Major Causes of an Imbalanced Work Life

One of the places that many people are too humble or too general is in the self-assessment portion of a formal performance review. This is your chance to put the best representation of your work so far on permanent record. It’s important to take full advantage of this opportunity, and invest time in writing a good self-assessment.

Tips on writing a good self-assessment:

• Write a balanced review. You must include both strengths and development areas. The best rule of thumb is to write about 3 strengths and 3 development areas, or 4 strengths and 2 development areas. Make sure you have at least as many strengths listed as you do development areas.
• Be honest. Don’t embellish your accomplishments. Think hard about how you choose your ratings for yourself. Your manager will likely want you to support your ratings so be prepared to provide examples of your successes
• Take time to do it well. Your manager can tell if you rushed your self-appraisal.
• Don’t attempt to complete it in one go. Treat your self-appraisal like a work of art that builds over time. You’ll be much happier with the end result if you give yourself time to reflect and carefully support your self-assessment.

Here’s a list of the best strategic tips for obtaining a promotion at work.

1. Start with a self-assessment of your work performance.
2. Accomplishments. One of the hardest tasks for workers and job-seekers alike is quantifying work achievements.
3. Work ethic. Examine how hard you work at your job and we’re not talking about just showing up on time and not leaving early.
4. Attitude. People like working with and helping co-workers with a positive attitude.
5. Initiative. You may be very good at your job and that is important but do you ever try to push the limits of your work?
6. Team skills. Review how well you work in teams, examining key issues such as communications, working relationships, team successes (and failures).
7. Education, skills, training.
8. Research best next step for you. One of the challenges some people face is not knowing what’s the best next step for their career.
9. Review and apply to internal job postings. Sometimes your boss has no way of promoting you even if you are deserving of such and if you work for a fairly large organization, you may find the best way to obtain your next promotion is to apply for a job in a different department or division.

Remember that a promotion is not always the right path to take. If you are already struggling with work-life issues or burnout, it might be better to consider ways to reduce your workload, not add to it. Your job title should not define you.