A framework to find one’s Personal Star Metric (PSM).
The people who had been following my sabbatical have seen me working on myself, and my personal development.
It was burnout that put me on this road and as much as I tend to blame the outside world, I also need to take accountability for the fact that I didn’t know how to set boundaries.
And, I put my fragile self in random hands without any instructions or boundaries, or reminders to “handle with care”.
This article is about the power we have to change our own story.
Because we are cyclical, and we change.
And, I am happy to share that I did find my North Star Metric, and these are my tips to find yours:
- Experiment
Just as we do in product management, we experiment with certain areas to understand if there can be an improvement or not. You will never see someone killing a feature overnight, or bringing something new to all customers at once. There is always a control group to see how changes are impacting them, and what are the side effects of these changes before switching something on or off.
In my case, I grew unsatisfied with my job for several reasons, and despite knowing deep inside that there was something wrong, I overlooked it for longer than I wish I did. Only when I took the decision to quit I finally was able to see clearly that’s what I needed to do.
But before doing it I had been trying to tweak things around and make it work. I tried different approaches to the issues I was facing. And, I must say it took me a year to make the leap and consider all the collateral effects.
2. Observe yourself.
As you make the change, observe how you are reacting, what is your mind, and what new changes telling you. As Susan A David, Ph.D. puts it:
Feelings are data so use them wisely to make informed emotional decisions.
Observe yourself from a curious mindset without judging what are you doing. Give yourself permission to make mistakes, and explore to learn from them.
Just as you should do with the changes you implement taking into consideration all the data available, you should make sure to track and monitor your personal changes too.
Keep a learning backlog of the hypotheses when trying to validate and go back to it from time to time to make sure you are on track. Shipping features or making changes is great but if you don’t go back to check if it’s fulfilling your objective, it gives a false feeling of moving forward.
3. Visualize your new self/new life
Joe Dispenza states that after brain scans on people who play piano, and people who visualize themselves doing it, the scans show cognitive activity in both cases.
For the same reason, the “fake it until you make it” seems to have a powerful impact on helping that outcome come true or learning about it.
In Product Management, it’s called Fake Door Testing which is about rapidly validating an idea (it can be a product, a service, or a feature) by showing the users an option that does not actually exist. If you ever clicked on something, and an error came up, you had already been there.
4. Challenge assumptions or self-limiting beliefs
Our personal belief system feels like that difficult to manage stakeholders. How many times, have you armed yourself up to say “no”, and bring your data in to make stakeholders understand something that they were sure was going to be a success?
Do the same with self-limiting assumptions.
I used to think I was not prepared enough to speak up because my assumption was that everyone else was smarter than me.
By challenging this default thinking, and contributing more, I brought in new data that was challenging this trend.
Our mind is like artificial intelligence. You need to train the algorithm by correcting mistakes. In the beginning, it may be manual, but once the algorithm is smart enough with accurate, it will be running smoothly for your own benefit, and make it scalable in the long run.
5. Make mistakes
To be honest, I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I barely allowed myself any mistakes. I forced myself to follow the rules even when it didn’t feel right.
Don’t. Allow yourself to explore. Be bold. There is nothing you can’t do. You can do whatever you want, and don’t allow some hypothetical future to deter you from exploring.
Innovation at its boldest happens when we run away from the standard.
Allow yourself room to make mistakes just like best managers do.
Be your best manager, and allow room for mistakes because is there where the most learning, and growth occur.
And, always remember you are your best product, and your biggest investment is in yourself;)
Before leaving, if you liked this article, please make sure to share it, and you can also buy me a coffee
Also, as a bonus, I would like to share with you the meditation that has been my partner over these months on my own transformation.
***There is so much that I would like to share with you at a personal level, so if you have been thinking about changing your story where you put your well-being at the core of it, I would love to have a chat. Feel free to book a free consultation with me to see how I can help you shape the life you want to have.
