One last look

Filled with accomplishments and disappointments, your 2020 is worthy of critique

While the methods and metrics of work performance reviews have evolved over the years, the basic premise has not: your boss gets to evaluate what you did well and what you didn’t do well over the last 12 months. And for most, the initial part of any review is the self-review, that formatted survey where you’re tasked with telling your manager your strengths and weaknesses. OK, “weaknesses” is too harsh. Maybe “things you need to work on” is a better way to put it.

While anyone with a job has accepted the reality of evaluations, it’s not something we want to replicate in our lives outside the office. And that may be a mistake.

“Why wouldn’t you do an annual review of your life,” says John Putzier, author of “Get Weird! 101 Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place To Work” (American Management Association, $17.95). “It’s a good way to truly look at what you’re doing well and what needs more work. It’s an honest assessment of who you are.”

Putzier says it’s possible to use some of the same review tools when evaluating your day-to-day life as you might use in the office. Most important, he says, is to take an honest look at what you’ve done and what you’re doing. “You can’t judge your year on what (you) planned on getting done and then shape your results to fit those plans,” he says. “You have to judge it on what you’ve actually accomplished and how you’ve done it.”

Own it

Alyssa Hammond, director of the Pulsifer Undergraduate Career Development Center at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, says no matter the subject of an evaluation, being personally responsible for your own actions is key. “Be accountable for what you do,” she says. “Be honest and forthcoming, even when you are in the wrong.”

Doing that requires more than honesty, Hammond says, especially when it comes to one’s personal life. It also requires courage. “There’s a level of bravery that is part of every honest

Annual reviews are useful in your professional and personal life. self-assessment,” she says. “We may not want to admit things should and could be doing more. “You get yourself in a pattern about ourselves but that won’t undo our missteps or turn our sometimes and you get comfortable,” he says. “I took a good negative results positive. Sometimes, you have to admit to look at what I was going and decided I wanted to move in a falling short of a goal so you can eventually reach it.” different direction.”

Rick Wong, author of “Winning Lifelong Customers with A few years ago, Maroulis formed his own company and the Five Abilities” (Authority Publishing, $24.99), says became his own boss. “I don’t think you can jump into any “reliability, along with visibility, credibility, viability and decision or make any changes without taking a look at what capability,” is essential to the success of an individual at you’ve been doing and how you’ve been doing it,” he says. home and at work, especially when life takes the occasional “Even if it’s one thing that forces you to make a change, left turn. “Be unreasonably accountable when the unexpected you have to go into it with the understanding of what you’re happens,” he says. “Looking back at what you’ve done means capable of doing based on what you’ve actually done.” you have to look forward to what you’ll do next. If you’ve Joyce Stark says she came to similar conclusions after her had challenges this past year, if you’ve fallen short on some own self-assessment. “It was something I read in Oprah’s of your long-term or short-term goals, or even some of your magazine, about writing out the good and bad, but I’m retired basic responsibilities, you have to anticipate similar challenges so for me the good and the bad had nothing to do with work in the future and be honest about how you’ll address them. It’s or even how I run my house,” Stark says. “I had to take honest important to be open and responsive to new solutions.” look at where I was living, why I was living there and what I What’s next go out of it.”

Once you’ve taken an honest look at your strengths and As a result of her findings, the resident of Dayton, Ohio, weaknesses, it’s easier to create a plan for moving forward. is planning a move to Florida next year. “I found that I had a

Nick Maroulis, owner of Windy City Appliance Repair lot of idle time, especially in the winter, and that put me in a in Chicago, says an honest past assessment of his own real funk,” she says. “I’m an active person by nature but until experiences led to a fairly drastic — and immediate — change. I actually wrote out how little I did during some days, I never As an appliance repair specialist for a large suburban store, really realized it. Seeing it in writing made a big difference.” Maroulis says he enjoyed his work but always felt like he