Self-assessments and appraisals are fundamental and important parts of any individual’s life, especially someone that is particular about growth. The first step to growth is drawing an analysis of where you are and where you want to be and how you are going to get there. The self-appraisal aspect is the one that answers ‘the where you are’. 

Self-appraisal helps you to honestly review your current stand and helps you become self-aware about what you lack, what you can improve on and others. Without a good personal knowledge of where you are at any given point, you would not be able to sell or market yourself and the skills you possess confidently because you probably don’t even know those skills. Evaluating yourself helps you know things about yourself you probably never realized, helps you know things you do and things you can do differently. So how do you self-evaluate?

• Highlight your successes and failures. As soon as you set out to write your self-evaluation, first things first, highlight those accomplishments you have and the ones you have failed to achieve. This puts you in perspective and helps you identify the things you have done and the things you need to do. You should also write out your strengths and weaknesses that help back up these accomplishments. Write out significant projects, tasks or assignments you worked on and how successful they turned out to be. Ensure you rank them adequately and narrow them down in a way that shows professionalism and ethics.
• Have proof (or proofs, as the case may be) of your achievements. Have facts that actually back up your achievements. Compare your performance figures from previous years with the current one. Collect documents that have on them numbers and facts that outline how much you carried out. If you’re doing your evaluation at the end of the year, you can match your activities too with the goals you set out at the beginning of that year. Just have something to substantiate your achievements.
• Ask right questions. As you set out to write a good self-evaluation, there are several important questions you might need to ask yourself. These questions might include, “what did I achieve this year?”, “what could I have done better this year?”, “what are my core strengths and weaknesses?”, “what are my future goals?” and many more. It is, however very important that your answers to these questions are as honest as possible if you want your appraisal to be a success.
• Get the opinion of someone. Getting a second opinion on your appraisal is a good way of ensuring your appraisal is a good one. The opinion could be that of your boss, your mentor, someone you look up to, or a very objective friend you have. Whoever it is, just ensure it’s someone whose judgment you trust. 

By the time you are done with these steps, you would definitely view yourself in a new light and have refreshed knowledge of who you are. Therefore, you’d be able to confidently stand anywhere to talk about yourself and the value you have to offer.