90 days of The MAP Year Project.
Let me say up front that this feels silly, but I'm doing it anyway... giving myself a performance review.
Hey, Derek, have a good Thanksgiving? Oh good, happy to hear that. Yeah, I did— thanks for asking. Yep, we kept it low key, which is nice since we've been so busy with the move lately. I won't bore you with the details... you know how it goes.
Oh, yeah, I'm sure!
Great, so let's go ahead and get started.
As you know, since we're officially 1/4 of the way through The MAP Year Project, we're here today to go over your performance so far. Now, it says here that the idea for the project was to pursue professional writing? Got it, ok so you'd been writing weekly essays pretty comfortably but started to feel there was something off with the contents? That's interesting... shortening the word count by committing to writing daily snippets seems like it changed things pretty rapidly for you.
So, I mean, just looking over my notes here, it wasn't all that long after the MAP Year started that you put it to the test by working remotely on a roadtrip... And when you got back, you reconfigured the website to be reader-first; making the blog the homepage and shelving the Derek billboards, huh? No, no I mean it as a positive thing. Really. It seems like having to write something every day forced you to start revealing your thoughts instead of trying to showcase them. Well, you even said something similar in the responses you submitted for this.
Yeah, exactly.
I gotta tell you, Derek, it's actually really cool to look at from where I'm sitting—you went from writing about wanting to communicate better, to comfortably framing your thoughts like a scene from a book or movie. Doing that, it seems, helped you stop caring about proving yourself so much.
Instead, you started telling stories, which isn't all that surprising given the mountain of resources you conquered these last 90 days. Ok, maybe, but this is a lot! It says here you read:
- Storyteller Tactics by PIP Decks.
- Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks.
- How To Tell A Story by The Moth.
- The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.
- Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed, author of Dear Sugar.
- My Friends by Fredrik Backman.
AND, you basically took Brandon Sanderson's class on how to be an author by watching his 12-part lecture series and actually writing alongside it.
So, thank you for your dedication.
It hasn't gone unnoticed, especially since your attendance throughout the quarter was perfect. I also want to recognize your attitude: it can be hard to choose positivity, but you found ways to be honest—and even constructive—without giving into negativity.
The true highlight of your work this quarter was, in my opinion, that your writing pushed you to embrace honesty to the point of uncovering a career pivot you'd have otherwise never seen or been open to. I'll take it from your smile that you think so too, huh? Yep, there it is!
I'm really happy for you, Derek. I'm excited to see what you pull off during these next 90 days.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
90/365
Have you ever given yourself a performance review as if you were your manager? Try it—pick a boss you really liked (or a few) and imagine what they'd say about your work.
onward.
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