As we enter summer, we also enter the second half of the year. As such, it’s a great time to set aside an hour or so and do a mid-year review. Maybe you can escape to your favorite café or park and take some distraction-free time to regroup.
Yes, we said distraction-free. Get away from the laundry, the email, the to-do list, your smartphone, and even your people. You need this time to really focus. Use it to reflect back on the first six months of the year – celebrating your victories and making any adjustments to your goals for the remainder of the year.
Sounds great, right? Now that you’ve carved out the time and picked your distraction-free spot, how can you make the most of that evaluation time? We have five suggestions to make it effective and motivating.
- Review. Start by reviewing your overall goals. Evaluate how you are doing. This can be very objective, using metrics tied to the goals themselves, or it can be a more a subjective, reflective process. Honestly, a combination of both might be most helpful. And, don’t forget to celebrate what is going well. We tend to evaluate critically, noting the ways we are falling short of our hopes. But, note the progress too. Every victory counts!
- Evaluate. Look critically at the goals themselves. First, ask yourself, “do I have too many goals?” Oftentimes less is more. How many goals are you working on at the same time? To quote Peter Drucker, “if you have more than five goals, you have none.” Next, ask yourself, “are all my goals in the same bucket?” For example, are they all business, all personal, all family? If so, you might need to create a mix so that you’re living well in all of life. Lastly, are they all big stretches that require a lot of learning and growing? This is important to take into consideration because those big stretches take a lot more time and emotional energy.
- Highlight. While continuing to focus on all the goals that are still relevant, pick just one or two you want to really invest yourself in. Get clear and specific about what it will take to advance the work that is on your heart. Write out a plan. If you hate planning, just do it anyway! You can keep it basic. The purpose is to specify what steps you will take and by when. This process will help you narrow the second half of the year. You’ll find that it is better to have fewer goals and make significant progress than have many and make minor progress.
- Think summer. Look at your list and discern those things that you can focus on uniquely during summer. Consider how you can use this season to your advantage and make the most of those opportunities. Check out last week’s post where we talked about reclaiming summer to your advantage. Pick a goal or two that is suited to summer and really focus so that you are ready for the last quarter push at the end of summer.
- Get accountability. Share your evaluation with your spouse, a trusted friend, or mentor so that your commitment is “in the world”. Think through your “support superstars” and ask for help sticking to your goals so that you can reach your dreams. You might also consider printing out the results of your evaluation-time in some fashion and posting it somewhere where you will see it regularly and be re-inspired.
When our to-do lists are constantly screaming for our attention, it can feel counterproductive to take the time away for personal evaluation. But, this is a critical step. The more regularly you review your progress towards your bigger goals, the more effective you will be at getting there. Enjoy the pause as you reflect and… Here’s to seizing the next six months of 2017!
