The Season of Self-Assessment

Think about a win you pulled off this year. A moment where your skill or judgment made a difference, where your effort paid off. Now, try saying this to yourself: "I made that happen."

Did you do it? Did you immediately add qualifiers like “but the team helped” or “it wasn't that hard”? And, if the words didn’t come, sit with that for a second.

Why can't you claim your own accomplishment without apology?

Year after year, during performance reviews, I watch capable and competent people struggle to articulate their contributions. The self-assessment exercise - a simple form that asks you to reflect on your work - becomes like a mirror, showing whether you trust your own assessment or need someone else's approval.

I’d offer a reframe. Treat your self-assessment not as a way to prove your value to others, but as a way to know it independently first.

You’ve been programmed and played.

Most of us were taught early to seek safety in other people's approval. It sounded like, Stay humble. Don't make waves. Be twice as good for half the credit. Though they were intended to protect us, we may still follow those rules in spaces that no longer demand them.

The workplace doesn’t just reflect this conditioning; it tends to exploit it. Organizations mistake your need for approval for commitment. Spreading yourself too thin, constant striving, and people-pleasing read as dedication, so the behaviors get rewarded (“productivity!”) even as they drain people. And it works both ways: when you don’t trust your own value, you tolerate poor treatment, chase the next thing, and live by external metrics that don’t necessarily serve you.

Self-awareness begins here, in noticing how deeply you’ve been programmed to equate your worth with receiving approval. Once you see that pattern, you can write your own measures of success instead of using borrowed standards.

That awareness is the foundation, but it's not enough on its own. To have lasting confidence, you must know yourself so deeply that external validation loses its hold. This is how you reclaim your unshakeable core, your center.

Becoming Like a Weeble

Remember those weighted toys that couldn’t be knocked over? The song went Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. Self-awareness and self-love work the same way.

When you're grounded in knowing who you are and what you bring, feedback can nudge you, challenge you, even sting, but it can't topple you. You stay steady inside yourself, absorbing what's useful and letting the rest roll off, because you trust your own assessment.

But you can't build that center while reading tone into every email, interpreting silence as criticism, or starving for small praise. Those behaviors mean you've handed your value over to whoever's critiquing you.

Only 18% of managers have real talent for managing others. I cite this statistic from Gallup’s 2016 poll to remind us that too few people in positions of authority even have the skills to do their jobs satisfactorily, much less assess you and your performance in a meaningful, fair, and objective way. Yet these are the people you adjust your self-assessment to impress, chasing approval from someone who likely struggles with feedback themself.

So, before you torture yourself wondering, "Am I enough for them?", ask a different question: "Does this organization deserve me?"

I’m not talking about arrogance. It's discernment. Not every workplace can recognize what you bring. Some are built to feed off your need for validation rather than invest in your development. Part of self-awareness is evaluating whether the people assessing you have the capacity to see your actual contributions and potential for more.

Make room for reflection.

When that self-assessment form lands on your desk, don't start writing yet. Do what you'd do with an overstuffed closet, and figure out what actually belongs there. What serves you? What doesn't?

Start by identifying your competencies. These are skills that move with you, no matter where you work or what your role is. How do you solve problems? Build relationships? Move projects forward? Competencies are yours alone, not your manager’s, not your company’s. They are the foundation of self-knowledge and the path to self-love. You can’t love what you don’t know.

Write for yourself first. Ground yourself in your own truth before you think about any audience. What are you genuinely proud of? Where did you grow, and how? What impact did you make? Let it sound like you by using the language that comes naturally. Your truth is your anchor, the weight at your center. This is the stuff you don’t actually have to rehearse because it already lives in you.

Now delete the fear. Read what you wrote and start cutting any over-explaining, hedging, and places where you justify taking up space. Keep facts and aspects of yourself and your behavior that you know are irrefutable. Your truth can include where you're still growing without smothering it in self-protection.

Remember: Don’t treat your assessment like a confession. You’re not guilty.

When It Clicks

The best self-assessment isn't the longest or the loudest. It's the most honest, confident but objective. Don’t spend 7 pages regurgitating your job description.

Self-awareness means being able to say “I'm good at this, I'm still learning that” without apology or shame. That honesty signals to your colleagues that you might be ready for more.

When you lead from insecurity, you adjust constantly to what you think others want. When you lead with conviction, feedback becomes practical context for how to work better with others, not a mandate that you need to reshape yourself to fit.

That shift is powerful. Second-guessing stops. You take risks because failure doesn't threaten your sense of worth. You model the integrity you want to see around you. Real change in leadership and culture becomes possible from this centered place.

This form isn’t your final word.

Take some pressure off yourself. This assessment captures a moment in time. You're documenting where you are now, not defining yourself forever.

If you’re struggling with the constant need to prove yourself, if praise slides off you, or if that voice saying "you're never enough" won't quiet down, this runs deeper than a performance review. There's no shame in getting extra support to heal how you see yourself.

But you can start here, today, with this form.

Emphasis on Self

Review season ends, but your work of staying centered continues. Let this self-assessment remind you how to speak to yourself, own your strengths, and honor where you’re growing.

You don't prove your power through performance. When you know and love yourself, you’re weighted at your core, and you may wobble, but you can always bounce back.

The most meaningful assessment is the one you give yourself, measured by growth, integrity, and presence.

Believe you are worthy, and let your self-assessment say so.

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Sending love and light,

Ginny

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[P.S. For those wanting to continue this conversation about self-awareness and breaking free from approval-seeking, the Awakened Path community opened yesterday. Details are in your inbox. 🌀]