Yes, yes, I know, I was supposed to write this a few days ago. Amazing how time flies when you take a break from your normal routine. But now I'm back into the regular swing of things. Earlier this week, I continued a tradition I've been holding for 10 years: completing my year-end review.
Many of us familiar with workplace bureaucracy know all about year-end reviews. It's when you and your boss get together to discuss your accomplishments and whether or not you met the company's expectations. In proactive companies, these expectations were set earlier in the year when your department's objectives were laid out by the powers that be (the companies that aren't as organised make up their objectives on the fly or backwards-engineer them after the fact).
I think I was a challenging employee. Because I wasn't happy in simply meeting or exceeding the company's expectations or my department's objectives. I needed to feel like I believed in those objectives and that I had truly contributed to something meaningful both to the company but mostly to me. And through my coaching experience that started in 2001, I found a way to make my year-end review meaningful to me. I created my own personal planning process.
At the beginning of the year, I update my life plan. My plan contains all the elements of my work, home/social and personal life that I want to accomplish. And at the end of each year, I identify all the things that I have in fact accomplished, whether they were on my plan or not. I pull out my weekly calendar to trigger my memory and I write down all the things that I completed. It can be significant, like writing and publishing a book, or smaller, like pulling together a birthday dinner for a friend. I especially focus on the elements that are aligned with my life objectives: for example, if one of my objectives is to travel more, I make a point of writing down all the trips I took during the year. If helping my spouse ensure that his kids get a great education, I mention that I helped his 11-year-old study for his junior-high-school entrance exams.
There are really two reasons for writing all of this down. First of all, it helps me understand where I spend all my time. Ever get that feeling that time passes and you truly don't know what you did with it? A year-end review helps you get a better understanding of what you've been doing all that time. It also helps you identify if your work, home/social and personal elements in your life are balanced in the way that you want them to be. The second reason for doing a year-end review is to prepare for a new update to my life plan. It allows me to see where I've arrived at, which becomes the new starting place for this year's journey. It also gives me confidence; after seeing everything I was able to accomplish in 2010, I can create the energy and confidence necessary to take on all the amazing projects I want to complete in 2011.
So, if you haven't yet done your year-end review, don't wait for your boss. Do your own. And don't forget the most important part: once you have written everything down, celebrate! Identify your top 5 accomplishments and tell someone about them. Write about them in your journal if you want. Make a point of NOTICING what you have done and pat yourself on the back. Give yourself a raise (in whatever form you can). And get ready for a new year!
(in my next post, I'll talk about how to build a yearly life plan)
