Your Mid-Year Check-In: 4 Simple Steps

Half of the year is over just like that. In less than six months, we will be welcoming a new year. Are you happy with how things are going so far?

Now is a good time to pause and reflect. Did you achieve the goals you set for yourself? What else would you like to accomplish before the year ends?

Call it a mid-year check-in, mid-year catch-up, or a mid-year review. The purpose is to take stock of the past months and to prepare for what else is to come.

To begin with, it helps that you wrote down your goals in a bullet journal or planner and that you framed them to be specific and measurable. Unwritten goals are just wishes and vague goals get vague results.

If you did write down your goals, then you’re off to a promising start! Now, let’s get straight to it.

We’ll walk you through this simplified and structured mid-year check-in that will provide a framework to help guide you for the next six months.

	Step 1: Revisit

Crack open your bullet journal and turn to the page where you wrote down the goals, resolutions, and plans you set for the year. Go through it with an objective eye.

Were you productive? Did you accomplish your short-term goals? Are you ahead, behind, or exactly where you need to be on your long-term goals? What were the challenges or roadblocks you encountered that prevented you from achieving your goals?

Consider also how you’ve allocated your time. What have you been doing these past months to help bring you closer to your goals? Are you at least moving forward or have you completely abandoned them?

You may want to write this all down in your journal. It will help you organize your thoughts, process your feelings, and gain new insights.

	Step 2: Recognize

If in the previous step you needed to be objective, now you need to be kind — to yourself. The last year and a half was tough on everyone, extend extra grace and compassion to yourself if you feel you’ve fallen short.

Don’t beat yourself up for things that didn’t work out and don’t fall into self-blame or defeatist self-talk. It’s not productive and it will harm your self-esteem.

Instead, take this time to acknowledge the things you did right. Start by celebrating your wins, both big and small. Write them down on a fresh page of your bullet journal so you can have something to look back on if you need encouragement.

Congratulate yourself on your discipline and drive to keep going even if the results are not quite what you hoped for. You may not have accomplished what you set out to do, but surely you have learned something and learning is an accomplishment in itself.

	Step 3: Recommit

Remember how pumped and motivated you were at the beginning of the year? New years tend to give us a surge of motivation that is pretty hard to manufacture at any other time.

So while you may not be as motivated as you were in January, you're certainly wiser. And that’s wisdom borne of experience.

You’re more realistic about the amount of work that goes into achieving your goals. As so, you can refine your actions, adjust the timeline, make concrete plans, and get back on track.

Recommit to your goals, both the big and audacious goals (like learning a new skill) and the small ones that no one but yourself will notice (like increasing your daily water intake or cutting back on screen time).

Write this all down in your bullet journal. You will need this for your end-of-year check-in.

	Step 4: Revise

You are not the same person that you were six months ago. The goals you set in January may no longer be relevant or meaningful to you.

It’s important to be flexible and adapt to changes in circumstances and priorities. Your goals should, too. You are allowed to change your mind. Goals are not set in stone.

You should also figure out if a goal is still attainable. Sometimes, you’ve done all you can and what happens next is no longer within your control. Cross it out and let it go. Don’t let it weigh you down or count it as a failure.

Maybe you’re asking yourself “what more can I achieve or do for the rest of the year?” Resist the urge to add more to your list just for the sake of it. Sometimes, less is better. Maybe you don’t need new goals. Instead, you just need to focus on developing consistency and excellence for things that you are already doing.

	So what’s next?

This isn’t a one-time thing. Making time for regular check-in is critical in keeping you on track. You don’t need to wait for another six months to do this. Make mini check-ins at the end of each week or month a part of your routine.

Moving forward, it also helps to not just write down your goals, but to have a system that will allow you to monitor exactly where you are in terms of achieving your goals. The bullet journal system is uniquely useful for progress tracking. You can create habit trackers and goal trackers that are easy to update and maintain, so you’re less likely to forget or abandon them.

Remember, we only have six months left for this year. Let’s make the next six months better than the last.

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