What if you still got a report card? With comments about your accomplishments and areas where you needed a little work. What if instead of math and language, the categories were tailored to the goals you have for yourself? What if you wrote that report card about yourself?
List your accomplishments. Let the list include things that are job related and things that have nothing to do with your professional life. Give yourself credit for what you did well.
Also, look at the things that almost made it onto this list and honestly evaluate why they didn’t. Look at the things that weren’t accomplished, at all, and ask yourself if they are realistic goals for you.
Then there’s the section on every report card about how you got along with others. Here evaluate how you handled yourself with family, with friends, with co-workers and with strangers. When you look at yourself though the eyes of someone writing a report card, it helps you to see where you were kind and where you could have acted more kindly.
As a teacher I found it frustrating that academics took up 4/5 of the report card leaving me only a small section to praise the child’s behavior and comment about areas they needed to work on to be kinder. Good golly, Miss Molly, P.E. got more space than kindness. For this imaginary report card about yourself, give equal importance to achievements and to behavior.
How often should you create a report card about yourself? I’d suggest at least every couple of months. And, if you’re feeling blue, do one then. I bet you’ll surprise yourself by what a totally cool and accomplished person you are.
Smile. Be happy.
Ruth
Bleachers Smiley