As we close out another year on the Big Ball, thoughts turn to next year and all of the possibilities that a new year can bring. Similar to the start of any sports season, teams begin the season undefeated with visions of success and championships in their future. Using that same metaphor, you (as a team) start the year undefeated, untied and definitely untested in all that you can accomplish in 2015. Visions of success in your workplace, in your home and in your personal life abound. Thoughts of being a better Christian, a better father, a better husband, completing some type of physical challenge, losing weight, etc. fill your mind with endless possibilities for next year. You are going to take on the world!
With all of the wondrous ideas for next year, a man does not typically review the previous year for wins/losses in his personal life over the past year. Why not? In most businesses across the country, year end performance reviews are a not so welcome rite of passage that occurs at the end of the year. You have that distinct opportunity to sit down with your boss and get their perspective on your year. This can be good (we hope), bad or indifferent depending on his/her perspective. It doesn’t get any better than this!
Back in January 2014, Santini challenged the men of the Fort to identify one word that would define our year. Mine was “accountable”. It is a popular theme and certainly cliché considering all that I wanted to accomplish this year. Little did I know how this word would define my year in good ways and bad. Certainly, it is easy to highlight those successes that I had in 2014 but I cower at the thought of all the losses that I endured this year. Unfortunately, in retrospect it is easy to see how my team fumbled the ball this year!
As I reflect back this year on the word “accountable”, one thing strikes me…what would others perspective be of my year? How would my boss (wife, family, friends…and most importantly, God) review my performance? What is their perception of my year? I have a simple way to determine what that review might look like.
While we often speak of the ills and downfalls of participating in things such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. there is a clear advantage to these if you want to evaluate your perception in cyberspace…unlimited server space.
A simple way to determine your persona …review all of your tweets and posts from the last year. Don’t have social media? Randomly select 25 personal emails that you sent this year especially those that were group emails. Then simply ask yourself…am I proud of my effort? How would God, my wife or my friends interpret my messages over the last year? Is there an underlying tone or innuendo? Do the messages match what my heart says? Even worse, what would my children think of the messages? Would I be proud to show my children these messages?
As the year comes to a close, before you put together those New Years Resolutions for 2015, I challenge you to conduct your own performance review. Is this the perception you want others to have of you?