Measuring stick

Giving yourself a tune-up

Check engine lightEvery couple of months, we change the oil in our car. When we reach milestones, such as reaching 75,000 miles, we give our car a tune-up. By doing this, it helps to ensure that our vehicle will continue to perform at a high level. It also helps to ensure that we won’t experience any unwanted repairs in the near future.

While we spend time maintaining our vehicles, we often forget to give ourselves a tune-up.

Because we lead such busy lives, it can be easy to forget to give ourselves a regular tune-up.  What happens when we fail to give ourselves a tune-up is that we could end up needing major repairs down the road.

Here’s why you should assess yourself and give yourself a tune-up regularly.

Having a regular tune-up is important because it lets us see what we’re doing right (and wrong) plus it gives us the opportunity to make adjustments and fix an area that could cause us further trouble down the road – kind of like changing your oil.  If you forget to change your oil regularly,  it lets dirt and gunk get into your engine which down the road, could mean you’ll need a new engine.

So how do you give yourself a tune-up?

A great place to start is to create a list of items you should check on a regular basis.  Are there any new tools you started using? How about any new projects you started? Are you ahead or behind? At the beginning of the month, did you tell yourself you were going to network better? Did that happen?

Once you have created your list, be sure to setup a reminder. I like to use Google Calendar for this. Not only does this not let me forget to give myself a tune-up, but I can also make notes on what I did or did not do.

By taking just a few minutes each month to check where you’re at and to give yourself a tune-up, you can avoid any costly maintenance issues. Remember, be honest with yourself. If you need to get better at something, don’t keep putting it off. Make the repairs so that you’ll be able to keep on moving towards your goals

Would love to hear from you – how often you do an assessment on your abilities.