What is meaningful feedback?

If you have spent time in the corporate machine, you will have heard about the importance of giving and receiving feedback. We're told that it indicates how well we are staying within the parameters of what is expected by our employers, managers, colleagues, etc. Though lots of attention is given to external verbal feedback, i.e. someone telling you what they think about how well (or not) you are doing, we miss out on other feedback mechanisms that can often be more objective indicators of our performance than the opinions of those around us.

Apart from people's feedback to you, for which there certainly is a place, we must set our objective criteria against which we measure our own performance. This objective measure should then inform the story we tell ourselves about how well we are doing well or not.

Establishing your yardstick in this way means your sense of self, contribution and progression is primarily influenced by what you've chosen to measure, not personal opinion. Your yardstick then becomes your rudder that steers your actions and motivations. You are now an intrinsically motivated person as opposed to an extrinsically motivated person

A great example of how life is providing us feedback that we often miss is Jim Rohn, best-selling author and motivational speaker. He told his mentor Mr Shoaff that his job paid him too little money for him to get rich. Mr Shoaff pointed out that the company paid other people, in the same company (probably doing the same job as Jim), a lot more money than Jim was getting.

The point was that Jim's level of pay was a feedback mechanism telling him how highly (or not) he was valued by his employer. Now that he is aware of it, this information enables him to make different choices and decisions that will eventually change his financial compensation. He chose to start a cleaning business.

Similarly, receiving the Employee of the Year award is one feedback mechanism, but if it's not one of your personally selected feedback indicators then it simply provides you with information you can use to make new choices and decisions for yourself.

We have to know how well (or not) we are doing based on our personally selected criteria, independent of others. This is how we stay true to ourselves and create a meaningful life. When your primary feedback comes from others you are constantly at the mercy of what they think about you and what you do, nobody wants to live like this but many do.

Many people are unhappy in life because they are measuring what society has conditioned them to consider important. A meaningful life starts with you figuring out what is truly meaningful to YOU now and making choices based on this. You might look crazy to others but this is your one life, have it mean what you choose for it to mean.