Personal Performance Review: 5 Steps to Put Your Career Path in Your Own Hands

Are you worried about your performance?  Do you really know what you contribute?  Are you unsure of the direction you are going?  The steps below will help guide you through a self-assessment and move you towards better performance.

Most times we leave the performance review up to someone else – supervisor, boss.  We wait with anticipation to see if we are doing a good job.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be totally aware of what you do and how well you do it?

 

Give First

I have been doing a lot of thinking about my personal and professional brand lately.  The struggle is trying to find what really makes me excited.

It seems that we get the most energy and productivity when we give value first.  That is, what we can do for others before we even think about what’s in it for us.  Think about it.  Isn’t it great to feel as though you have helped someone accomplish their goals?

 

Did you conquer this week?

Well, here it is.  My first blog.  Cool.

I envision this as an opportunity to share my ideas, insights, and passions.  Seeing others achieve their goals and find those things that make them unique and building on their strengths is an exciting thing to witness.  Transform and grow.

This week has been a bit crazy for me but at the end of it I decided to take about an hour to reflect and feel good going into the weekend.  This is where the idea of conquer the week came from.

I attended a leadership seminar this past weekend where I heard a great saying from Dr. Carolyn Rekarmunro, a professor at Royal Roads.  “Dance with the day.”  She said to take each day as it comes and make something out of it.

“Dance with the day.”  Wow.  Very cool.

It made me think that not only should you dance with the day, but the week, month, and each year.  I had a great talk with my good friend Lara last night about careers and we discussed the feeling of accomplishment that many of us wish to have.  At the end of the year, what have you done?  Are you proud of that year?

At the end of 2010, will you have a year of great experience and accomplished many things, or will you have 365 days of the same day over and over?  Are you just really good at one day?  Or even mediocre?

What can you do this year to grow?  Can you come up with a project that you want to finish?  Personal or professional – doesn’t matter.  Start with one.  Give yourself a time line.  Finish it.  Evaluate it.  Do another.  At the end of the year, can you then say that you did these things?

There will always be stuff to do.  Stuff.  Busy stuff.  Get rid of the unproductive stuff and do something fun, creative, and productive.

This all takes work and if it were easy, everyone would do it.

At the end of this week, I know that the work that needed to get done, was.  I also added much more to my plate and I accomplished everything and more this week.

It is Friday, I feel great and I can say I conquered this week.  I can say to the week, “Hey week, rest up.  Try and stop me on Monday.  You can’t.