Throughout my career, I have been my worst critic and held myself to unrealistic standards. This was my mechanism of protection. There was nothing anyone else could say that would be harsher than what I would say about me.
While most of the time this self-defense mechanism worked, there are memories of when it backfired. On those occasions, I was not truthful to myself and over-reacted to the situation, resulting in unnecessary career challenges.
People are often not truthful with themselves and grade their performance or career assessment at a higher level than where they are at. When you are not truthful to yourself, you will stop learning, go for opportunities you are not ready for, and you can stall your career.
When you do a self-assessment of the skills, attributes, and experiences you need to achieve your career goals, you must be truthful. The truth allows you to plan accordingly, seek new skills and develop a lifelong self-learning mentality that will illuminate your path to success. Being truthful forces you to become better prepared for the next step in your career and affords you the opportunity to focus on the things that will help you achieve success. By being truthful you avoid the traps that are in place for the unprepared.
You have to know where you are at first so you can then know where you are going!
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