To do list: Present buying, food shopping, party planning, annual review…

Your mental list of things to tick off by the end of the year is ever growing. You need to finish a client’s social media strategy for next year, you need to finish going through the final edits of a Christmas campaign for a client, chase that journalist you’ve been bugging for months, buy your dog a Christmas present, order the tackiest Christmas jumper you can find online for Christmas Jumper day at work, think of something wild and wacky for your Secret Santa gift and get last year’s Christmas decorations down…… I’m sure the list goes on and on, I know mine does.

46 days until 2019, yet so much to do.

But I’m going add one more thing to your list. And I’m sure you’ll thank me for it… in the long run… I promise.

At this time of year, we start to reflect on what we’ve achieved this year – by that I mean, we step on the weighing scales and realise our new year’s resolution of getting to the gym lasted a grand total of a week, we look down at our double chocolate, extra cream and toppings frappe and laugh at our own interpretation of what a ‘liquid’ diet means, or that your ambition to keep your flat tidy lasted until your first full week back at work after the break.

The majority of those goals are unachievable, unattainable, and quite frankly, unnecessary and ridiculous. You enjoy that frappe and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

But what we often overlook, is what we have actually achieved, and what’ve accomplished in a work environment.

You might have let out a sigh of relief when your employer said they were scrapping annual reviews or postponing them until April. The thought of sitting down with your manager and talking through things you both already know, just to create a SWOT analysis of yourself and write out a development plan for it to never be looked at again until next year may be enough for you to run to the nearest pub and do it over a bottle of wine. So, it’s no surprise you were happy when they announced they wouldn’t be doing them this year.

More often than not, even in organisations where the cultures spot on, a supportive bunch and all round, pretty amazing employers – reviews can still give you that feeling of nervous butterflies in your stomach.

But. Having an annual review can be one of the best things for your career – so if you tick one thing off your list of this to do in the next 46 days, make it annual review on yourself.

Why, what’s the point in that?

So many of us are becoming too comfortable in our jobs. I talk to candidates who have been in the same role, doing the same thing, for the same clients for too long. And years can fly by before you realise that you’ve become stagnate (it’s such a horrible word, isn’t it?).

Yes, you might be gaining great coverage for your clients, you’ve built up a black book brimming with media contacts, you love your team and your manager is impressed with your work. But, what have you learnt? What have achieved that’s different to last year? Have you progressed? Do you still enjoy working across your clients?

Sometimes you need to take a step back to realise that you’ve fallen into a state of comfort – just like cosying up on your sofa at 7:30pm on a Friday night binge watching Netflix with a pizza. It’s comfortable, you’re not unhappy, but could be happier?

I say this, but to me that sounds like a perfect Friday night. But you get my point. You need to stop yourself falling into “auto-pilot” in your career and continuously be striving for the next step.

So, how can you carry out an annual review on yourself?

It takes self-discipline, and a lot of honesty to yourself. You need to be truthful to yourself, and as there’s no strict deadline or assignment you need to be motivated in yourself to achieve this. We all know we switch into admin time on a Friday afternoon, pottering around our desk trying to look “busy”. So, use this time wisely – block out your diary next Friday between 2-4pm, book a meeting room out to yourself, get your head down and be honest with yourself.

#1 What have you done this year?

Get EVERYTHING down on paper, and I mean everything. All the campaigns, all the coverage, all the events, everything.

#2 What have you learnt from these activities?

Use this to make sure that you’ve continued learning through the year and you haven’t been on repeat.

#3 What have been your top 3 achievements this year?

What have you achieved and how can you build on this? Highlighting your achievements can help you recognise where you are on your route to progression. Remember that you’re doing this for you and YOUR career so don’t be afraid to write down your achievements – you can be a little big headed!

#4 What didn’t go so well?

This is one of the questions you have to be brutally honest, what didn’t go to plan? What didn’t work? Did you make a mistake?

The learning from this is how you would deal with the situation if it arose again, what learnings did you take from this? And how can you use this points to push yourself?

#5 Use all of these 4 points to create an overview of your year and take a step back and ask yourself if you’ve achieved everything you wanted to. Has this year been beneficial from your career?

#6 The most important part is using all this information to collate a development plan for the year ahead.

What else do you want to learn? Do you want to work across new clients? Do you want to do more across social media? Are you ready for a promotion to the next level?

Set yourself goals – go back to SMART (yes we’re all sick of it from how much it was drilled in at school and through university, but the reason why it is, is because it works).

#7 Before you let out another moan, there’s a good reason. Put an alert in your diary for the same day, every three months to review your plan.

It’s all well and good setting the time aside now to create this development plan, but it’s another thing actually using it & making sure you’re achieving all your goals and within the time limit your set yourself – if you’re not, why not?

This is an exercise that can go two ways. It can be a tick boxing exercise to convince yourself you’re achieving your goals of getting your work life in order, to never look at it again. Or it can be a valuable resource to help you ensure you’re not getting comfortable, you’re achieving everything that’s in reach and pushing for the next step.

Remember that YOU are the manager of YOUR career, and so it’s only you that can truly do this. Yes you can sit down with your manager and hear their thoughts on what you’ve achieved this year and what your targets should be for next year, but it’s down to you to lead the change.

So put the online shopping for this year’s Christmas jumper on hold, and get this ticked off the list first.