CCP

In taking stock of what I need to "work on" for this year (as opposed to goals or things to accomplish), I came up with a mnemonic for assistance:  CCP (not to be confused, of course, with the Cyrillic language for Soviet Socialist Republic).  These cross both my professional and personal life.

1)  Communication:  At my current workplace, we communicate very regularly - and yet, I would argue we do not communicate enough.  Which actually means we are not communicating effectively.

Writing is much easier than verbal communication, because one has the option to carefully think through one's words and phrases, to parse and re-parse as needed to get to the core of what you wish to communicate.  Verbal communication is much harder, both because one has to do it "on the fly" and one also has to deal with the reaction of the individuals being communicated with in real time - tough if you are an introvert or avoid confrontation (see item 2 below). 

All of this said, I need to communicate more effectively and more precisely and make sure what I intend to say is what I say and that it is what is heard.

2)  Confrontation:  I hate confrontation.  I try to avoid it like the plague.  This stems from two items.  One is the fact that I am, by nature, someone that likes harmony.  Disharmony - angry or offended people - is emotionally difficult for me to deal with.  The second is the fact that I have more than a touch of a people pleaser in me.  Given the opportunity, I would rather that people like me that dislike me and feel good about me rather than badly about me.

Of course this is understandable:  on the whole, I would like to think that most people want people to feel good about them.  But taken to its logical extreme, this means that sometimes hard conversations do not happen, hard decisions are not made, and hard topics are not discussed. 

I both in a professional position and potentially at the sort of crossroads where I cannot afford to avoid dealing with things just to prevent individuals from feeling badly about me or even disliking me.

3)  Planning:  I like to set goals and objectives.  I hate planning.

But planning is really what makes everything else work.  Rather than having to continuing to figure things out on the fly, one creates the plan with its steps and sub steps and then simply execute.  I am not very good at this.  I need to get better.

I am not foolish enough to assume that any or all of these will change my life.  But I do believe it will result in greater effectiveness of getting where I need to be more quickly.