3 topics for your year-end career review

With a ramped-up holiday social schedule and other year-end obligations at home or work, the month of December can make you feel like you’re trapped in a whirlwind. It’s easy to forget or overlook the fact that you may have set some career goals for the year—or that you may want to set some for the coming year. Whatever the status of your career, December is an excellent time to do a quick year-end career review.

Concerned that you can’t possibly add one more item to your December to-do list? Don’t worry, a career review can be quite simple, it takes very little actual time, and, you can tackle it almost anywhere.  Get started by moving through the three topics below.

You can think about one topic a day, one topic a week—or just move through all three back-to-back. You can jot down your thoughts paper, capture them on your computer, tablet, or phone, or even record them as a voice memo. Your goal is to come up with some notes you can use to set new career goals for 2019.

Topic 1: This year’s accomplishments

Take some time to reflect on the past 12 months. It can be helpful to look at your calendar or even old emails to refresh your memory. Once you’ve thought about your career activities, answer these questions:

• What were my biggest accomplishments?
• What am I most proud of?
• What did I get the most positive result or feedback from?

Topic 2: This year’s challenges

This is a chance to think about how you responded to any challenges you faced. As you reflect on challenges, remember that you most likely saw more growth as a result of challenges than successes. If you didn’t, this is a great time to think about how you might respond differently to future challenges.  Answer these questions:

• What were my biggest challenges?
• Did I end up growing from them or getting off track?
• What did I not accomplish that I wanted to?
• Do I need to reframe how I approach challenges?

Topic 3: Next year’s objectives

This topic will take you right into goal-setting for 2019. To set yourself up, think about these questions:

• What’s my dream for next year?
• What’s realistically possible for next year?
• What will I do the same as this year?
• What will I do differently?