Performance reviews help companies to ensure goals and productivity are achieved for company success. The same practice can help our personal lives too. Here are 3 tips for conducting a personal mid-year performance review to help you achieve your goals for this year and beyond.
In the blink of an eye, we are in June at the time of this post. Halfway through the year.
It feels like just yesterday that we were celebrating the new year and making our new year's resolutions. Do you remember what those were?
This year started turbulently for me with an endometrial cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgeries to treat it. I spent the first quarter of the year in physical and emotional recovery. The second quarter of the year has been about reassessing and rebuilding for a new lease on life in recovery.
In my blog, Build a Life You Love, I talk about defining what a "good life" means to me and building it with the same focus and energy that we put into our careers or business. I share 3 effective business leadership practices that can be adapted to your personal life to help build a life you love.
Creating a Personal Mission Statement
Creating a Roles & Goals Life Plan
Conducting Quarterly and Annual Life Life Reviews
(Check it out and download the free Protecting Work-Life Balance Tool:
My Valuable Life Roles)
This year, I am immensely grateful that I have the option of continuing with my personal mission, my roles and goals plan and conducting my personal mid-year review.
In my past corporate career, this is the time year to conduct mid-year performance reviews for myself and my staff. When they are conducted consistently, objectively and proactively, they can be a motivating tool for achieving success.
In principle, performance reviews are meant to be an accurate and actionable evaluation of performance coupled with employee development and growth opportunities. It can help employees to understand the importance of their role and help them feel connected to the organization (and its objectives).
When they are conducted with genuine care, fairness and gratitude, performance appraisals can help employees find direction, confidence and commitment
While I know that performance reviews generally have a bad reputation because they are so often conducted incorrectly. I think the principle and the intended methodology have merit and can benefit our work and personal lives.
I would hope that you are a compassionate and proactive leader to yourself.
As I conduct my personal mid-year performance review this month, I am revisiting what makes the review process effective in working toward my goals. Here are my 3 tips for conducting a personal mid-year performance review to help you achieve your goals for this year and beyond.
1. Be Clear on Your Purpose and Goals
In my blog, Beat Imposter Syndrome with the Power of Personal Purpose, I share how having a personal mission statement has helped me to stay clear on my purpose and goals. Especially when the road ahead is cluttered with uncertainty and self-doubt.
It's a lesson I learned from Dr. Stephen R. Covey's book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". A personal mission statement helps you to define your values and purpose which helps you to define what success is for you. Having a personal mission statement makes it easier to define clear measures of success and a plan to achieve them.
Here is a great video that summarizes how you can create a personal mission statement.
We can't all be lucky enough to have a job that is aligned with our personal passions and purpose. And even if you do, sometimes our personal purpose gives way to the organizational goals and objectives.
Having a personal mission statement and reviewing it regularly helps us to stay focused on our most important life goals and purpose.
2. Recognize Your Progress, Achievements and Failures
A year in our lives can pass by in the blink of an eye. We get so busy in our daily lives that we often miss out on learning opportunities and celebration moments for all that we achieve throughout the year.
In our performance reviews for work, we acknowledge the progress we have made and the accomplishments we have achieved to show that we are reaching our goals and are effective in our roles. We also acknowledge any shortfalls or mistakes so that we can learn from them and grow from them.
The process helps us to be aware of our strengths and weaknesses and provides us with the opportunity to follow up and react accordingly.
When we apply this review process in our personal lives with the people and the projects that matter most to us, we can more likely achieve our most important life goals.
In my blog Defining Your New Normal: Protecting Work-life Balance, I share an exercise called My Most Valuable Life Roles and Goals.
Make a list of the top 5 roles that are important to you in your life. Example: Son/Daughter, Father/Mother, Brother/Sister, Aunt/Uncle, Friend, Teacher, Coach, etc.
Next to each role, give a rating between 1-10 (1 is low importance, 10 is high importance) on the importance of that role to you.
Then give yourself an honest score on how you are doing in each role from 1-10 (1 is doing poorly, 10 is doing extremely well).
Then list actions that you need to take to maintain, sustain or excel in each of these roles and how frequently you need to take action.
Look at the roles where the importance rating and how well you are doing are not in sync, these are the imbalances you may feel and can be areas where you can focus on balancing first.
Now schedule the activities into your calendar or write yourself visible reminders to take action accordingly. Commit to being who you want to be in each of your priority life roles.
Download the free My Roles and Goals PDF worksheet from AYCLimitless.com resources with this link.
Be compassionate to yourself and celebrate your progress and successes thus far. Recognize that mistakes and failures are human and empower yourself with the lessons learned. Be confident in your abilities to get to your destination.
3. Plan and Take the Most Fulfilling Route
"Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."
Dolly Parton
Sometimes we get so caught up in living to work that we forget we should be working to live. We let the daily chase of achieving our work goals distract us from our life goals.
At the height of my work success in my corporate career, I was travelling up to 50% of my work days in some months. I was so stressed and busy trying to juggle all of my plates as a leader, wife and mother that I missed out on moments of joy in both my work and personal life.
Once I learned to create a personal mission statement and focus on my most valuable roles and goals in life, I could define a more fulfilling version of success for myself and build an action plan to bring it to fruition.
At work, I committed to bringing the best experience I could to those I lead. I invested in collaborations and work relationships and did my best to help others as we collectively worked toward organizational goals. While work was still often stressful, it was more fulfilling when I shared the experience with people that became my work family.
In my personal life, I learned to be more present in the moments and enjoy them without worrying about the constant busyness of life. The deep connection moments with my children and husband are the most fulfilling and memorable moments that make life richly rewarding.
Being clear on my values, purpose and priorities made it easier for me to protect my work-life balance while creating a richer work and personal life.
Be the Best Boss for You
When performance reviews are done inconsistently, subjectively and as the only form of constructive feedback given, they are feared, dreaded and demotivating. I am sure we've all had that experience at some time in our careers.
A Gallup study shows that "only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work."
With a personal mid-year performance review, you are the boss, so be the best boss that you can be for yourself.
Think about the qualities and behaviours that you want from your boss when reviewing your performance.
honesty
transparency
objectivity
encouragement
understanding
recognition
validation
Bring these qualities and behaviours to the table when you invest in the self-care and self-development exercise of your mid-year personal performance review. Set yourself up for the best opportunity to achieve your most important life goals.
Additional Articles to Read:
How to Conduct a Great Performance Review - Online Article - HBR.org
Defining Your New Normal: Protecting Work-Life Balance - Online Article - AYCLimitless.com
How to Write a Self-Evaluation (Step Guide and Examples) - Online Article - au.indeed.com
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