The Feedback You Never Got -> And How to Get It Before Year-End

​As we wind up week three of December, I bet you’re frantically trying to wrap up projects before the holiday break, sandwiching an “important” meeting between a team holiday event and running to your kids’ concert. All the while responding to “just one more thing” before you put on your “Out of office” email, if you are lucky enough to be able to do that.

Maybe you’ve started to mentally check out, counting down the days until you can finally take a breath. In our perpetual state of overwhelm, it’s easy to see how that’s your daily mantra: Just let me get this done, so I can enjoy the break.

And you deserve a break! And I don’t want to add one more thing to your list before you go. However, there is one really important thing you may have overlooked. Something you need to do before you return to work or the busyness returns. You need to PAUSE and PONDER. You need to create a bit of space to look back over the last year before you dive headfirst into the chaos of the new year.

Most nonprofit managers skip this step entirely. They jump straight from December 31st to January 1st without ever pausing to learn from the year they just lived.

I teach my students a different way. Why? Because we all know that most women in leadership never get reliable feedback on their personal growth. That can leave us feeling overlooked and undervalued.

Right now, my students in the Training Library are going through their Annual Analysis, taking a moment to

•  Celebrate how far they’ve actually come.
•  They’re discovering patterns they didn’t know existed.
•  They’re celebrating wins they’d completely forgotten about.
•  And they’re identifying what actually works for them instead of trying to model someone else’s strategy that doesn’t fit.

​"I had a really tough year and went through so many challenges. Doing the Annual Analysis helped me realize I learned so much about myself as a person and as a leader this year and I feel like it has really made me a better person for it."
~ Member of The Training Library

The Cost of Skipping Your Year-End Leadership Review

​ know you’re busy. Trust me, I get it. You’ve got a strategic planning session in January to organize, a report due before you sign off, a staff schedule to figure out, and probably a million things waiting for you at home.

So why should a busy nonprofit manager take the time to review the past year? Because skipping it costs you. Here’s how:

1. You don’t know what actually worked
Maybe you think you need to attend more networking events next year, but when you look back, you realize the most valuable connections came from the small mastermind group you joined, not the big conferences. That’s important information.

2. You repeat the same mistakes
If you don’t pause to notice that every time you overcommit in January, you burn out by March, you’ll do it again. And again. And again.

3. You miss celebrating your progress
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve watched a woman leader go through this review process and literally tear up when she realizes how much she’s grown. She’d been so focused on what she hadn’t done yet that she completely missed the transformation she’d made.

4. You set disconnected goals for next year
Your goals aren’t built on the foundation of what you’ve learned about yourself. They’re just random things that sound good or that someone else told you that you should work on.

5. You stay stuck in the gap
You stay stuck in what Dr. Benjamin Hardy calls “the gap.” We often set goals based on who we want to be or what we want to accomplish. But your happiness as a leader is dependent on what you measure yourself against.

The Gap is when you measure yourself against an ideal.
It’s when you think, “I wanted to be more confident this year, but I’m still not where I want to be.” Or “I wanted to have a better work-life balance, but I’m still overwhelmed.”

The Gain is when you measure yourself against where you started.
It’s when you think, “A year ago, I couldn’t have that tough conversation without losing sleep for a week. Now I can prepare for it and handle it with composure.”

When you’re doing your year-end review, I want you in the gain. I want you to celebrate how far you’ve come, not beat yourself up for not being at some imaginary finish line yet. There is no finish line in personal development. It’s a journey, and the only relevant comparison is to who you were a year ago.

Have I convinced you yet? Good. But before you run off to do this on your own, I need to warn you about something called recency bias.

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The Recency Bias Trap That Derails Women Leaders

Recency bias means whatever’s been going on in the most recent past, maybe the last few weeks or months, is what dominates our thinking.

• If you had a stressful December with budget cuts and difficult staff conversations, then suddenly the whole year feels like it was a disaster.
• If you go to set goals after you’ve had a relaxing two weeks off over the holidays or while on the beach, you might look back and think, “You know, it wasn’t that bad.”

But both of those perspectives are incomplete. They’re not giving you the full picture of your 12-month journey. You’re missing so much of the story.

​This review process is about gaining a wider perspective on the entire year. Not just the highlights. Not just the hard parts. All of it. The full, messy, beautiful, complicated journey of your growth as a nonprofit leader.

Key Areas for Your Leadership Development Review

You don’t need to do a deep dive into every single day of the past year. That would be overwhelming and unnecessary. But there are some key areas worth exploring.

Your growth and self-discovery
What have you learned about yourself this year? Maybe you realized you’re more resilient than you thought. Maybe you discovered a trigger you didn’t know you had. Maybe you identified a value that’s more important to you than you realized.

Skills you developed
What did you actually get better at? Public speaking? Delegation? Having tough conversations? Financial management? Write it down.

Values alignment
Did you live in alignment with your values this year? Where did you honor them? Where did you compromise them? What does that tell you?

Emotional intelligence progress
How did you do with managing your emotions and understanding others? Where did you get triggered? How did you handle it? What’s improved?

Leadership development
How did you grow as a leader? Did you get better at coaching your team? At balancing tasks and relationships? At asking for feedback?

Self-care and wellness
How did you treat your body, mind, and spirit this year? Did you prioritize rest? Movement? Connection? Or did you run yourself into the ground? As a woman manager in the charity sector, you’re likely giving so much to others. Did you give to yourself?

This isn’t meant to be done in one sitting. In fact, I strongly recommend against that. Give yourself permission to work through this over a few days or even a week.

How to Actually Complete Your Year-End Leadership Review

First, gather some data
This is the prep work that makes everything else easier.
Go through your calendars, both the work one, the family one, and even that one on the fridge. Look at your photos from the year. Scan your journals or notes if you keep them. Check your text messages and emails. Look at what books you read, what podcasts you listened to, and what courses you took. You’re just refreshing your memory about the full year, not just the last few weeks.

​Then, look for themes and patterns
What kept coming up? What surprised you? What “aha” moments did you have? What emotions keep re-emerging? This is where the real learning happens, and you begin to have PIVOTS in your perspective. You start to see patterns you didn’t notice in the moment. You realize that every time you said yes to that one committee, you felt drained for weeks. Or that the months when you prioritized morning walks were the months you felt most clear-headed.

Next, celebrate the gains
Write down what you accomplished. How you grew. What you learned. Who you’ve become. Let yourself feel proud of that. Tell someone about it. Give yourself a high five. I’m serious.

And then, identify areas for growth
Not from a place of shame or “I should have done better,” but from curiosity. What do you want to explore next? What skills do you want to develop? What version of yourself do you want to grow into?

Your Next Step as a Growing Woman Leader

I know how it feels to have no clear way to get feedback on your personal development as a leader. No one was focusing on my inner growth and development either for years. Not the kind of growth about who I was, rather than what I’d accomplished. I had to create my own system for this.

Once I started regularly reviewing my growth, everything changed. I had the certainty that I was evolving. That certainty gave me the confidence to use my strengths and the courage to help others discover theirs, which helped develop a team and team culture in ways I couldn't have imagined.

I’ve now helped hundreds of women leaders in the nonprofit and charity sector do the same thing because I know that your ongoing personal and professional development is your path to success in leadership and life. Without regular analysis of how you’re doing, it’s hard to know what to work on next. And that makes it hard for you to excel.

FREE RESOURCE
​So here’s what I want you to do today: Download my free Strategic Year-End Review Guide. It’s going to give you an exercise to strategically reflect on the past year so you can move forward with clarity and intention.
Do this free exercise
​
DO THE DEEP DIVE
If you want to go deeper with a structured system, grab the full Annual Analysis like my Training Library students are doing. I'd love to have you join us. The course includes 12 comprehensive worksheets covering everything from your self-discovery journey to your leadership development, plus guided lessons to walk you through the entire process. And as a Training Library member, you'll also get access to the full library of leadership courses, live coaching calls, and a community of women leaders who get it.
Join The Training Library

Do this today because if you don't prioritize your personal growth and development, no one else will. Stop waiting for someone else to tell you how you're doing. Become the ever-evolving woman leader you want to be known for by learning from your past.

~ Kathy 
Do the inner work. It's worth it.
P.S. My Training Library students are doing their Annual Analysis right now. Join us before the new year so you can start January with clarity instead of chaos.

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• Set goals that actually stick,
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