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I had my first ever appraisal at work last week. 

I’ve had assessments in 360 degree appraisal things and all sorts of meetings about moving business forward but I’ve never been appraised like the rest of the team are appraised and I’ve asked the guys on our newly formed board of Directors (previously Senior Leadership Team) to appraise me properly. 

I filled in two forms, one as a clinician and one as an ‘employee’ because I have different roles within the practice. 

It turned out when filling out those forms we discovered that I have far too many roles which will not fit into the time available. 

Although this sounds grand and arrogant, it’s not meant to do so, but the current accepted roles I have in the practice (the business) are as follows: 

A company that’s grown some 15 times in turnover since I first arrived. 

2) Director (chairman?) of The Campbell Academy

The business that didn’t exist seven years ago which is now growing at a significant rate and is at a significant size. 

3) Clinical Director of The Campbell Clinic 

With all the responsibilities a true clinical director has for compliance, well-being and standards. 

4) Implant Clinician at The Campbell Clinic 

Level 1 (the highest level we have). 

5) Speaker and course developer at The Campbell Academy 

6) External commitments for lecturing and consulting 

When written like this it’s hard to see where that fits into five days (and I try not to work weekends if I can help it). 

And so, in my appraisal I was asking my peers at work to tell me what the most important jobs I could do to help the business and to help us to achieve our vision are. 

I also though wanted to use the opportunity to let everybody know what my personal goals were for my life because there’s no such thing as work-life balance (heads up to Chris Barrow for that) and so my work and my life are one the same. My work is part of my life. 

What I seek, what I strive for, what I covet are adventures. 

Adventures create memories and memories are a flag in the sand through the time in your life so that you can look back, to remember things that you've done and achieved and experienced and enjoyed and been grateful for. 

You can test what these things are and what your values are by doing a timeline, where you draw a line on a piece of A4 paper from the day you were born to now. 

You draw vertical lines throughout your timelines for the things that you consider to be significant events, write them down and then assess what categories they fall into (money, experience, travel, family etc.). 

My timeline is full of adventures, whether it’s the adventure of becoming a dad, the adventure of becoming a husband or the adventure of riding a bike in another countries up big hills. 

And so, part of my appraisal was to set the adventures going forwards. 

One of the greatest adventures over the last few years has been to build a business park which is now part completed. 

One of the greatest adventures prior to that was to ride three day cycling events in other countries or 24hour bike rides or holidays with my family. 

So, from here and as part of my appraisal targets, I’ve set some new adventures and some of the professional aspects of my life will have to take a sidestep to allow some of the personal adventures to re-enter. 

I hope by this time next year I’ll be writing about some of the adventures that I’m planning but as always the joy is in the journey and at least taking the first step towards something new (for someone like me) feels like the right thing to do. 

Blog Post Number - 2771