"I am not growing in my current role."
This is the statement I hear most frequently during 1:1 mentorship conversations.
One method I recommend for encouraging self-reflection is as follows:
Select a key piece of work you created 6-9 months ago (e.g., a proposal or design) and compare it to something you've recently completed.
While doing so, consider how specific biases might be shaping your view of your career trajectory. For instance:
1. Halo Effect: When assessing your latest work, are you allowing unsuccessful outcomes to overshadow your successes?
2. Anchoring Bias: Are you gauging your recent work solely against your first major accomplishment, neglecting the various scopes and challenges you've faced since?
3. Survivorship Bias: Are you only focusing on the projects that received praise, while dismissing the lessons you learned from less successful endeavors?
4. Groupthink: Are you letting the collective opinions of your team sway your own evaluation of your work?
5. Availability Heuristic: Are you attributing excessive importance to past projects that received high praise, without considering your overall performance?
You'd be surprised how much these biases can cloud your perception of your own growth.
P.S: Took my own medicine (💊) and revisited my LinkedIn posts from November '22. Diagnosis: Significant growth, with a sprinkle of "Wow, did I really write that?"
