The New Year is just days away now. For many of us, that means our thoughts are turning to the goals we want to achieve in 2015. Whether you’re motivated by New Year’s resolutions or just enjoy end-of-the-year planning, these last few weeks of 2014 are a great time to review the overall health of your career before you begin strategizing for 2015.

With pen and paper or your favorite word processing program at hand, jot down these career check-up categories. Work your way through the suggested exercises to help you capture key insights and learning from the year now winding down (for a companion process to improve your job search in 2015, try conducting this SWOT analysis as a career year in review):

Relationships

List the most critical relationships in your work life. These might include direct reports, indirect reports, your boss, key clients, or vendors. They also might include your mentor(s), your coach, select peers, colleagues, or industry association members. Next to each name, jot down a number between 1 and 10 which reflects the quality of that relationship (where 1 is disastrously poor and 10 is spectacularly fantastic).

Goals

Make a list of the 2014 goals you aimed to achieve. Next to each goal, make a note of how well you performed. Be sure to give yourself credit for partial achievements – they count! Do you wish to carry forward any of your 2014 goals into 2015? If so, mark those goals with an asterisk, as you will use them in my upcoming article, “Annual Career Check-Up: Your New Year in View.”
Read more at http://www.careerealism.com/annual-career-checkup/#pbiKx90dlgKcWQFu.99