WHY YOU SHOULD DO A PERSONAL MID YEAR REVIEW
As we move into the month of July now, it is also a good time to assess our annual goals on the personal front.
A mid year review in any organization enables the opportunity to make adjustments to the actions that will keep it in line with its business goals. While an organization analyses business performance and evaluates what’s happened over the last six months, they also reflect upon what they want happening in the next six months.
If we apply this concept to our personal life too, it can help steer us on track towards our personal objectives. Given that only 18% of people achieve their personal goals every year, this review becomes all the more critical in the context of giving us a healthy work life balance. A review of our personal goals will help evaluate your current goals, re-align your focus, maybe re-orient your goals if needed, and most importantly set up a structure to achieve these by the year end.
Additional benefits entail increased focus and motivation, more productivity and less time wastage.
Why should we do this exercise?
✅Determines progress against intent
✅Determines speed of that progress
✅Determines relevancy of the goal(s)
Our lives can be broadly divided up into the following areas – family, hobbies & interests, career, finance, relationships, health and fitness, spirituality, and personal development. It is a good idea to identify goals for some of the areas or one goal in each area for the year. I will recommend that in addition to having listed the goals, add in a line on how you plan to go about it. When you review these mid year, journal these as an appraisal so that you know where you are.
Some thoughts to reflect:
- Where am I on each of my goals on a scale of 1 to 10 and what is the number I want to reach?
- Where am I on track? Where am I lagging behind?
- What tasks/projects I did not complete? Which of these can I cover up in the 2nd half?
- Do I want to pursue these goals? Are there any I want to ditch? Are there any more that I need to include?
- What is my motivation toward these? How do I increase that?
- What stopped me from reaching some goals? How can I change that now?
- What did I achieve/learn in the last 6 months?
- How do I want the next 6 months to look like?
- What help and resources do I need to invest in?
What is the net result of your answers to these questions?
The relevancy is the first thing that will get thrown up. If there are external factors that have come to play or your needs have changed, examine the relevancy of that goal in your life. Do you need to pursue it for the next 6 months, or discard it? Or park it for next year so that you can prioritize other goals that are urgent? Take the time to reflect upon these and take the necessary action in context of the situation.
Once you have established the relevancy of the goals, you will also get an idea of what you have achieved in the last 6 months for that goal. Every win counts, so reflect upon the accomplishments and also how you made it happen. Will those actions make it possible to reach the finishing line timely? Or do you need to restructure your approach perhaps in light of a new situation. Take all factors into consideration.
It would certainly be a rare occasion that you would have achievements without challenges. Your reflections will also make you mull over how you tackled the obstacles and built up resilience and confidence. And most important of all how can you tackle similar challenges if they crop up in the next 6 months? Do you have a game-plan? And how does it hold up in light of changing circumstances?
Last but not the least, your reflections will also help you understand as to what needs to change, if at all in terms of habits, processes and support. You may want to take the help of a mentor or a coach to guide you on the last mile, or maybe tackle a knowledge gap that is being a deterrent.
I hope these reflective questions on the past 6 months were useful for you to plan for the final 6 months of 2022. I would love to hear about your goals and your plans to achieve them – do share in the comments below.
Cheers to a successful second half to you all!