Top Questions to Ask when doing your Annual Review

As the year is nearing an end we start to think about the next year and how we can do some things differently. But before you start planning that next year, it is important to do a review of your past year to avoid repeating the same mistakes or to continue doing something that worked.

Here are a few good questions to consider when doing a review:

What amazing things did you achieve this year?

You want to spend a little bit of time on this one. Think of all the things – Big or Small!

Often, we have a tendency to focus on all the things we didn’t do and what went wrong.

This question is a great starting place because we sometimes overlook how much we really did achieve, beat ourselves up on what we didn’t get done, and feel stressed about the goals we didn’t reach.

Two follow-on questions to this one are:

What did you do in order to achieve them?

How does it make you feel when you think about these achievements?

What did you want to achieve but didn’t?

This is the next big question to consider. This will give you a starting point when planning if some things you didn’t achieve are still of interest, or not at all.

A follow-on question to this is – Why didn’t you achieve them?

What worked? What didn’t go well?

Another great question to consider. This helps you to avoid repeating mistakes or to continue doing something that really worked. Don’t forget some of the smaller things that helped things run smoothly or others that became continual roadblocks.

What were your biggest frustrations and challenges?

Identifying things that cause us angst can help when planning for the next year. Things that we actually might be to avoid, or do differently to make the next year, not the same as the last.

And a follow-on question to this is - What do you need to do in order to make sure these challenges and frustrations don’t hold you back next year?

There is nothing wrong with challenges, but when we continue to come up against the same frustrations time and time again, it may be time to look for a deeper solution.

An example of this might be – I never get my social media planning done & scheduled consistently. When you investigate the deeper reason, you may find it is more of a mindset issue that causes this kind of procrastination like perfectionism, or imposter syndrome.

Take some time to work through the real reason for what is stopping you.

What have you really loved about the past year? What have you not liked?

This is another great question to help you when you are doing your planning so you can head in the direction you want to.

These answers will help you decide what you really enjoy and what to do more of, what you want to outsource or get some assistance with, and what you really don’t want to do at all.

I hope these questions help you to start your annual review process. If you would like you would like to get a copy of my annual review workbook that has these questions and many others to help you, you can download a copy for free here.

Download Annual Review Workbook