Elevate Your Performance To The Next Level By Asking These 5 Questions

Everybody likes feedback. Moreover, they like feedback about themselves. We like to know where we stand with people whether it’s positive, negative or neutral. After all, soliciting somebody for help or advice is contingent upon the strength of that relationship.

As hard as it is to hear bad news, the candor associated with constructive criticism only strengthens one’s value proposition because he or she becomes more self-aware, and self-awareness is half the battle of any personal challenge. Feedback, however, doesn’t have to rely solely on outside perspectives. You can create your own personal feedback loop—and hence build self-awareness—through self-reflection. If you want to aim high and improve performance (who doesn’t?) but aren’t sure where you stand amongst your colleagues, ask yourself the below five questions every day prior to commencing any task to take your performance to the next level:

Question: Am I performing up to expectations, or exceeding them?

Question: Is the information I share relevant?

There are two aspects of relevance here to consider:

1)   Content.  Is the information you want to share accurate and timely?

2)   Audience . Does it serve the target audience?

Here’s another consideration to boost performance. To stay in the information game, shift your mindset from one of passing information (reactive) to anticipating developments (proactive). Doing so serves three purposes. First, it forces you to critically think about the current situation, consider potential impacts and how each course of action potentially affects everyone involved. Second, it breeds the same forethought in others, thus building collective attention. Finally, if you choose to voice your opinion with others, they’ll know where you stand and what you stand for.

Question: What’s my emotional investment?

Whether it’s a decision, a task or a meeting, too much emotional investment opens the door to greater self-interest, and when self-interest is involved, so are egos. If there’s one thing we don’t need any more of, it’s ego. There’s plenty of ego to go around. An objective focus on task and purpose speaks for itself, as the more decisive you are towards the greater purpose of the organization, the more others will grow to trust you and your decision-making.

Question: Am I serving my organization’s intent?

If you’re unsure of your company’s purpose, then a much larger discussion needs to be had with leadership. Otherwise, attrition rates will soar because employees aren’t being optimized simply because they don’t know what to optimize for. In the book The Strategy Focused Organization, the authors cite “only 7 percent of employees today fully understand their company business strategies and what’s expected of them in order to help achieve company goals” (source here). If you’re a leader within a company, department, or team, then it is your responsibility to communicate direction and listen to employee feedback. The two go hand-in-hand, as direction without feedback is simply dictatorship.

Question: How do I become better at this?

Practice. Practice. Practice. To become better at anything requires unending vigilance. In the SEAL Teams, our daily routine varied. One day we focused on one capability, the next day on another. Each morning, however, we would do two things that served as the bread and butter of our effectiveness: We exercised and we shot. No matter what the mission was, we needed to be able to A) get there and B) put rounds on target.

Don’t get me wrong, not all teams did this. Physical training (PT) was never mandated at my past command but rather served as an expectation. But overall, exercise was just something each member enjoyed for himself as he knew it benefitted him personally and professionally. Same went for shooting. We did both because it fit our purpose, which was to get to the target and win, and we couldn’t do that if we were unfit or if the enemy outperformed us on the battlefield.

What’s the one thing that, if you performed daily, would make you better in your role as a leader? Manager? Father or mother?

175 Best Most Likely To Questions To Spice Up Game Night For Friends, Family, And Couples

The next time you're out with your friends or S.O. and want to avoid staring at your phones, or can't seem to agree on a movie to stream (again), take some time to get to know each other better with a question game like "most likely to."

If you went to high school in the U.S., there was probably a point during the second semester of your senior year when you were handed a piece of paper with a list of superlatives and were asked to pick a classmate for each of the "best" and "most likely to" categories. While it may have seemed a little funny at the time—and not necessarily the most accurate indicator of your future—the end-of-high-school ritual can still be

The best part about games like this is you can decide how deep you want to take them. If you want to stick to sillier questions like, "Who's most likely to accidentally find a portal to another dimension?" and "Who's most likely to become an internet meme?," use the shared experience as a potential jumping-off point to talk about more serious topics in the future.

"Solid friendships tend to grow closer and more intimate as two people get to know each other and begin to build trust," says psychologist and friendship expert Irene S. Levine, PhD. "Little by little, friends are more comfortable revealing their 'true selves' without needing to put on airs or pretense."

Having those people who you're able to be your true self around—or able to reveal your "warts" to, as Levine puts it—is important. "No single relationship, platonic or romantic, can fulfill every need," she says. "At different phases of life, women benefit from having friends who are experiencing similar life stages or experiences—for example, being pregnant, having a young child, coping with a health problem, juggling home and work, working at the same office—or who have experienced these in the past."

Asking each other these questions can help build on your existing bond, which will come in handy during those tough times when you might otherwise feel alone. After all, what are friends for if not to share the good, the bad, and the "you'll never believe what happened" moments in life?

This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

In the meantime, fill up on the fun stuff—including but not limited to these 175 best "most likely to" questions that'll help you get to know the most important people in your life even better.

Sabrina is an editorial assistant for Women’s Health. When she’s not writing, you can find her running, training in mixed martial arts, or reading.

Take 5: Key questions about the secondary teachers strike answered

PETER MEECHAM/THE PRESS

From around-the-clock home visits to purchasing school uniforms, teachers are going above and beyond for students, Christchurch teacher Raewyn Himona, deputy principal at Haeta Community Campus, says.

Secondary school teachers are set to restart rolling strike action in an effort to push for better pay and working conditions.

This comes after more than a year of negotiations and the latest government pay offer being deemed “inadequate” by the Post Primary Teachers’ Assocation (PPTA).

Here we look at the biggest questions surrounding the secondary teachers strikes.

READ MORE:* Strikes by secondary school teachers to resume after 'inadequate' pay offer* Rolling strikes, home learning still on cards as teachers' pay dispute rumbles on* What next after the second teachers' strike?

Secondary schools teachers are restarting their strike action with rolling year level strikes beginning on Thursday, June 1, with teachers refusing to take year 12 classes.

The next strike will be for year 10 classes on Tuesday, June 6.

The planned action will culminate with strike action affecting year 9 classes, which will be left without teachers on Thursday, June 8.

The strike action also means secondary teachers will not attend meetings outside of school hours and refuse to give up their entitled planning and marking time to relieve for absent teachers.

Secondary teachers have not received a pay rise in two years, coinciding with a time of near-record inflation.

Teachers have been striking since March 16, when about 50,000 teachers and principals from across the country took to the streets to demand better pay and working conditions.

Since then, secondary teachers have held rolling national and year level strikes to communicate their frustration with the Ministry of Education’s pay offers.

Negotiations between teacher’s unions and the ministry have been going on for around a year.

On Wednesday, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association advised its members to reject the latest “inadequate” government pay offer.

Braden Fastier/Stuff

Secondary teachers will resume strike action after the union advised its members to reject the latest “inadequate” government pay offer. (File photo)

Earlier this month, several teachers unions including the PPTA struck an agreement with the Ministry of Education to put strikes on hold for a week after a “constructive” talks were held.

The latest pay offer to secondary teachers includes a lump sum payment of $4500 for union members and three pay rises by December 2024, totalling between 11% and 15.5%.

Unlike the previous three-year offers, the new offers had a two-year term and provided the first pay rise in July, rather than backdating it to December 2022.

The resulting pay offer from this pause left the secondary teachers’ union dissatisfied.

Chris Abercrombie​, acting president at the PPTA, said teachers were left feeling frustrated and angry.

“Every secondary student deserves to have a specialist teacher in every subject. Too many are being short changed right now and the situation will only get worse if we don’t have pay and conditions that keep people in the profession,” Abercrombie said.

Teachers had “pulled out all the stops” over the last three years during the Covid-19 pandemic and deserved an adequate pay rise, he said.

As well as voting on the offer between Tuesday and Thursday next week, secondary teachers will also consider options for further industrial action from the week beginning June 12.

Mark Williamson, employment manager at the Ministry of Education, said the ministry is “clearly disappointed” the PPTA has resumed strike action while its members consider the offer.

Primary school teachers have called off their strike action to consider the government’s latest pay offer, which also includes a new lump sum of $4500.

The total pay rises appeared similar to the previous offer, which had a three-year term backdated to December 2022 and three pay increases totalling between 11 and 14%.

However, the primary teachers union, NZEI te riu roa, told members the lump sum more than made up for the lack of backdating and the new offer had a two-year term.