First, to a business assessment - what have you accomplished within the past year? What value has your business brought your customers, its industry and our environment?  Create a worksheet of the functional areas of your business - marketing, sales, new or improved products, customer service (internal and external), distribution/delivery/shipping, accounting processes.  Make a column for each functional business  area and in each column, list each improvement made within the past year from today.  When you look at the categories, determine which areas have the most and least amount of activity.  Is it a balanced picture?  From this worksheet, determine the areas with little activity (growth, improvement) and determine what efforts need to be made in each area for growth and improvement.  Remember, good is not good enough.  Someone somewhere is getting GREAT at what your company may have been "good" at for years!    

This same technique works personally as well.  Make a list of different categories for yourself, including categories for personal development, FUN, family, career.  What areas have limited activity within the past year?  What areas need immediate attention for health, personal satisfaction, well-being? As an individual within a family or business unit, ask yourself, what difference have you made in the lives of those around you - internal and external customers, vendors and suppliers, managers, coworkers.  How have you made it easy to do business with you? For your family, friends, and neighbors, how have you made it easy to live with or by you?