I wonder what you’ll think about this email.

I wonder what you’ll think about EVERY email I send.

Will the email entertain you?  Educate you?  Inspire you?

Or will it leave you scratching your head?

I’m evaluating each email as I send it.  I’m evaluating your evaluation of the email.  I’m evaluating your evaluation of me, as the email author.  And I guess I’m evaluating myself too.

Maybe I’m even evaluating how good I am at evaluating!

Goes without saying…

But that’s a hell of a lot of evaluation going on!

Thing is, though, I’m used to it.  I’m use to evaluating and being evaluated.

I’ve been evaluated for as long as I can remember.

Take school.  I might get an A on maths and an a 5/10 for my English essay.  I might pass my Biology test and not make the football team. 

All of this is evaluation and at school it happens every day.

Same at uni with coursework, exams and grades. 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

And the same is also true in our careers.  We get our work reviewed, our performances rated and our suitability assessed in interviews. 

Again – all evaluation.

We live in a world where everything is not just up for evaluation, but everything IS constantly evaluated.

Evaluation is EVERYWHERE.

But I have to say…

I don’t think constant evaluation is useful or healthy.

Why?

Because it leads to the idea that evaluation is normal.  That it’s just a part of life.

And so it does become part of life.  It becomes part of our thinking.

It certainly has for me. 

Take a night down the pub. When I’m out with friends I’ll get into my head and ask myself how I’m doing.  Am I being witty enough?  Articulate enough?  Am I saying enough or saying too much?  What will people think about me if I leave early?

Evaluation like this crops up everywhere.

And the consequence of all this?

The more we evaluate, the more we look for things to fix.  The more we try to fix ourselves.

And this is the most dangerous idea of the lot.

Because the truth of the matter is this:

It’s impossible to evaluate being you.  And it’s impossible to fix something which isn’t broken.

You’re already a 10/10.   There’s nothing wrong with you and there’s nothing to fix.

The only mistake is thinking that there is, and evaluating yourself on this basis after years of conditioning, experiences and habits which tells you that evaluation is part of life and that there’s always room for improvement.

But there’s not.

No-one evaluates a baby.  It’s perfect as it is.  There’s simply nothing to evaluate.

And the same is true for you.  You simply cannot be any more or less you in any moment of your life than you are being in that moment.

That’s not to say you can’t still get better at something if that’s what you want to do.

But the answer isn’t evaluation.  The answer isn’t trying to fix something which isn’t broken.

So I say this:

Let's tone down the emphasis on evaluation.

And replace it with curiosity...

Being gentle and kind to ourselves... 

And staying open-minded to new ideas and new directions.

What do you think?

That’s it for today.

 - Tom