By skyforbes 
If you’ve worked in a corporate environment, you may have participated in a year-end review (or annual review).
You may have been asked to fill out a self-assessment analyzing your strengths and weaknesses and reflecting on your contributions during the past year. Then, you met with your employer to review your responses, celebrate your successes, and discuss any areas for improvement in the coming year.
If this has been your experience with year-end reviews, you may be thinking, “I’m so glad I work for myself—no more awkward self-assessments and performance reviews!”
But there’s more to it than that.
A year-end review is a helpful way to analyze what you’ve accomplished in the past year and the progress you made toward your goals, what’s working in your business and what’s not working, and how that informs the choices you make for the coming year.
As an entrepreneur, this is vital.
We need to know how our company (even if it’s a company of one) is performing, what’s working, and what needs to change.
It’s common to do this kind of analysis and review during Q4 so you can evaluate your sales and profit margins from the year, but some organizations choose to do it at the end of the academic year or in the fall.
For entrepreneurs, we recommend choosing a slower season when you can zoom out and focus on the big picture. Maybe you take a few days away for a work retreat or you carve out some time over a holiday break.
Whenever you choose to do your annual or year-end review, here are a few questions to guide your reflection and analysis.
Related post: How to Plan a Freelance Work Retreat (+ a free workbook)
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