Pride

What will you do, that makes you proud this week?

Come Friday, you may look back on a great week having met and even exceeded expectations, but what will you be proud of? After all, you are the only one who knows the real intent behind what you did.

Will it be the guidance you provided to the graduate, the encouragement you took the time to provide when you would have been quite justified in continuing your important, busy activity but stopped to help out?

Will it be the extra review you did of the e-mail to all staff announcing the new initiative meaning it is superbly drafted therefore achieving maximum team engagement? You made it a great and not just an adequate communication.

Perhaps you finally executed a week of improved dietary changes rather than reverting to ingrained habits on Wednesday afternoon or did you actually start the exercise program you have been planning? Was it both?

When your son or daughter was wanting 10 minutes to show you their new basketball jump shot or ballet move, did you watch, or did you actually pay attention? Maybe it was spending an extra 10 minutes helping them understand and not just complete their homework?

Did you make the call to the team member whose parent had been unwell last week and check to see how they were getting on? Did you follow up the client who complained the previous week to confirm the solution was sustainable and not simply representative of an action to close the file.

No matter what our role or our weekly routine, we tend to go about it with a take it for granted mind set. We most capably do what we need to do, but we rarely invest the little extra, the extra that makes a difference to others and of which we can reflect with pride, internal pride.

And internal pride is the most important because it is real.

Come Friday, what from your week will you be proud of?