The year is halfway over. Your enthusiasm for your goals has faded since you set them in January. Maybe you don’t even remember what they were. Which means it’s the perfect time to do a mid-year review.
You might have heard the phrase before with businesses, but you can use the same idea to reassess your personal goals. In this post, we’ll break down exactly what a mid-year review is and why it’s so important. Then we’ll walk you through how to do a mid-year review and get your goals back on track.
What is a Mid-Year Review?
A mid-year review re-examines your goals for the year and usually happens in June or July. You’ll assess your progress, what you still need to do, and what adjustments you must make in the year’s second half.
Why You Should Do a Mid-Year Review
Reviewing your goals mid-year might seem unnecessary. But doing so is crucial to your success.
When you review your goals, you’ll:
- See how far you’ve already come
- Reinforce what you want to accomplish
- Increase your chances of reaching your goals
- Allow you to shift priorities
- Keep you on track
How to Do a Personal Mid-Year Review
1. Set Aside Time
Schedule time for your review into your calendar and treat it like an important meeting with yourself. You’ll probably want a whole morning or afternoon for it. You want plenty of time to work through the process without rushing.
Before starting, don’t forget to gather all the supplies you’ll need to complete your review so you don’t have to find them while planning. Some things you might need include:
- Your planner
- A notebook
- Pencils, pens, highlighters, or markers
- Your calendar
- Important paperwork or journals
2. Review the Year So Far
Start by reviewing what you did in the first half of the year. Examine what you accomplished and what you still need to do.
As you review the first half of your year, use these questions to guide you.
- What did you accomplish?
- What were the highlights of your year so far?
- What did you do well at?
- What have you learned?
- What didn’t you accomplish yet?
- What were the biggest difficulties/challenges you faced so far?
- What could you have done better?
- Where would you like to shift your focus in the next six months?
- What habits worked well for you?
- What habits would you like to change or drop?
Take your time with these questions. Get a drink, turn on some music, light a candle, and make your review enjoyable.
3. Assess Your Goals
Now that you’ve reviewed the year so far, it’s time to focus on your goals. Start by pulling out your goals and reminding yourself exactly what they were.
Be honest with yourself as you look them over. With each goal, ask yourself these questions.
- What progress did you make?
- Did your plan to accomplish the goal work?
- Where could you have done better on the goal?
- Did you have any wins with this goal?
- Did you have any failures with this goal?
4. Set Your Goals for the Second Half of the Year
After reviewing each goal, it’s time for the essential step. Choosing whether to keep, adjust, or drop the goal entirely.
Don’t be afraid to quit goals you no longer want to accomplish. It might have been a good goal in January, but don’t feel bad leaving it behind if it no longer works for you.
You can also evolve a goal to better align with your priorities. Changing goals that you still want to accomplish but aren’t quite what you want is perfectly fine.
For example, maybe your goal was to read forty books this year, and you’ve already read thirty by June. So you up your goal to sixty books. Or maybe you’ve only read three, so you decide to decrease your goal to twenty.
With each goal, mark if you want to keep, change or drop it. Then write out your goals for the second half of the year. They might look like new goals, or they might look almost the same. Just remember they serve you, not the other way around.
5. Make a Plan
The final step in your review is to make a plan for the second half of the year. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Your review so far should clarify what you need to do to reach your goals. Use that clarity to make a plan to accomplish them. Break it down into manageable steps and give yourself a deadline for each one.
Returning to our book example, maybe to reach your goal of reading twenty books, you need to read one book a week for the rest of the year. And to finish one book a week, you need to set aside one hour a day to read.
Finally, review your goals and plans at least monthly, if not weekly. Remembering them will keep them fresh in your mind and inspire you to reach them.
Mid-year reviews are vital for people who want to accomplish what they set out to do each year. And if you haven’t set any goals for the year, it’s never too late to do so.
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