As the year comes to a close, many companies are in the midst of their performance review processes, meaning you may have to write a self-assessment of your accomplishments. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, career, executive, and team coach Marlo Lyons offers five steps on how to write an effective self-review.

5 ways to write an effective self-review

1. Cover the whole year

While it's easy to remember your accomplishments from the past few months, you should make sure your self-review covers everything you've done over the course of the whole year, Lyons writes. If you didn't take notes on what you accomplished during the year, look back at your calendar of meetings to remind yourself of the projects you worked on and conversations you were part of.

Then, list all of your projects, assignments, and accomplishments in a separate document from your self-review. This will give you a holistic view of what you achieved and will help you focus on the most important accomplishments.

2. Think about your company and functional goals

Every company has goals, and typically those goals are broken down into departmental or functional goals, Lyons writes. In your self-review, you should determine which work you've done comprises your general job duties and which is specifically related to achieving company and functional goals.

For example, it may be a general job duty for you to maintain a database of information, but proposing and executing upgrades to that database or creating new workflows to make the database more efficient could be related to a functional goal of increasing efficiency.

3. Figure out how your accomplishments align with company values or culture

Once you've determined how your accomplishments relate to company and functional goals, think about how you accomplished those goals in line with company culture or values, Lyons writes.

For example, if one of your company values is, "We strive to create better efficiency and effectiveness every day," any way in which you created efficiency would align with this value.

4. Seek feedback

Everyone is biased towards their own achievements, but your manager will be looking for feedback from others about your work, so you should too, Lyons writes.

For every one of your accomplishments, you should reach out to any cross-functional stakeholders and team members to determine their perception of the accomplishment. You should also specifically ask about any areas for development that were mentioned in your review from the previous year.

5. Write up a concise list of accomplishments

Now that you've determined what your accomplishments are, you can put together your self-review, Lyons writes. Of the list of accomplishments you created, pick out no more than five of the most impactful to highlight in your review.

Each of your achievements should have a company or functional goal you fulfilled, be aligned with your company's values and culture, and be informed by feedback from your coworkers. Wherever applicable, you should also include an improvement or success from a development area that was highlighted in your review from last year.

If your company has specific values or cultural norms, Lyons recommends using them as headers for each accomplishment. Then, you should use the STAR method — Situation, Task, Action, Result — to put the whole review together concisely, and include any learnings or development areas at the end.

If your self-review asks for development areas, Lyons writes that you should always include two. While it can be hard to focus on imperfections, you should remember that development areas are about becoming a better employee, not a reflection of your character or integrity.

You can consider continuing development in an area highlighted in last year's review, and if you can't think of anything to improve on, consider personal development areas related to the workplace, like setting stronger boundaries or pivoting quicker in times of change.

Finally, you should end your self-assessment with what your manager can do to support you in those development areas, Lyons writes. This will open up a dialogue about what your manager can provide to help you be even more successful next year. (Lyons, Harvard Business Review, 12/12)