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Do you know what your friends really think about you? Have you ever thought to actually ask?
Most of us are far too afraid. We don’t actually want to know. Just the thought of welcoming honest feedback leaves us feeling vulnerable.
…“what if they actually don’t like me?”…
…“what if all my insecurities are real?”…
…“what if I’m the smelly kid?”…
No one wants to be the smelly kid.
Last year however, I took a leap of faith and gave it go. I asked my friends and family for their open and honest feedback.
Asking for honest feedback.
The process I followed was super simple. I put together a list of a dozen or so people who I respected and trusted. Friends, family, work colleagues. Some old, some new. Them I sent them each an email with one simple question:
In ten words, how would you describe me?
In order to get closer to the truth, it was all anonymous. They were free to express their true opinions of me.
What came back was super interesting. But before we get to that — let us take a step back and understand why.
Comparing reality to fantasy.
Gaining insight from the responses was straight forward. First I grouped the 100 or so individual words into common themes. A crowdsourced definition of my “real self”.
Then compared this summarized list with the list I had made myself. My “ideal self”.
To compare, I used the following three lenses…
1. What’s the same?
First, I looked for the commonalities. As expected there was huge overlap. John mentions this in the podcast and it makes sense.
Most of what you want to be, you already are.
The type of person who completed a self awareness exercise should be already quite self aware.
These are the things you don’t need to worry about. I want to be adventurous, everyone says I’m adventurous. Great. Tick. Move on.
2. What’s missing?
Often many of the learnings are in the negative space. What is it that no-one saying? For me personally, I mentioned being content and it wasn’t a theme that came up. Not even mentioned once. This was great insight into where I might want to focus my energy.
3. Who don’t I want to be?
This is the final and easiest learning to take. Armed with anonymity, people give you some real feedback on your negative traits.
On a very personal level, I learnt that I need more focus in my life. That I can be distracted at times and that there are also behaviors that clearly aren’t serving me (“self-destructive” — dang!)
Side note: If you’re interested in my own results — you can check them out here.