Dey wen ask her fo' give da toast at one retirement party fo' somebody she look up to, and she wen take um serious. Four drafts, every one of dem about him. Da ting he wen do in 2009 dat nobody else would have done. Da way he run one room without raising his voice. Da phone call he wen make fo' one junior analyst who neva even find out.
Driving home, she wen realize she could not have written dat paragraph about herself. Not cuz she humble. She stay real good at her job and she know um. She just neva have any idea what fifteen words anybody would use.
Dat's one ordinary spot fo' one competent person, and you can fix um in half one hour. Da sentence people going eventually use about you stay getting written already, one plain week at a time. You can let um pile up on its own, or you can write da draft yourself and den go make um true.
What stay da sentence, and why fifteen words?
It stay da line somebody who know you would use fo' describe you when you no stay in da room, and fifteen words stay da limit dat force one real decision. Anyting longer let you keep three priorities you no actually get, and dat's exactly how personal mission statements turn into paragraphs nobody can remember, including da person who wen write um.
Da short form do someting one long one cannot. It gotta be sayable. If you no can deliver um in one breath, nobody going eva repeat um, and one sentence dat neva get repeated no stay da sentence people use about you. Dat's one document.
Help fo' see da size of da target. "She wen hire people nobody else would hire and half of dem running tings now" stay nineteen words and need one trim. "He wen tell you da number early, every time" stay eight and could carry mo'. Somewhere in dat range get one version dat stay specific enough fo' be about you and short enough fo' get said at one table. Dat's da whole target, and it stay smaller den da exercise feel before you start.
Get good evidence too dat writing about your core values no stay one decorative exercise. Cohen and Sherman's review of self-affirmation work in da Annual Review of Psychology wen find dat short writing about personal values can improve outcomes in education, health and relationships, sometimes months or years later, mostly cuz it change how one person read da pressure in front of dem. Fifteen words stay dat exercise with one job attached.
How I write mine without um sounding all corporate?
Write about people and behavior, neva about categories. Cut every word dat name one job title, one industry, or one adjective you would find on one performance review, and whateva survive usually stay close to da true sentence.
Three passes get most people dea.
Pass one, write um bad. Get anyting down. "One visionary leader driving transformational outcomes" stay one perfectly fine bad draft cuz it show you what you wen absorb instead of what you wen choose.
Pass two, put one person in um. One sentence with no other person in um usually stay one resume line. "He wen make three careers possible and neva once take da credit" stay one sentence. "She wen tell people da truth early enough fo' dem do someting about um" stay one sentence. Both name one behavior dat somebody on da receiving end would recognize.
Pass three, cut um down to fifteen. Every word you delete raise da price of da ones dat survive. Delete da adjectives first, den da qualifiers, den da job.
Run one last check. Could one co-worker say dis about you with one straight face today, or only about da version of you dat exist after next year? Both answers stay useful. Da first one mean you get one description. Da second one mean you get one target, and dat's mo' better.
How I check if um actually true?
Check last month, not next year. Open your calendar and your sent messages fo' da past four weeks and mark every block dat one stranger holding your sentence would have predicted, den count what percentage of your working hours dose blocks add up to.
Next year stay where people hide. Everybody's plan fo' next year match dea sentence perfect, cuz next year get no traffic in um. Last month stay evidence. It hold da meeting you wen agree to out of habit, da ting you wen do good dat nobody wen ask for, and da two hours you wen give somebody without putting um anywhere.
While you in dea, run one second column: who I was useful to. Name da people, not da projects. Most people find dis column mo' full den dey expect and completely unrecorded, and dat's worth knowing cuz da fifteen words dat survive one decade almost always about dat column, not about output.
No score yourself out of ten on any of dis. Da count stay one measurement, and da only ting you need from um stay one number you can compare against next month. Twenty percent of your hours pointing at your sentence stay one workable starting spot fo' somebody with one real job and one full calendar. Zero percent no stay one character problem. Dat's one scheduling result, and scheduling stay someting you already know how fo' fix.
What if last month no match da sentence?
Den you wen find da useful part, and da fix stay one calendar change dis week, not one whole new life. One gap of couple hours stay one scheduling problem. One gap of everyting stay one sentence problem, and it mean you wen write da sentence you admire instead of da one you would defend.
Sheldon and Elliot's work on self-concordance stay da reason dis matter mo' den it look. Goals dat line up with what one person actually value get mo' effort and get reached mo' often, and reaching dem do mo' fo' da person den reaching da borrowed kind. So da audit no stay one discipline exercise. It stay one check on whether you spending all dat energy on da ting you would pick if you was choosing on purpose.
If da gap stay small, move one recurring block dis week and leave everyting else alone. If da gap stay total, rewrite da sentence instead of da calendar, cuz one sentence you no can live inside stay just one nicer way fo' feel behind.
Fifteen words stay one decision rule, not one poem
Da payoff show up da next time somebody ask you fo' someting. One five year plan no can help you at four in da afternoon, but one fifteen word sentence can, cuz you can run one request against um in about two seconds. Saying yes to dis, going make da sentence mo' true or less true? Dat stay faster den any framework and it travel with you across every decision you make dis quarter.
It survive one change of job too, which no plan built around one title eva do. Reorgs, industries and employers move, and one sentence about how you treat people and what you insist on move with you whole. Dat's da practical reason da fifteen words leave out da job. Titles stay rented. Da behavior stay yours, and da behavior stay what anybody would actually say about you at one party twenty years from now.
Fifteen words stay too easy fo' lose in one notes app, so put um somewhere physical. Den keep going. Da sentence no stay one request fo' slow down or fo' want less of anyting. It stay one filter dat let you say yes mo' hard to da tings dat count, fo' anodda twenty years, without da yearly crisis about whether any of um was aimed anywhere.
Sources
- Annual Review of Psychology, The psychology of change: self-affirmation and social psychological intervention
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: the self-concordance model