Introspection

I try not to discuss, much of my non-Stitch Silly life here for several reasons.  One, this is a business and I do not want to babble on incessantly about my family.  I have a personal blog for that.  Two, I do not want to cause any conflicts of interest with my professional "9-5" and my Stitch Silly lives.  Today I am making an exception. 

I had my annual review last week and to put it bluntly, I was pretty bummed.  I was hoping for a promotion and thought I had done everything right to make it so, but alas I did not.  My boss is amazing.  He is my advocate and runs some great cover for me when needed.  I think he was more upset about the decision than I was.  I have some amazing mentors with whom I have spoken over the past week.  Through my review and conversations with my mentors I have done quite a bit of introspection over the last two weeks.  I've taken a lot of constructive criticism relatively well, at least I think I have. 

As I look for ways to try to improve on myself and my perceived self in my professional life, I quickly realized that this introspection can not only benefit me in my career as an engineer, but also as a business owner, mother, and a wife.  If I can figure out how to more effectively show myself as a passionate person who is thorough, detailed oriented, yet still capable of looking at the big picture I can only have good things happen in my whole life.

I don't have the answer yet.  And I'm not sure I ever will, but I want to at least work on it.  Right now my biggest hurdle is recognizing that there are more steps to a process than I may recognize.  I need to figure out how to see those steps and to properly address them to others satisfaction even I don't understand that the steps are required. 

Are there people who have had similar hurdles in their lives?  Have you been able to overcome them?  If so how?  What advice would you offer to someone in my situation?