Most years, I go through a formal review like everyone else. It captures what happened against a set of goals and expectations, which has its place. But it rarely reflects how the year actually unfolded or how I experienced it while it was happening.
Over time, I started looking at the year a little differently.
Once a year, I step back and look at my work more informally. Not just what I delivered, but where my time actually went. What kinds of questions people started bringing to me. Which projects stretched me and which ones felt easier than they would have a year ago. Which relationships deepened and which ones quietly drifted. Some years look strong and cohesive. Others feel scattered or unfinished. Both usually say more than the numbers do.
What I’ve noticed is that without taking this step, it’s easy to miss how much has shifted. Patterns blur together. Small changes don’t register. You move straight into the next year carrying assumptions you haven’t really examined. Taking time to look back creates a pause. It helps separate signal from noise and makes it easier to see what’s worth carrying forward and what isn’t.
That perspective is what a personal annual review offers. It’s not about judging the year or tying everything up neatly. It’s about understanding how your professional life is actually taking shape so the next set of decisions feels more grounded. What follows is the way I approach it and how you might do the same.
Reconstruct your professional year
Go back through the year in a way that gives you a clear record of what happened.
Review your calendar month by month. Look at your sent emails to see who you were communicating with most. Go through your documents, including pitch decks, client matters, deal lists and major internal projects. Check your expense reports, travel and LinkedIn activity.
As you do this, write down the main clients, initiatives, events and projects that appear. This gives you a concrete outline of how your time, relationships and attention were distributed across the year. When everything is in one place, it becomes much easier to see which parts of your work carried the most weight and which ones quietly filled your time.
Look closely at the work you did
This is where the review starts to get useful.
Take the list of clients, matters, projects and initiatives you pulled together and go one by one. For each, write down what you were actually responsible for, not just what the project was called. Then note who depended on you, how much of your time it took and what you delivered.
Next, write what happened because of that work. Did it lead to follow on matters. Did it strengthen a client relationship. Did it put you in front of decision makers. Did it build credibility inside your firm. Or did it end quietly once the project wrapped.
When you do this across the whole year, you begin to see which work carried weight beyond the immediate task. Some projects extended your reach, built relationships or raised your profile. Others filled your calendar but did not change much about your professional position.
That distinction matters. It shows you where your effort turned into longer term value and where it stayed contained.
Understand how you created value
A lot of what you did this year won’t show up anywhere formal. It lived in the moments where someone trusted your judgment, where you helped untangle something that was stuck or where you connected people in a way that changed what happened next.
Look back at the year and think about situations where your involvement made things easier, faster or better. Maybe you helped a client see a different option. Maybe you smoothed out a tense internal conversation. Maybe you made an introduction that led to a real opportunity. Write those moments down with a few notes about what you did and why it mattered.
When you read through them, you start to see what people actually rely on you for. That is where your real value sits and it is often different from what your job description says.
Review what affected progress
By now you should have a clear picture of how the year actually unfolded. The point of doing all this work is to make sure those insights don’t disappear once the next wave of emails and meetings starts.
Go back through your notes and look for what keeps showing up. What kinds of work felt most worthwhile. Which relationships led to real momentum. Which situations took a lot of energy for very little return.
From there, write three short lists.
- The work you want more of next year
- The people and relationships you want to keep building
- The situations you want to be more selective about
These lists become a filter. When new projects, clients or opportunities come up, you can check them against what you learned instead of deciding in the moment.
Look at how your relationships evolved
Much of what happened in your career this year was shaped by the people with whom you spent time and stayed in touch.
Go back through your calendar, messages and email and write down the people who kept coming up. Clients, colleagues, partners, prospects, former coworkers, anyone who played a real role in your professional life. Add the people you wanted to see more of and the ones you hardly connected with at all.
Then look at that list and think about what changed over the year. Who became easier to work with. Who started coming to you for advice or introductions. Who brought you into new conversations. Who quietly faded out.
Now decide what that means for next year. Which relationships are worth investing in more. Which ones need a reset. Which ones you may have outgrown. That clarity helps you be more intentional about where you put your time and energy going forward.
Review your skills and professional development
This is where you look at how your capability changed over the year.
Go back through your projects, pitches and client work and notice what you were actually asked to do. What kinds of problems you handled. What types of conversations you led. What decisions you were part of. Those things tell you more about your skill set than any list ever will.
Then think about what you actively worked on improving. Maybe you spent time getting better at running meetings, managing clients, writing more clearly, speaking in front of groups, building a presence on LinkedIn or understanding a new industry. Write down what you did, not what you meant to do.
Next, look at where you invested time or money in learning. Courses, coaching, conferences, reading, peer groups. Ask yourself what changed as a result. What actually made you more effective. What did not.
When you put all of that together, you end up with a much clearer view of how your professional toolkit grew this year and where it makes sense to keep investing next.
Look at your visibility and personal brand
This is about whether people who matter in your professional world know what you do and think of you when opportunities come up.
Go back through the year and list the ways you showed up publicly. LinkedIn posts and comments, articles, client alerts, panels, speaking roles, events, anything that put you in front of people who could hire you, refer work to you or bring you into conversations. Write down what you shared and who it reached.
Then look at what actually led to something. Which posts sparked real conversations. Which events led to follow ups. Which talks or articles brought new introductions, meetings or work. This shows you where your visibility turned into momentum.
Now look at how that compares to how you want to be known. If your activity mostly positioned you one way but you want to move in a different direction, that is useful information. Use it to decide what you publish, where you spend time and which rooms you put yourself in next year so your visibility starts lining up with the opportunities you want.
Consider the direction of the year
Go back through the year in a way that gives you a real professional record, not just a general impression.
Start with your calendar and work through it month by month. Look for patterns in how your time was allocated. Which clients, partners or projects kept coming up. When you were in growth mode and when things slowed. Then look at your sent emails to see who you were consistently in touch with and what kinds of conversations filled your days. Review your pitch decks, deal lists, client matters and major internal projects to see what you were actually building and supporting. Check your expense reports, travel and LinkedIn activity to see where you were visible and which relationships you invested in.
As you do this, keep a running list of the main clients, initiatives, events and projects that appear. This is not busywork. It becomes the foundation for everything else in your review. When you see the full year laid out in front of you, it becomes much easier to spot where your energy went, which relationships were central and which pieces of work really shaped your professional life.
Use what you learned
At this point you should have a much clearer picture of how the year unfolded and what it did for your career. The goal now is to make sure that insight does not disappear the moment January gets busy.
Look back at everything you wrote and start pulling out themes. What kinds of work kept showing up when you felt most engaged. Which relationships led to opportunities, momentum or better conversations. Which situations consistently made things harder than they needed to be.
From that, write three short lists.
- The types of work you want more of next year
- The people and relationships you want to keep building
- The situations you want to be more intentional about
Keep those lists somewhere you will actually see them. When new projects, clients or invitations come up, use them as a reference point. They give you a way to make choices based on what you learned instead of defaulting to whatever shows up.
Looking Ahead
When you’re done with this review, you should have a much better sense of what the year really gave you. Not just the projects or the numbers, but the relationships you built, the skills you leaned into and the kind of professional you are becoming. That makes the next year feel less random. You start it with more intention about where you put your time, who you stay close to and what you want to grow.
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