Self-evaluation is an essential success skill that you must develop. According to Socrates ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’. You can agree with me that an unsuccessful life is an unworthy life. So Self-evaluation allows us to have a self-retrospection or self-examination. It is a critical part of any developmental process, whether in business, self-development, academic or scientific research, etc. There is a need for self-evaluation in everything we do. Always conduct a routine check on your progress from time to time.
Identify what you have done well and celebrate your achievement. Ask yourself what you have done right and consolidate on them. These are your strengths; you must capitalize on them to achieve your goals in life. Also, ask yourself what you have not done well and make some amendments. These are your weaknesses and if you don’t make amendments they may undermine your effort in the pursuit of fulfillment. A proper evaluation of your mind is essential, and once you notice any bug in the process you must fix it.
From the preceding paragraph, we can see that self-evaluation benefits us in two major ways. First, it helps us discover ourselves and second, it helps in capacity building.
Self-Evaluation Gateway to Self-Discovery
Self-evaluation is a gateway to Self-discovery. It helps you discover who you are. By self-discovery I mean the journey of the inward through the path of knowledge to unravel the real you in you. It is an inquiry or an insight into your very nature and character. Moreover, it allows you to assess or examine your life, as Socrates opined “An unexamined life is not worth living”.
Until you discover yourself you cannot live life to its fullest. Self-discovery also helps you to know your self-worth and to unlock your hidden potential. You must look inward to discover your strength, passion, and talents, and harness them for maximum impact in life. That is why it is called self-assessment.
Self-evaluation helps in Capacity building
Evaluating your life will help you in capacity building. Capacity building is one of the things that will help you to find fulfillment in life. Capacity building in this regard is our ability to develop new problem-solving skills and techniques over time. We can handle challenges and hiccups to achieve set goals and objectives. It is all about improvisation in handling tasks or responsibilities to achieve a desired result. It is therefore an imperative of happiness and satisfaction in life.
Capacity building is the process by which individuals and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills, knowledge, tools, equipment, and other resources they need to do their jobs competently or to a greater capacity. There is one basic fact I want us to glean from the above definition. And that is capacity building just like self-evaluation is a process. It is not a one-off thing, rather it happens over time.
The Tripod of Capacity Building
There are three keywords that I want us to take note of in the above definition. They are acquisition, improvisation, and retention. The trio defines the process of capacity building. In the process, we acquire new knowledge, skills, techniques, tools, and other resources to help us solve problems. Secondly, we can improvise on whatever we have acquired each time we solve a problem, and then we can retain our improvised skills and techniques for future challenges.
This we can only do when we learn to evaluate our lives. Self-evaluation is a process which we must undertake from time to time. It is an essential part of the capacity-building process. The process cannot be complete without evaluating your progress so far. Self evaluation helps you to be in charge of the process. It is helpful for a detailed assessment or analysis of any area of life in the pursuit of fulfillment. It gives you an in-depth knowledge of your life and helps you to be more accountable for every responsibility you take for success and fulfillment in life.
Conclusion
Self-evaluation is akin to debugging in software programming where one can identify errors and fix them for the code to work when it is run. Hence, by evaluating your life you will always know where your boat of life is headed. Hence, for you not to drift away with the waves of failure and unfulfillment, you must carry out periodic checks of your life.
Tune in for more exciting blog posts. Till then imagine, believe, and dare the impossible!