4 Questions To Ask Yourself When Reflecting On Your Career

It’s December and there’s no better time to reflect upon how you’re doing at work come end-year. You’re done with nearly 365 days in and there’s still more to come in the coming year.

Enter self-reflection. What is it? Simply put, self-reflection allows you to exercise introspection and learn more about how you’ve grown. Where your career is concerned, self-reflection provides you with some check marks to gauge how you’re doing in terms of career advancement and professional development.

Why is it important? Being able to answer these questions truthfully will give you some insight on what you need to do for career growth. Maybe you wanted to expand on your communication and presentation skills but you’ve not had enough opportunities to do so. Knowing this will motivate you to look for ways to develop these skills perhaps by volunteering to present at the next meeting. Reflecting on your work also allows you to recall your highs and lows during the year, making a mental note to yourself on how far you’ve come and what you need to improve on.

Ready for some self-reflection about your work? Here are some questions you can ask yourself.

#1 What have been your three best & worst work experiences?
List out the times when you really felt like you learnt the most at work. Pinpoint what it is that made you enjoy those experiences and how you can be involved in similar experiences to help you gain more knowledge and confidence.

While you’re at it, reflect on when you didn’t like work at all. Ask yourself why those experiences didn’t live up to mark and how you can either improve on them whether it is via your own actions or what you can do to prevent them from happening again.

#2 If you were given all the opportunities to succeed, what would you want to achieve for the rest of the year?
This question will give you a focus on what you really want to accomplish for the rest of the year. Be honest with yourself and set goals that are attainable. Then, think of what opportunities or key factors you need to facilitate these successes. Write it down on a piece of paper, stick it up somewhere on your workspace, and let it be a reminder of what you set out to accomplish!

#3 How would you rate your role currently out of 100%? What’s stopping you being at 100%?
Set out a few checkpoints and evaluate where you are on those points. With the rest of the year still ahead of you, how far away are you from being 100% satisfied with your performance for the year? This is also a question you can ask your manager to get an honest review. Have him or her sit down with you and talk about where you are in terms of KPIs for the year and what you need to do to meet all of them. Then, perhaps you can work together on the areas you need to improve on so you can be 100%.

#4 What’s the one thing you’ve not achieved?
If you had to ask yourself just one question this year to reflect upon your career, this is it: What do you need to accomplish so you can call it a successful year? You’ve probably set some goals earlier during the year so look back at those goals and pick out a single one that you really want to achieve going into 2024. Maybe it is as clear as wanting to be promoted. You now have a brand new year to work towards making that happen.

Tell us what some self-reflection questions you’ve asked yourself recently @Graduan.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.