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The Mid-Year Goal Check-In
It’s Not too Late to Set Goals for this Year!
As we approach the middle of the year – how are you feeling about your goals?
Are you feeling energized, or are you feeling unmotivated? Do you feel like you have clarity around what you are working towards and why you are working towards it? Or, do you feel like your goals are vague and lack meaning?
As you reflect on where you are at with your goals, you might fall into one of four categories:
- I am crushing my goals and I am on track, so I can take it easy for the rest of the year.
- My goals are in striking distance so I really need to focus for the rest of the year in order to achieve them.
- I am so far off-track for my goals, why even bother?
- …what goals? Is it too late to set them?
First off, I’m going to quickly address number four – no, it’s not too late to set goals even though it’s already the middle of the year!
A long time ago, I heard on a podcast, “Your goals don’t have deadlines.” I’m not saying you shouldn’t set deadlines to achieve your goals, but rather your goals don’t know the difference between January and June. If there’s something you want to achieve, you can still set it as a goal for this year. Or, if it’s a really big goal that will take longer than six months to achieve, set the completion date for sometime next year.
I want to encourage and remind you that you still have time to set and achieve your goals this year!
Setting the right goals is a meaningful way to work towards the business and the life you want. Goals help you identify what is important to you and what you want to achieve. They encourage growth and when you are making progress towards your goals, they can help you grow your confidence. Now, I recognize that the opposite is also true and that not making progress towards your goals can derail your confidence. However, that’s no reason not to set them.
So, if you haven’t set goals for this year yet – why not? Perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed with the goal setting process, or maybe you need more accountability to follow through with setting goals. If so, you can listen to my podcast Episode 85 – All About Goals Part One: How to Set Them for goal setting insight. If you would like additional accountability and a framework for how to set effective goals, check out my Goal Setting Success Course.
The Mid-Year Goal Check-In and The Power of Reflection
No matter where you are on your goal achievement journey this year – if you are crushing your goals, your goals are in striking distance, or if you are off-track for your goals – you should invest the time to conduct a Mid-Year Goal Check-In over the next couple of weeks. This practice will teach you a lot about yourself and your goal achievement tendencies. When you look back and recognize both your accomplishments and setbacks, you can design a better plan to achieve your goals in the future.
Reflection is a powerful tool that is often overlooked in our busy society. I bet some of you are even thinking as you’re reading this that while a Mid-Year Goal Check-In sounds great, you’re far too busy to set aside the time to do it. I recently helped a client set aside the time and create an agenda for a mid-year planning day for her business. She shared with me how challenging it was to keep this day blocked with so many temptations to book meetings or see clients – to work in the business instead of on the business. While conducting a Mid-Year Goal Check-In is an investment of time, it can be one of the best investments of time for your business… aside from working with a good coach – don’t underestimate the power of reflection!
A Harvard Business Review article shared this quote about reflection – “Reflection is executive functioning. True, courageous reflection galvanizes your willpower. It promises continuous self-awareness and empowers you.” On the goal achievement journey, you’ll gain so many benefits from reflecting, including increased self-awareness and personal growth. You’ll also learn more about your own goal-achieving behaviors and tendencies. Yet reflection requires being honest with yourself, and identifying what is working and what is not working in your business. And let’s be honest, if you’re off-track for your goals, reflection isn’t always fun.
How The Mid-Year Goal Check-In Can Boost Your Confidence and Mindset
When they get behind, some people stop tracking their progress or avoid reflecting altogether because it makes them feel even worse. Spoiler alert – this might actually stop you from achieving your goals! Instead, you should focus on your approach and mindset around reflection. You need to move away from shame and judgment and move towards perspective and understanding. When you approach reflection with curiosity and a desire to learn more about where you are at and why you are there, you will come out with inspiring ideas to move your goals forward.
If you’re off-track with your goals, you’re likely thinking about all of the reasons why you can’t or won’t achieve them this year. Instead, start asking yourself – how can I achieve this goal? You might just find the motivation to turn an idea you’ve had into action.
Being off-track for your goals can also derail your confidence, but there’s a great book to help you with this concept called The Gap and The Gain. In this book, the authors point out how entrepreneurs often think they are unsuccessful because they’re not where they want to be. But the authors encourage us to always measure backwards, which means to measure your success from where you were to where you are now – “the more you practice measuring yourself backwards, the more confident and motivated you will become.”
I’ve heard that you often teach what you need to hear, and this book and its lessons are an important reminder for me. This year I feel like I’ve been in the gap a lot – I went into 2024 with a clear plan for how I wanted to grow my business and, truthfully, it’s been so much harder to achieve the results I want than I expected it to be. I was connecting with a former colleague recently and he asked me if I was meeting or exceeding my business expectations. As I thought about that question for a minute, I realized that this is the first time in my business that I’m not meeting or exceeding my expectations for the year. It’s been a strange year for me in terms of new business, and it seems like I’m not alone. I’ve heard from numerous other entrepreneurs that this year feels different – people are delaying their decisions and it’s been harder to bring on new business. That’s why I think it’s even more important that we take the time to conduct a Mid-Year Goal Check-In so we can review our goals and determine what we will do as we approach the second half of the year.
I’m a big believer that we have a lot of the answers within ourselves. We either don’t slow down enough to allow those answers to surface, or we choose not to believe in those answers. So, if you are off-track, an important question to consider as you review your goals halfway through the year is – how can I? We can all benefit from measuring the gain instead of the gap, so I’m a big fan of starting my review processes by focusing on the wins. The Friday Ritual starts with identifying the wins of the week. The Mid-Year Goal Check-In starts with noting what you’ve accomplished so far this year. If you take the time to reflect, you’ll likely find you’ve made far more progress than you are giving yourself credit for.
Are You Ready to Conduct Your Own Mid-Year Goal Check-In?
The Mid-Year Goal Check-In allows you to reconnect with your goals and reignite the passion and drive you had when you first set them. It’s a process that reminds you that you have an entire second half of the year to go and get after it. It also gives you permission to update or change your goals. Go back and look at the goals you set at the beginning of the year – are they still meaningful to achieve? Are they still connected to your vision? Do you have a clear “why” for achieving them? If your answer is “no” to any of these questions, you might need to go back and change them. Yes, I am giving you permission to change your goals if they are no longer connected to your vision or if you can’t clearly articulate why you were going after them in the first place. I’m not encouraging you to change your goals if they are still meaningful to you and your vision, but you are off-track. Instead, adjust your strategies or maybe even your timeline for achieving them.
If you want guidance and specific reflection questions to answer as you conduct your own Mid-Year Goal Check-In, click here or the link below to download my template.
As we enter the second half of the year, I want to remind you that what you will learn and who you will become by continuing to pursue your goals might be even more important than achieving the goal itself.
