You've taken the HC7 assessment, now what?
You have your report in front of you. Seven dimensions, three scores each (importance, current state, gap), and two focus areas (your two largest negative gaps). Before you start walking through it, there are a few things worth knowing about how to read it, what to look for, what to do when something surprises you, and where to go next.
Your report is meant to be a companion you can come back to.
Where to start
The instinct may be to open your report and look for your lowest scores or largest gaps, that's normal, but may not be the most useful starting point.
We recommend starting with the Overview: 'Visual Summary' and 'At a Glance.' Take a moment to digest the whole map before zooming in on any one part of it. Look across all seven dimensions, notice which ones are well-resourced, and which ones aren't. Notice the relationship between importance and current state in each dimension, as a reading of where your life currently sits rather than a grade. Notice what resonates, which scores feel true for you, and which ones don't.
The report asks you to take in the full picture before trying to fix anything.
The four patterns
The relationship between importance and current state creates four patterns. Each of your dimensions will fall into one of them:
- High importance, high current state – alignment. This dimension matters to you and you're well-resourced in it. It's worth noticing what's making that possible, because the conditions that support alignment in one season don't always carry into the next.
- High importance, low current state – an unmet need. This dimension matters to you and you're depleted in it. This is the part of your life that's most likely asking for attention.
- Low importance, low current state – may be completely fine. This dimension isn't central to you right now, and your current state reflects that.
- Low importance, high current state – worth a moment of curiosity. Sometimes we over-resource the things we've been told should matter at the expense of the things that actually do. It's worth asking whether the importance score is honest, or whether you've subtly stopped noticing something you've consistently invested in.
- Most people have a mix of all four. That's normal. The work is to understand where you are and what each pattern is telling you, rather than converting every dimension into alignment.
How to sit with a gap?
If you have a dimension where importance is high and your current state is low, the temptation is to react quickly. To feel behind. To start fixing. To make a plan.
A more useful first move is to get curious about it and reflect on the gap long enough to understand it. A gap is information, not a personal failure. Before you decide what to do about it, it's worth asking what's actually going on:
- How long has this gap been here? Weeks, months, years?
- Is this a season I'm in, or a pattern I've been living with for a while?
- Is the current state low because something specific changed, or because something gradual happened that I didn't quite notice?
- What would it look like if this dimension were better resourced? Concretely, in my actual life, not in the abstract?
You don't need to answer all of these right now, but use this time to reflect on the gap long enough to see it clearly before you act on it.
What to do if a score surprises you?
Some scores will land exactly the way you expected. Others will surprise you. A dimension you thought was fine reads as depleted, or a dimension you thought was struggling reads as well-resourced.
Surprise is worth paying attention to. It usually means one of two things: either you've been carrying a story about yourself that doesn't quite match what's true right now, or the assessment is showing you something you haven't fully let yourself see yet.
If a score surprises you, the first move is to sit with it for a few days before doing anything about it. Notice what the surprise is asking you to look at. There's a separate piece in the library that goes deeper into surprise scores, but it's worth letting the surprise settle on its own first.
What the focus areas are for
The focus areas in your report are a starting place, not a prescription. They're the dimensions with the largest negative gaps; the areas your attention is most likely to be useful, given the pattern of your scores.
In the focus area cards you will find:
- Subdimension scores – a closer look into the specific areas where your gaps showed up within each dimension.
- When supported, you may notice – how this dimension might feel when it is in alignment.
- When unmet, you may notice – how this dimension might feel when it is under-resourced.
- The micro actions – small, specific, low-resource ways to begin closing the gap.
- Reflection question – something worth asking yourself about this dimension.
- How this connects – your dimensions are interconnected, when this dimension is under-resourced, it will likely impact another dimension it is tightly linked to.
The goal isn’t to change a bunch of things at once, it is to identify the lowest-lift, highest-impact adjustments you can make in your life right now. Start with one. Try it on for a week. See what happens.
How to share it
If your report shows you something you want to talk about with someone, a partner, a coach, a friend, a mentor, that instinct is worth following. HC7 is designed to give you language, and language is most useful when it's shared. There's a separate piece in the library on how to open that kind of conversation if you are looking for a place to start.
Coming back to it
This isn't a one-time read. The assessment is built to be retaken. Your profile will shift over time. Life shifts, and your profile shifts with it. The dimensions don't change. What you need from them does.
Come back to your report in a few months. Read it again. Notice what's moved and what hasn't. The pattern you find the second time will tell you something the first reading couldn't.
