A review at work can be nerve-wracking. It can be hard to be on the receiving end of criticism, but getting good feedback on your performance can be invaluable. Getting an outside perspective on your professional efforts can highlight strengths and point out flaws that you didn’t know you had. You don’t have to wait until someone gives you a review, though: you can always check yourself by giving yourself a self-performance review.
A self-performance review is when you give yourself an honest assessment of where you’re at with your work. It’s a chance to reflect on the work you’ve done over the last year, identify areas for improvement, set new goals, and evaluate how your strengths and weaknesses have changed over time. The key word in all this is “honest”: you won’t do yourself any favors by going easy on yourself. For this sort of self-awareness to be useful, you need to really look at yourself with a critical eye.
Strengths and Weaknesses
One of the cornerstones to any good self-performance review is to take an honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses. How have you utilized your strengths to do your work? Could you do more with those strengths? Is there room for improvement? You should apply the same kind of rigorous questioning to your weaknesses. Have you made conscious efforts to address them? Have you turned any of those weaknesses into strengths? Have you discovered new weaknesses that you can work on honing into competencies in the future?
If you find this difficult to do, that can be a sign that you need to take a closer look at yourself. Make lists of your strengths and weaknesses and rank each list in order of prioritization to focus on going forward. Talk with a mentor and/or peers who’ve worked with you whose opinions you trust and ask them what they think your fine points are and where they think you could do better.
Reflect On Your Accomplishments
A lot has probably happened since the last time you received a review. Whether or not you’ve had a good year or a tumultuous one, you’ve probably done at least a few things of note. It’s good to remind yourself of your progress, no matter how big or small those accomplishments may be. What have you achieved? What are you proud of? Look at the goals you’ve set for yourself in the past year: which ones have you completed? For the ones that you haven’t checked off yet, how far along are you? What could you do going forward to get you to the finish line? Are these unfinished goals still worth pursuing, or have your priorities changed?
Much like your strengths and weaknesses, if you have a hard time thinking of any kind of professional milestones, that’s a warning sign. If you don’t already, you should consider keeping a record of your achievements at work. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate journal: dated pages with bullet points noting completed projects and other achievements you feel good about should do the trick. While many businesses may already be having you track your work, those platforms can be hard to backtrack through to research your progress. That’s why keeping a concise record of your own can come in handy when it comes time to self-evaluate your progress.
What’s in the Way?
When assessing yourself, it helps to ask yourself what obstacles you’re facing. Is there something in your work environment that’s distracting you and making it harder to stay on task? Are you having trouble communicating with certain people? How is your time management? Do you have enough time to do what you need to do, or are you having a tough time balancing your professional obligations with your personal ones? Do you need to learn new technologies and/or skills to make your job easier to navigate?
You can also do a positive version of this by asking yourself what’s been working well for you. What are your best practices? What new habit or technique have you established this year that’s paid off for you? What connections and relationships have you made that have helped you grow? How have you helped other people and been a positive influence in your field?
Set SMART Goals
A self-review is more than taking a long look in your rear view mirror: it’s also an opportunity to chart a path forward. Set goals for yourself that will motivate and challenge you throughout the year. You can use the SMART method to develop goals that are:
- Specific: Set goals that are narrow in scope and well-defined. The more opaque and broad a goal is, the harder it will be to achieve it.
- Measurable: Does your goal have clear metrics that make it easy to track? How can you measure your progress to keep yourself accountable?
- Attainable: Is your goal realistic? Do you have the time, resources, and focus needed to do the work to make it happen? You don’t want to over-commit to something that could lead to stress and burnout.
- Relevant: How relevant is your goal to your professional ambitions? Does your goal align with the needs of your company?
- Time-based: Your goals should be time-based (making them easier to track). They should have a clear deadline. If you leave your goal open-ended, it can be a lot harder to motivate yourself to stay on track since it can be finished “whenever.”
Gina Pinch, Rio Salado Faculty Chair for Business, Management, and Public Administration, offers an example of what a SMART goal looks like.
“For example,” said Pinch, “a SMART goal to improve study skills could be ‘I will study at least one hour every day for the next four weeks to improve my academic performance’ instead of just stating ‘I will improve my academic performance’.”
Article by Austin Brietta
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