Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Positivity of personal stocktaking!

People, you must make sure that at regular intervals you do the horribly cliched american thing of telling yourself how useful and good at stuff you are. Don't do the standing in front of a mirror and verbalising roten cliches like "I am a valuable person and I love myself" - that's frankly bullshit and only works if you think Disney is a model employer and George Bush is a great human being - but actually write down some of the good stuff you did recently, and maybe how it helped someone or got something done, and what the skill was. Don't turn it into a full CV, no need, but give it a whirl.

I mention this because I was looking at my old CV from 2005 which doesn't contain anything from my job at Panasonic during "the wilderness years" when they gave me crappy jobs (apart from the automation system stuff which was a blast). I had thought those years were lost time, but after sketching out all the things I did on the automation system alone I realised I had actually done one hell of a lot in that time.

And just writing this has reminded me of something else I did that I can stick on there - not just an empty "I did this", but "I did this and it proved this and saved this amount of money, etc" - just the sort of positive linkage of thought-deed-outcome that CVs need, rather than dry fact stuff.

It's been a positive experience and has actually built my gumption for the task ahead. BTW, read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a great description of Gumption: spot on.

Go on, do youselves a favour and give yourselves a real lift.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So true! Visualisation and the power of positive thought really does work ( I use it all the time teaching newbie divers).
First you have to get yourself as far away as possible from negative influences, though...!

I have found it useful to keep a pen and paper by my bed. Last thing at night I write down 3 things I've done during day that I'm really pleased with (they can be really small things if you're having a 'black day'). Next morning you begin by reading your 3 positives...and Hey! You ALWAYS start the day feeling 'upbeat'.
I know it sounds cheesy, but try it....It works!