I’ve worked in several workplaces, experienced and facilitated a range of performance appraisals. Apologies, I can hear you sighing already – but stay with me. At one workplace, I copied and pasted my answers to each appraisal question for seven years and no one noticed. In my current workplace, performance appraisals are taken seriously and actually contribute to motivating and encouraging staff. Performance appraisals often use stagnant criteria to measure success without taking into account the person, but rather just their output. I love conducting performance reviews as it allows me to connect with my team members, encourage them on a personal level and get to know their personal and corporate goals.
In your family, how do you measure your success? What kind of appraisal do you give your self? What motivates you? In all honesty, for several years our goals slipped by the way side and if we could bath, feed and get our kids to sleep we were winners. All too often though, we would flop into bed and ask each other if we felt defeated. Not a nice feeling.
One thing that we have started to do, is not only set goals that have easy to use success measures, but have found a way for our kids to appraise our performance as parents without them knowing. We’ve taught them to write cards to us every Christmas, birthday, Mothers and Fathers day. They need to tell us three things they like and why. At times the words out of the mouth of babes, have been a source of encouragement and joy. Its easy to be negative and think about what you could have done better but sometimes you need a little wisdom from the younger generation. Once my daughter wrote at the ending of her card that I was the best cook in the world. Hilarious, my cooking is mediocre at best – but not to her. If she sees the best in me, then maybe I should try to do the same. One time our boy wrote that his favourite time with Dad was at home. Nothing spectacular but it shows how he enjoys the every day. Another note we got was about how funny Dad’s, Dad jokes are. It showed us in the silly and the busy that we are doing okay. Our kids notice the little things and so should we.
Navigating success or the feeling of it where kids are kids, life is busy and no end seems to be in sight, it often feels like an ongoing negotiation where we just need to find a solution. I recently learnt that the reward for navigating one challenge is the next challenge. It doesn’t sound too inspiring does it, but in reality it is. The season of kids when working though what family life looks like with additional people in it, is often hard to measure let alone be seen as a success. I encourage you that as a family, learn from each challenge – look for the small wins.” I folded some washing today”, ” I was thanked for lunch today”. Once you start speaking the good, you’ll think of more good. See the good and it will flow into your feeling of success. This in turn will encourage you to keep on keeping on and setting goals and living the life you want.
Think about how your kids encourage you? What things do they say or do that really gives you an idea of how they see you?
List some things that you have learnt due to facing some challenges in the season of children.
Encourage one another as a family to talk about the good things that have come from the challenges you have faced. See the joy of overcoming challenges.
Homes of Victory 