5 Reasons for Being Proactive in Your Self-Assessment

With the gender equality gap widening, we as women need to stop minimizing our self-worth and contributions in the workplace. We need to #PressforProgress and take our success into our own hands. Here are 5 reasons for being proactive in your self-assessment and to help you take your career to the next level.

Are you bad at promoting your successes during that annual review? How about staying on track with your professional goals?

As women, we have a strong tendency to be harder on ourselves when completing our self-assessment during our annual review. We tend to use terms that are passive when speaking about our achievements. By continuing to do this, we are hindering our career progression and it needs to stop so we can do our part and help bridge that gender equality gap.
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Be Proactive with Weekly Mini Self-Assessments

There is a simple process for being proactive in your self-assessment.

Set a weekly goal that will move your project or your annual targets forward. This goal needs to be measurable. How can it show the impact on your personal goals for the year?
Book a weekly appointment with yourself to review your progress. This has to be a non-negotiable time with no disruptions, no rescheduling.
Answer this question, what went well? Always find 2 successes. Take time to soak those in. Celebrate them. Document them, and file it.
Answer this question, what can you improve? Only 1 improvement. Seriously, only one!
Brainstorm how you can improve that one item, and set the goal for the next week with this improvement.

Benefits to Your Career

“I don’t have time.”

“How do I break the targets into weekly goals?”

I didn’t say the process would be easy. It is simple, but it takes planning and effort to maintain. I know this is tough to get started. I also know that it can be difficult to maintain when there are distractions and issues bombarding you, demanding your attention.

I’ve let those distractions and issues take priority, only to delay the progress of a project. Once this happened, it took more time and effort to bring the project back on target. It’s much easier to set up this system and stick to it than to try and come from behind. You must make being proactive in your self-assessment a habit and here is why.

Small Wins show Progress

Harvard Professor, Teresa Amabile has spent years studying how life inside the workplace affects productivity and creativity for their people. She has proven that small wins, improve productivity and creativity for people. They show progress.

On the flip side, she has proven that if we don’t take notice of the small wins then we can become disengaged and productivity will decrease.

Clarity of your Self Worth in Stressful Times

When times get tough you will be able to look into the file and know that you are making a difference. But it is more than just your small wins, it is how you handled the negative as well.

Author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, Mark Manson, believes that exceptional people don’t truly become that way just by thinking they are exceptional. They become exceptional by being an average person that seeks to improve.

Improved Motivation for Your Success

The big picture can be overwhelming at times. Understanding how you can make a difference to that big picture can be hard to determine. If you break the target into small weekly goals then it is easier to achieve.

Author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker, proves that when you treat a goal like a video game you improve your motivation and your success. Preparing for your annual evaluation at the end of the year is not enough. You need those small wins to score your work game, measure your success, and ultimately level up your game.

Ready for Anything, Anytime

When you are regularly reviewing your progress you are ready to pull a project report or review your personal progress with your employer or a client. You will have a solid portfolio file that you can use to show how you made a difference to that bottom line. How you helped the company or the client. How you personally made an impact. You are being proactive in your self-assessment throughout the year.

Boost Your Personal Brand

Knowing your accomplishments and how you improved over time, will reflect internally within the company. Your clearly defined accomplishments and improvements will provide you with solid examples to add to your portfolio or resume. This builds your personal brand, someone that others can count on to help with improvements and making a difference. Building trust-worthiness.

It’s time for women to stop being passive about their success and take a stand for equality through tracking their progress. It is important to set weekly goals that will bring you closer to achieving your end goals. Breaking the big picture into snapshots and measuring yourself against those small wins, and focus on what improvements to focus on next.

If you are being proactive in your self-assessment you will show progress with your goals. You will also improve your self-worth, gain motivation to up your game. It will feel great when you are prepared for that review at any time, and your personal brand will flourish. Take your success seriously and #PressforProgress.