It’s Not Too Late to Design Your Best Year Ever!
So, we are half way through 2018. Was that sentence negative or positive? Is your year half full or half empty? Okay, but seriously. If you work on a calendar year, June is our midway point and that means mid-year reviews! If you work for a large corporation, government agency or even most smaller companies, you’re probably used to the exercise. You’ve likely sat down with your boss and reviewed your performance in some way, and if you are a manager, you may sit through many of these performance reviews helping to encourage and evaluate others. There can be a lot of paperwork involved, and sometimes it can feel like a daunting task.
As a small business owner or solopreneur, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of annual reviews, and very likely you skip over mid-year reviews altogether. Am I right?
Unless you’re the super geek type, like myself. I always looked forward to the opportunity to review my progress, brag a little on my “projects completed” list, strategize how I would negotiate for a raise, or when those weren’t being given, I would try to wrangle additional training opportunities or attendance to an upcoming conference in lieu of cash when there was just “no money in the budget for raises this year.” Of course, when confronted with any unfinished projects or areas that needed improvement, I would listen, explain my plans for improvement and hope to gloss over anything that leaned towards imperfect performance.
Well, let me be the one to provide your GENTLE reminder that Annual and Mid-Year Reviews are more important to us as small business owners. They are truly critical to the success of our business and you really need to set some time in your calendar to complete them.
Set an appointment with yourself, and show up!
If you are your only employee, set an appointment with yourself, and show up. Standing yourself up for this important meeting would not be prudent 😊
Seriously, schedule ½ of a day, or even two separate ½ day appointments to really review and evaluate your business and your performance. You should have set goals for your year, so now is a great time to see where you stand in comparison to your plan.
What To Cover in a Mid-Year Review for Small Businesses or Solopreneurs
Review your goals for the year and evaluate where you are, where you should be and analyze the differences. Have you veered off track? Lost focus? Were there unforeseen hurdles that you can correct or better plan for? Glossing over any short-comings here is not your best bet. I already tried that!
If you have measurable goals, which you should, how can you recalculate your target to ensure you still reach your year-end goal?
If you’ve exceeded your mid-year goals, celebrate your accomplishments. But still analyze this. How did you do it? How can your repeat this pattern to ensure continued success? Do you find you are continually achieving beyond your goals? This is important too, as it could be you’re setting your target too low.
Be real about this, it only benefits you and the success of your business, so be real, be honest and be accountable. Make adjustments as necessary and work to ensure you are challenging yourself, but not setting yourself up for failure. Beating yourself up for not doing your best, or meeting your goals is not going to support your efforts going forward. So, be kind, be realistic, have fun with this exercise and use it as a tool to build upon your best assets and Design Your Best Year Ever!