I made progress on Project A, B, and C
I put out an unexpected fire
I uncovered a blocker on Project D and escalated it
I gave my colleague advice
etc. etc. (Go down your entire list and your entire calendar and notice everything that you did well and that went right)
Dang. I got a lot done!
And in the context of ALL of these things going right and ALL of these things I’m doing well…
You know what could make me even better? I could tweak this, adjust that, trim something here, add something there…
And I could be even more effective tomorrow. How fun is that?
This way of improving is more fun AND more effective. It’s a win-win.
Your brain will not do evaluations like this on its own.
Your automatic brain is built to notice the negative and discount or ignore the positive.
Your brain’s negativity bias means that it tends to notice what’s NOT going well first.
And your brain’s susceptibility to halo effect means that once it’s noticed the negative stuff, that first impression colors everything and makes the whole picture look gloomy and glum.
All our brains are like this. Nothing is going wrong here.
But if you let these tendencies run unchecked, it’s very easy to get into a cycle where you’re always working, always striving, always doing more…
…but you still always feel behind, and like you haven’t done enough, and like you’re not good enough.
Which means you just have to work MORE and strive MORE and do MORE…
And the cycle just keeps repeating again and again.
It’s a vicious hamster wheel that leads to nowhere.
So jump off the wheel.
Disrupt the cycle at the very beginning.
By asking yourself, FIRST, before anything else:
What am I doing WELL? What’s going RIGHT?
And you know what it really takes to break the inadequacy-driven achievement cycle once and for all?
It’s not about how many new techniques or tricks or reframes you can learn.
It’s about how deeply you practice and apply what you already know.
This is why it’s invaluable to have a coach.
All the content I give you here is teaching. It’s new concepts, new techniques, new perspectives and things to try.
My coaching is implementation.
It’s a thousand times more valuable than my teaching because it gives you the structure and accountability and iterative problem-solving you need to actually put these ideas into practice in your life.
All you have to do is show up to your coaching call once a week.
I’ll take care of the rest.
Learning all the ideas in the world, in theory, won’t change your life.
But implementing ONE idea all the way to the end WILL.
So come talk to me, and let’s get started :)
What my clients have to say…
“I would recommend Pooja to anyone who feels like there is a part of their life where they feel stuck — either stuck in a vicious thought cycle, or stuck at work, or stuck in some sort of unhealthy personal relationship, or not able to improve some aspect of their life that they want to.
Honestly that’s probably everybody, because everyone's probably stuck in some aspect of their life.”
—Client | Head of Business Development at MedTech Company
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