Taking stock, setting standards

“Earlier in my career – oh, what am I saying? in my life – I would have liked to have had some feedback as to where I am happiest, what direction I can develop in, and why I find some things easy and others hard. That sort of thing was missing entirely in my first profession. When I then had to make some important professional decisions, I had no objective support. It was only when I had to deal with the first failures and fell flat on my face that I finally got my first feedback.” Why do things have to come to a head before we seek feedback, or companies take stock and provide their employees with objective orientation in their jobs? How can you set standards and use benchmarks and norms to assess yourself and others?