Why You Can Benefit from a Weekly Self-Evaluation

Days on the job can feel long, exhausting and stressful. Before you know it, a week of work has flown by and hopefully you shrunk your to-do list. Crossing off items on your to-do list requires hard work and effort. Do you ever acknowledge this effort? If you don’t, you could benefit from a weekly self-evaluation.

The fast-paced office environment hinders evaluations of yourself and your work. Take the time and add self-evaluation as a weekly task to focus on yourself and reflect on your accomplishments. Practicing self-evaluation creates an opportunity for one to examine and identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to further personal development. Not only can you assess and set goals for yourself, but also goals for your career. In fact, individuals who set goals for themselves are 50% more likely to achieve them than those who don’t.

When you reflect upon your week, honesty is established as you must be truthful about where you stepped up and where you fell short. By taking a few minutes every Friday, you’ll be able to praise yourself on achievements throughout the week and areas that can continue to be improved.

CELEBRATE PERSONAL VICTORIES
Start by commending yourself. Glance back at your to-do list from the week and view the things you completed. Review your email box and appreciate each email sent, forwarded and taken off of high priority. Email overload increases stress levels so limiting your flooded inbox reduces the weight of work hovering over your weekend activities. As your weekly to-do list and inbox of emails shrink, your feelings of self-satisfaction should increase.

In order to praise yourself, write down what you achieved during the week, both in and out of the office. When you write things down rather than talk them out, you’re less prone to forget. Although we all believe we have an incredible memory, our brain is constantly in information overload while at work. Writing things down is a powerful way to stay motivated about the upcoming week while keeping track of your success from weeks past. Even Oprah Winfrey keeps a gratitude book to remind herself of her blessings and acknowledge what she has done. Take a lesson from Oprah and write down your victories in order to evaluate your wins during the week.

ASSESS WHERE IT WENT WRONG
To grow individually and professionally, it’s important to acknowledge a loss, a missed deadline or a missed opportunity. Did you press snooze a few too many times and arrive late Monday morning? Did you dial in on the wrong conference line? Did you miss a meeting? Regardless of the mistake — big or small — losses must be identified in order to improve.

If you’re arriving late, set your alarm earlier and choose to get some sleep over a Neflix binge. Set calendar reminders on your phone for 30 minutes before a meeting or event in order to arrive on time. Reminders are necessary steps to success as they’re a reliable and resourceful way to bring attention to tasks that need to occur throughout your day. Without them, nothing would get done. Take initiative to solve issues and evaluate best practices for you to achieve rather than keep habits that lead to chaos.

An important reaction to failure is learning how to turn it into success. Learning how to improve is a major step in self-evaluation. This also jumpstarts preparation for the upcoming week as you recognize new tasks on your to-do list and develop better habits for your work routine. Failures are opportunities in disguise based on the way you approach it. When you evaluate these losses, take note and actively focus on turning them into personal victories.

EVALUATE WHAT’S TO COME
Once you accept your strengths and weaknesses throughout the week, you’re able to plan and set goals for the future. Set a goal to make that 6:00am workout or to attend two networking events by the end of the month. Build upon your strengths that you evaluated in order to further achieve. Write down goals and strategies that will decrease your losses and deter failure. To further growth personally and professionally, a weekly self-evaluation is pertinent.