Winning an Optician Award is the highlight of many a professional career and you have just been handed an extra week to get your entry in to be part of the Class of ’22.
Some of you will now be saying to yourselves: ‘The Optician Awards; that’s not something I do.’ Let me suggest you break that habit as entering the Awards could be the best thing you do all year.
The deadline for entries to the Optician Awards was traditionally around the Christmas period. However, post-pandemic, the Optician Awards ceremony has moved back to London at the end of the year.
Reminding our readers that the timeline has changed provides a neat segue into why you should be putting yourself forward for the reward and recognition of your peers. Entering isn’t about showing off or bigging yourself up, its about a period of consideration and 360-degree feedback on the effectiveness of what you do and why. Time after time, our winners praise the Awards process for prompting self-reflection, enabling them to explore how patients see them. Staff have told me they didn’t realise just how much their work was valued by the boss or what others in the practice did. For some, bringing their teams to the Awards presentation party had been the highlight of the practice team’s year.
Natural rhythms dominate our lives, perhaps too much. Habits are the most positive, and negative, traits we possess. Given that 40% of what we do everyday is driven by habit, it’s important that we periodically review our autopilot to ensure we practice the right habits.
Once you’ve packed away the holiday suitcases, bought the kids’ new school uniform and polished their shoes for the first day back why not log on to www.opticianawards.co.uk and see which of our categories could be a positive new habit for you.