Strategic Goal Evaluation: Mastering End of Year Assessments for Results
It may be hard to believe, but we are winding down another full trip around the sun. As we close out the year, taking time to evaluate where you are, what you’ve accomplished, and what comes next is an important step for every leader. This can sound like a daunting task, thinking about what has happened over the course of the last year. In reality, it can be both fun and (reliving memories and successes) as well as enlightening (recalling challenges and learnings). Each has its benefits for the year ahead. In today’s article, I’ll share some ideas on how you can invest some time in completing your year-end assessment and how it can help you get a jumpstart on the new year coming.
Prepare
There are two things you need most for your end of year assessment: blocked time, and quiet space. Almost anything else can be optional. The one requirement you must have of yourself is being honest. This is not the time to look for the silver lining in everything. However, this is not a self beat down session either. This is an honest assessment of yourself that only you will hear or understand. In any given year, we miss targets we had hoped to hit. Time gets away from us, or unforeseen events occur. Those are normal. Take them in stride and extract the learnings you can from that.
The other recommended tools for your review would be your goals you set for the year, journals, daily planners, and any other notes you’ve taken across the year. Something else fun to use during this process is your photo library. Often this can be a nice blend of personal and professional worlds. When I look at mine, I see pictures from store visits, team or group photos, as well as the family vacations or travel events across the year. It always brings a smile and reminds me why I do what I do. Both types of pictures feed off each other to round out the story of the year.
Time and Space
Block dedicated time on your calendar for this one. You’ll also want it to be quiet and uninterrupted. Early in the morning may be a great time before other people are up and about around you, and before you may feel obligations to check in on what’s happening. Having this time and space will allow you to stay focused on yourself, and that is essential for this process.
Reviewing
Use the first part of your time to review your goals and read through notes or look through pictures, as I mentioned above. Taking notes as you go can be helpful, but mostly you want your brain to absorb it all in. What you can capture in notes is your feelings from seeing or reading your pictures and notes. Why do you feel now the way you do, and did you feel differently than you did at the time? How so? I enjoy reading through some of my older daily tasks and notes captured on certain days. It reminds me of the work I did or completed with my team. It also serves as a reminder of the many things accomplished across the year. I also tend to find items that still require follow up and had fallen through the cracks. (This process can serve many needs. 😀)
Don’t rush the review. It can be easy to get part way through and want to jump into action. You begin capturing ideas for what you can do differently, and your focus shifts only to that, instead of completing the look back. Guard against that. Ensure you work through the entire year and gain the complete picture of what this time looked like.
Taking Action
Once you have completed the full review, then you can begin laying out the next steps and a plan for the future. This is a perfect time to evaluate and update any goals you have already set for the new year. And if you have not started with that, this will provide you the foundation for building those. This is where having multiple notebooks, or pages available to you to capture different ideas comes in. I tend to do mine digitally on my iPad, and GoodNotes is a perfect application for this. I can have multiple tabs open with different notebooks available. Since I use GoodNotes for my digital daily planner, I can review that while easily tapping to a notes page to jot down things to remember. I can have a separate blank page for ideas for goals or follow up items. Regardless of how you do it, having a place to capture information specific to how you’ll use it later can be very helpful. Don’t be afraid to be spread out.
When you are complete, you should have a group of notes and ideas from which to build a plan for the new year. You should be able to walk away with a good picture of your new goals, and actions you can take to achieve them. I would recommend a separate session to come back and refine, review, and finalize your goal planning and personal action plan separate from your end of year review.
Some Questions to Ask
Why do I think the year has gone the way it did?
What are the proudest moments of the year?
Where did I surprise myself in how I responded to a situation positively?
What did I learn this year?
What was the most unexpected learning this past year?
Knowing what I know now, what would I do different if I had the chance? Can that be applied to next year?
What do I want to do more of in the coming year?
What do I want to do less of in the coming year?
Where do I want to focus my goals in the year ahead — self-development, health, family, financial, relationships, professional, or hobbies?
These are only thought starters, but perhaps they can be the way you start a capture of your thoughts and actions for the coming year ahead. By thinking through these and capturing some notes, you may find other questions and thoughts you want to capture.
It can be a challenge to sit down and reflect. Most of us want to continue to do. We tend to keep a running tally in our head of where we are and what comes next. I am certainly wired that way. But every time I do this, I realize how much is not in the quick access memory bank. I need the time and space to review deeply about what has transpired in the past twelve months. What we think we remember, and what actually happened, can be wildly different. This process ensures you don’t miss those events that can have a very positive impact on how you approach the future. I think you will find it a very productive use of time, and likely a way to also build a better development plan for yourself. Other positive benefits will the trip down memory lane, feeling grateful for many of the moments you encountered and the people you were with. Enjoy the journey and know that you will set yourself up for a brighter year ahead by completing your end of year assessment.
When do you have your end of year assessment scheduled?
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Photo by Samule Sun on Unsplash