Self-Evaluation Examples: What Went Well & What to Improve
Copy-paste self-evaluation examples for 'what went well' and 'what could have gone better,' plus quality of work and growth area answers you can adapt today.
TL;DR: Nearly every self-evaluation asks two questions: what went well, and what could have gone better. The examples below are written in first person so you can copy, adapt, and make them yours. Strong answers share one trait: they point to specific outcomes with evidence, not general claims about effort or attitude.
What is going well at work: example answers
The strongest “what is going well” answers name a specific outcome, the actions behind it, and a number that proves it. Pick two to four wins that map to your team’s goals for the period, and lead with impact rather than activity.
Delivery and results
- “I shipped the new onboarding flow three weeks ahead of schedule, which cut support tickets from new customers by 18%.”
- “I closed $410K in renewals this quarter, 12% over target, by starting renewal conversations 60 days earlier than our standard playbook.”
- “I took over the reporting pipeline mid-quarter and eliminated a backlog of 40 open data requests within six weeks.”
Communication and collaboration
- “I started sending a Friday summary of project status to stakeholders, which cut ‘where are we on this?’ messages roughly in half.”
- “I partnered with the design team early on the pricing page revamp, so we went through one review cycle instead of our usual three.”
Initiative
- “I noticed our QA checklist hadn’t kept up with the new release process, rewrote it, and documented it so the whole team could use it.”
- “I volunteered to onboard our two new hires and built a first-week guide that the team now uses as the default.”
What could have gone better: example answers
Effective “what could have gone better” answers own a specific miss, briefly explain the impact, and commit to a concrete change. Choose something real but recoverable, and spend more words on the fix than on the miss itself.
Prioritization
- “I said yes to too many side requests in Q2 and my core project slipped a week. I now check new asks against my quarterly priorities before committing.”
- “I spent too much time polishing the internal dashboard when a rough version would have answered the team’s question. I’m calibrating effort to the stakes of each deliverable.”
Speaking up sooner
- “I waited too long to flag the vendor delay, which compressed our launch timeline. I now raise timeline risks in the weekly sync as soon as they appear.”
- “I disagreed with the scope of the migration project but didn’t say so until late. I’ve committed to voicing concerns in the planning phase, when they’re cheap to act on.”
Delegation and asking for help
- “I held onto the data cleanup task for two weeks before asking for help, which delayed the analysis. My new rule is to ask after one day of being stuck.”
- “I did the campaign QA myself instead of delegating it, which left me no time for strategy work. I’ve since trained a teammate to own it.”
Follow-through
- “Action items from my meetings sometimes slipped. I now log every commitment in one place and review it Monday mornings, and nothing has slipped since.”
Quality of work examples
Quality statements work when they cite evidence a manager can verify: rework rates, review feedback, error counts, or how often work shipped without revisions. Claims like “I hold a high bar” carry no information on their own.
- “My last five leadership reports went out without corrections, compared to two rounds of revisions per report a year ago.”
- “I introduced a pre-submit checklist for campaign launches, and we haven’t shipped a broken link or wrong date since March.”
- “Code I merged this half required rollback once, down from four times the previous half, after I started writing test plans before implementation.”
- “Accuracy is an area I’m improving: two invoices went out with wrong totals in Q1, so I added a second-check step that has caught every error since.”
Growth areas examples for your self-evaluation
Growth areas are forward-looking: skills you’re building rather than mistakes you’re fixing. They tell your manager where to invest in you, which makes them some of the most useful lines in a self-evaluation.
- “I want to develop my public speaking. I’ve asked to present at two team all-hands next quarter and joined our internal demo rotation.”
- “My next growth edge is influencing without authority. I’m leading a cross-team working group to practice driving alignment I can’t mandate.”
- “I’m building financial fluency so I can tie my project decisions to revenue impact. I’ve started reviewing our monthly P&L with my manager.”
If you’re writing the manager-voice version of these (for a report’s review rather than your own), our areas of improvement examples cover that framing by category.
Quick reference: strong vs. weak answers
| Question | Weak answer | Strong answer |
|---|---|---|
| What went well? | ”I worked really hard this quarter." | "I shipped onboarding early, cutting new-customer tickets 18%.” |
| What could have gone better? | ”Nothing major comes to mind." | "I flagged the vendor delay late; risks now go in the weekly sync.” |
| Quality of work | ”I always deliver high-quality work." | "Five reports shipped without corrections, up from constant rework.” |
| Growth areas | ”I should improve communication." | "I’m building public speaking reps via two all-hands presentations.” |
How to adapt these examples
Self-assessments are unreliable by default. The well-known “unskilled and unaware” research found that weaker performers tend to overestimate their work while top performers underestimate it, which is exactly why evidence matters more than adjectives. Three rules keep your answers grounded:
- Anchor every claim to something checkable. A project name, a metric, a date, or a piece of feedback. If your manager can verify it, it counts.
- Balance the ledger. Two or three wins, one or two honest misses with fixes, one or two growth areas. All-positive reviews read as low self-awareness.
- Write for a skimmer. Lead each answer with the outcome. Detail comes second.
The hardest part is usually remembering what you actually did all year. Our self review template gives you the structure, and our guide on how to prepare for your performance review covers building an evidence file before you write.
Or skip the blank page entirely: Windmill’s free self review tool turns rough notes about your work into polished, specific answers. And if your company runs reviews on Windmill, Windy surfaces your accomplishments from Slack, GitHub, Jira, and the rest of your tools automatically, so “what went well” is already written down before you’re ever asked.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I write for 'what is going well' in a self-evaluation?
Name a specific outcome, the actions you took to get there, and a number that proves it. 'I redesigned our client onboarding checklist, which cut time-to-first-value from three weeks to nine days' beats 'I've been doing well on onboarding.' Pick two to four wins that map to your team's goals rather than listing everything you did.
What are good examples of 'what could have gone better' at work?
Good answers own a specific miss and pair it with a concrete fix. For example: 'I waited too long to flag the vendor delay in Q2, which compressed the launch timeline. I now raise timeline risks in our weekly sync the moment they appear.' Choose something real but recoverable, and spend more words on the fix than the miss.
How do I describe quality of work in a self-evaluation?
Describe quality with evidence: rework rates, review feedback, error counts, or how often your work shipped without revisions. 'My last five reports went to leadership without corrections' is a quality statement a manager can verify. Avoid unverifiable claims like 'I always produce high-quality work.'
Should I admit weaknesses in a self-review?
Yes. Managers compare your self-evaluation against peer feedback and their own observations, so an all-positive review reads as low self-awareness. Frame weaknesses as growth areas with a plan: what happened, what you learned, and what you're doing differently. One or two honest development areas make your wins more credible.
How long should each self-evaluation answer be?
Three to five sentences per question is usually enough: the outcome, the evidence, and what's next. If a question asks for examples, give two to four strong ones rather than an exhaustive list. Managers skim self-reviews, so lead each answer with the most important point.