5 Steps to Evaluate Your Career and Job at Year-End

As you come to the end of the year you might be getting some feedback from a manager or a supervisor about your work performance this year. It's great to get useful feedback from your employer and this often offers much to consider and implement in the upcoming year.

However, you should also conduct your own personal evaluation of the past year and how you did in relation to your career goals.

Here are five things to evaluate when assessing your career progress:

1. Major projects completed. What did you work on this year? Did you contribute to the completion of a major project in the past year? How successful was it and what was your role in it? Be sure to celebrate your achievements from this year.

2. New skills developed. Did you learn something new this year, take a class, or develop new skills through the completion of the projects you identified above? How do these new skills and abilities impact your career goals? How can these new skills move your career in the direction you envision?

3. New contacts and collaborators. Take some time to identify new contacts, collaborators, and friends you made over the past year. You might want to take a few minutes to reconnect with them before year-end. Think about some ways you can add some value to their life and career and seek a way to help them attain their goals. You can also spend some time identifying how these relationships might contribute to your career goals.

4. Areas for improvement. Be sure to consider the things that did not go well in the past year. Make an honest assessment of your role in the failure and identify ways you might have handled the situation/project/task differently.

5. How satisfied were you with your work? Take some time to consider what you liked and didn't like about your job and career path. Are there some things you can change to increase your level of enjoyment?

Finally, after you've completed your evaluation, update your resume and LinkedIn profile so you'll be ready for any new opportunities at the start of the new year.

Four Ways to Earn Workplace Respect...and Career Happiness

Aretha Franklin may have been on to more than she realized when she belted out a soulful tune in 1965 asking for a little respect.

It should come as no surprise that respect is important to professionals, but a recent study by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley indicates that they key to career happiness and social well-being at work isn't money: it's the respect one feels from one's peers.

How does you cultivate respect at work? Follow these four best practices to earn the admiration of your peers and make your work-life more satisfying:

1. Stay true to your word: One of the most significant ways to earn respect is through integrity. Sticking to your word speaks volumes about your character, shows reliability, and lets people know what they can expect from you. Resolve to more closely correlate what you say with what you do.
   
2. Practice courteousness: People are emotional creatures, and how you treat them conveys a lot about you. Regardless of how you feel about others, treating them with esteem and graciousness will not only help you cultivate a relationship with them, but show those around you how aptly you are able to handle your relationships.
   
3. Stop gossiping: Nothing can kill respect more than gossiping about others. Not only are you creating a negative atmosphere at work, others will wonder what you say about them when they aren't around. If your coworkers start gossiping, refuse to contribute or - better yet - excuse yourself from the conversation.
   
4. Show initiative: Creating a reputation as one who completes projects well is a great thing to do, but anticipating business needs and acting on them will reward you with a reputation for taking initiative, a much sought-after quality of professional character. What business needs are not being met, and how can you help?

Through simple changes to your workplace habits and behaviors, you can create an immeasurable amount of respect from your colleagues...and increase your workplace satisfaction while you're at it.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

1. Top 5 Reasons You're Miserable at Work and How to Change It
"True career bliss might be a high bar to achieve, but career satisfaction isn't. It's up to you to create a career that you love, and you deserve to love your work."

2. Hard Work Alone is Not Enough
"Focused attention is imperative to your career success. It forces you to concentrate your time and energy on a limited set of targets."

3. Find a Job Using Disruptive Innovation
"Applying the skills disruptive innovators use to your job search can help you unearth more, and better, opportunities."

4. What Not to Wear to Your Next Job Interview 
"Most interviewers won't be this candid, but it's undeniable that your wardrobe is a key factor in your first impression -- especially in a hyper-competitive job market."

5. 10 Tips for Landing a Flexible Job
"A 2011 national study ... found that 42 percent of working adults are willing to forfeit some percent of their salary in exchange for more flexible work options."

How to Find What You Love to Do

I am not one of those people who have known since they were five years old - or even twenty five - what they wanted to do. I went to college, not because I had a goal in mind, but because it was expected of me. For almost fourteen years, I was not happy in my career. Some may say, why didn't you just make a change?

You should be prepared to realistically spend 40 to 50 years working full-time. Why spend all those years doing something that does not make you happy? In my opinion, there are two main reasons that people don't pursue their "dream" job and do what they really love to do. Once these two reasons can be overcome, there really is no stopping you from pursuing what you really love to do.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Reason #1
The first reason is that people don't have any clue as to what kind of career will make them happy. This was definitely my case. I did not have the knowledge or resources to help me assess what career I fit best into. Your first step in finding out what you love by assessing your values, your personality, and the type of work environment that suits those both. Often, instead of doing what we love to do, we struggle between what we think we can do, what we (or others) think we ought to do, and what we want to do.

Sit down and write out an exhaustive list of your skills first. Next, in a column next to your list of skills write out your interests. Write down every interest you can think of, including those subjects of which you have knowledge. For example, I really enjoy mysteries. I approach each customer interaction as discovering hidden treasure and helping them uncover the mystery of what accomplishments they have not yet realized. Evaluate your list of skills and interests and chances are you will find correlation between the two that you can bring together.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. - Margaret Young

Reason #2
The second reason is that we are not asking ourselves the right questions. The right job enhances your life, it feels natural because it is an extension of your personality, and it does not force you to do things that you do not do well. It simply reflects who you are.

Ask yourself these questions when you are deciding what is the right job for you:

• Do you look forward to going to work?
• Do you feel energized by what you do?
• Do you feel respected and appreciated for the contributions you make?
• Are you proud to describe what you do?
• Do you enjoy and respect the people you work with on a regular basis?
• Do you feel optimistic about your future in the job?

The path toward career satisfaction is quite simple, although not easy. Figure out your preferences and then find a job that accommodates them. Good luck pursuing your career love!