How About That?

We have reached the beginning of a new month. Think about October. Did you really do all you could in order to move closer to your goals? My answer is NO. When I review my month I found areas where I need to improve in order to get more progress towards the things I want to achieve. I am glad that I made it through the month; however, I definitely see where I need to focus more in November.

The act of self-assessment is beneficial if performed correctly. Here a few guidelines to make sure you are most productive.

A. Be proud. The main goal of the self-evaluation is to highlight your accomplishments. Make sure you point to specific tasks and projects that highlight your best work.

B. Be honest and critical. Self-assessments aren't just about pointing out triumphs. You should also critically assess the times you came up short. Being honest means pointing out areas that could be improved. It is important to not become self-deprecating in your assessment. Timothy Butler advises to use developmental language when critiquing the areas in which you need to improve. "You don't want to say, 'Here's where I really fall down,'" Butler told the Harvard Business Review. "Instead, say, 'Here's an area I want to work on. This is what I've learned. This is what we should do going forward.'"

C. Continuously strive for growth. It's important during self-assessments to never stagnate; humans are constantly adapting, learning and changing. Whether you've had a great year or fallen short of your own expectations, it's important to remain hungry to improve and educate yourself. "The first step is to adopt a growth mindset and understand that adult human potential is not fixed. We are always in a state of becoming, and our potential increases or decreases based on many factors, including the environments where we live and work," Hassell said. "Adopting that framework prevents people from becoming too transfixed on their perceived failures and from becoming too attached to their triumphs."

D. Track your accomplishments. When it's time to discuss your accomplishments in your self-assessment, having actual data to show what you've done throughout the year is highly beneficial. Having concrete numbers to back up any assertion strengthens the validity of a self-assessment.

E. Be professional. You should always be professional when writing self-assessments. Being professional means giving the appraisal its due attention, like any other important project that is in your life. Dominique Jones, chief operating officer at BetterU Education Corporation, advised treating your self-appraisal like a work of art that builds over time. You'll be much happier with the result if you give yourself time to reflect and carefully support your self-assessment, she said. "Use examples to support your assertions, and … make sure that you spell- and grammar-check your documents," Jones wrote in a blog post. "These are all signs of how seriously you take the process and its importance to you."

F. Making performance evaluations a regular occurrence Performance evaluations help everyone know where they stand and how they're performing. "Self-assessments cannot merely be an annual event. They are part of an ongoing and regular practice of reflection," Hassell said. "If you look at a snapshot of performance, you are never going to see the truth. It's too easy to focus on a particular experience or event and then create an overarching story around performance." Doing so will avoid "recency bias," or a type of tunnel vision that centers around recent events, rather than the big picture.

Reference: Adam Uzialko, 5 Tips For Writing Your Performance Evaluation, Business News Daily

Make IT a Great Day!