Self or life audit is an important activity to engage in if you plan to live a meaningful and practical life. If you observe your life is not moving in the direction you desire, it would be unfair to yourself and to those who you are connected, to keep moving and probably even gain speed in the wrong direction. It only makes sense to stop and reassess your life from time to time. It is what effective people do.
However, I have seen a lot of people stop, only to worry about their life rather than take the right step of auditing. For such people, they knew to stop but never understood its purpose. To simply put it, auditing your life is stopping to ask yourself essential and relevant questions concerning the various aspect of your life. It is paramount that the questions asked are both relevant and important ones. The questions to ask are not “why me?” “Am I the only one in this world?” and such questions that have the potential to instil discouragement.
I once heard the story (some say it never happened) of a young man who sat beneath an apple tree and had one apple drop on his head. He got up and asked the right question: “why did the apple drop downwards and not go upwards?”. This seemingly harmless question led this young man at that time to a journey of fact-finding and thorough research until he discovered what we have come to know as the law of gravity. That young man is said to be Isaac Newton. I am sure if most of us were in his situation rather than ask such a question we would have either grumbled or be very angry with the tree for dropping the fruit on our head. While some would have simply changed sitting location, others might have thought to themselves what yummy fruit to devour to the filling of the belly.
It was asking the right question that led to the discovery of the law of gravity and that singular understanding has changed the way we relate with our world today and formed the baseline for a lot of other scientific discoveries and findings. Painfully, people have trained themselves not to ask relevant questions.
In auditing your life, after asking yourself the right questions, you must display candour in answering those questions. Candour is merely telling yourself the truth. It is communicating the truth both to yourself and others in every necessary situation. A lot of people lie to themselves. Acknowledge your strengths as well as areas where you know you need development. Then get to work in reinforcing your area of strength and developing your areas of weakness.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1946 defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Although this definition has been termed narrow by some scholars, I particularly like the use of the words “complete and well being”. The word ‘complete’ could also mean “Total”. Hence, health transcends the state of the human body but should be viewed as a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.
With self-assessment, be sure to consider the state of your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. Self-assessment always aids effective career aspirations. It is said, “He that cannot see the ultimate, becomes a slave to the immediate.”
The pcl. coaching programme, help us work with teams to align their interest with their career aspirations as well as their skill with strength. Contact us today by sending an email to people@phillipsconsulting.net.
Written by:
Joshua Ademuwagun
Head of Advisory, People Transformation
