It’s the start of July, we’re halfway through the year, and that means it’s a good opportunity to check in to see where you’ve got to with a mid-year review. It’s time for a review of your own goals, to recognise your progress, celebrate your achievements, and step things up to get back on track where needed.
So grab a pen and paper, and let’s get reviewing!
Mid-year reviews of your own goals
We’ll start with an overall look at how things have been going.
What worked?
What have you achieved out of the goals that you set for yourself at the start of the year? What do you feel has gone especially well so far? What have been the highlights? Your happiest moments? What are you most proud of?
What didn’t work so well?
Which goals have you not achieved? Where didn’t you do as much as you would have wanted? What are your biggest disappointments? Where do you feel you may have gone wrong? What obstacles have you come up against?
What do you want more of?
What has been missing for you so far this year? What do you wish you would have focused more on? And what do you want to make sure that you do differently in the next six months?
Digging deeper
To get more specific in this mid-year review, and make sure that you’re considering different areas of our lives, let’s take a look at each of the 5Ls. This is a model I’ve developed to help you achieve meaningful success beyond just the narrow domain of work.
For each of these, ask yourself the same questions: What worked? What didn’t work so well? What was missing, and what do you want more of in the next six months?
1. LIVE – Wellness & Wellbeing
How has your physical health been this year so far and, equally important, what about your mental, emotional and spiritual health?
2. LOVE – Relationships & Romance
What about your relationships – friends, family, colleagues and partner(s)?
3. LEARN – Development & Growth
Getting out of your comfort zone and learning new things ensures that you don’t get stuck where you are – what have you learned so far this year? How have you grown?
4. LEAD – Career & Impact
Work and career is a big part of our lives. Are you doing work that you enjoy, that’s meaningful to you? How is your business going? Are you where you want to be?
5. LAUGH – Fun & Spontaneity
Finally: have you been having fun?! Enjoying ‘me’ time, doing random things that bring you joy without necessarily serving a purpose?
To help you out here, you can use the success audit, which walks you through each of the five areas and includes a little quiz to help you assess where you are today. You may have already done this in the past but if it’s been a while then now is the perfect time to check in and see what has changed. Download the audit here >>
Looking ahead
Now that you’ve looked at what worked and didn’t work in these first six months, it’s time to set your intentions for the next six months. To plan for the rest of the year, we’ll use the same framework that we used to review the first six months, the 5Ls model. Just as you used your results from the success audit to assess where you’ve got to so far, you can use the gaps you identified in the audit to plan for a different result in the second half.
Do you need to set new goals to take things further in some areas? Were you perhaps being unrealistic with some things, and might it be better to dial things back a bit? What does ‘success’ look like for you by the end of this year, 31st December, when you do a final review of your goals?
And, to achieve these new or modified goals, what are you going to need to do differently? How are you going to hold yourself accountable? What kind of help or support will you need?
Taking the time to really think about this now will lay the groundwork for more meaningful goals – and help you set yourself up so that you actually achieve them in the second half of the year!