Do you love the new energy you feel at the beginning of a new year? When you feel like you can achieve anything you set your mind to. When you set new year’s resolutions and goals and are feeling motivated to achieve them. But then as the year progresses, you lose sight of the goals, your motivation fades and reaching your goals seems so distant.
But what if you could start over? Anytime you want? Feel that same energy and motivation again in the middle of the year. I call them doing a MID YEAR RESET. Resets are great because they allow you to literally RESET your life. I often do a RESET every week and then a big mid year RESET at the end of June. And here’s how to do a RESET (in detail) if you’re interested.
But at the core of each reset is a MID YEAR AUDIT. An audit is exactly what ti sounds like. You go over your life and audit the progress you have made so far, like they do in corporates. You can do quarterly audits as well. I find doing a MID year audit and RESET works great for me. But of course you can do it as often as you feel the need to.
And in this post, we are discussing how to do a life audit or as I call them MID YEAR AUDIT and refocus your priorities to reach your goals.
How to do a Mid year audit/review:
We will go over the review and audit in small simple steps that will make for you to actually stick to it. So often we plan on doing these things but then they seem too overwhelming and we leave mid way. But our intention here is exactly the opposite, so let’s keep it simple.
STEP 1: Go over your Goals & their Relevancy:
Step 1 is to go to the beginning of the year and look back on the goals you set for yourself for the year. This is where having a Bullet journal comes in super handy, because you KNOW exactly where you jotted them down.
The purpose of looking at your goals and reading them out loud is to see whether you still align with all these goals. A lot changes in 6 months of time. You will find that maybe you have achieved your goal already, or maybe a goal is no longer relevant to you. And if that’s the case, you can make the required changes right now.
I am a big advocate of welcoming change and adjusting your plans according to the season of life you are in.
If you have achieved almost all your goals in one particular category, maybe set yourself some new ones for the remaining of the year.
STEP 2: Analyse how much progress you have made:
If you can not measure the progress you have made in a particular goal, you are probably doing it wrong. The right way to set goals is top set SMART goals. SMART goals are Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound.
A SMART goals allows you to break down a bigger goal into monthly smaller goals, which makes it easier to approach and also easier to measure the progress too. So for example, your yearly goal is to be consistent with blogging. But that’s not a measurable goal. You need to set better goals and an example could be “ I want to write 52 new blog posts this year(one for each week)”.
That’s simply a better way to set goals because the numeric attached to it, makes it measurable and thus makes it easier to track the progress. So in the Mid year audit, you can simply see whether you have published 26 posts in the last 6 months or not.
Take metrics of all the goals and evaluate the progress you have made for each goal.
STEP 3: Evaluate the Rights & Wrongs:
While doing the review, you will find that you’re closer to achieving some of the goals, while for some you haven’t done as much work. And that’s okay. As it is time to refocus and realign yourself.
At this point, evaluate what did you do right w.r.t a goal and what did you do wrong. The reason we fail to achieve some of our goals if that we fail to analyse what we are doing wrong. And reaching your goals is all about doing more of what you have done right so far.
And doing this analysis in the middle of the year will help you with that. When you ask why you haven’t achieved some of your goals yet, you are necessarily looking for reasons why you have failed. And when you know the reasons, you can work towards making the changes.
For example: You goal was to have at least 5 home cooked dinner per week. But so far you have failed to effectively do so every week because you fail to do grocery shopping on time. And thus never have the ingredients when it’s time to cook. So a simple solution is to make a weekly grocery shopping list and schedule in grocery shopping in your weekly to-dos.
By understanding where you fall short, you can make the required changes and improve from there. Maybe you have set goals that are not practical at all. You were really motivated at the beginning of the year and you set a goal to write at least 3 blogpost a week. But, you failed to take into account the time it takes to write one blogpost.
And when you do the analysis and see that you have only managed to write 26 posts, you will then look at why you have not been able to write more. And some times, the answer is that you only have so much time. And this gives you a better idea of what is a better goal for you, that’s achievable as well.
STEP 3: Celebrate the wins:
Celebrating wins, no matter how small is important. And even though you may not have been able to achieve all of your mid year goals, progress is still progress. And hard work is something that should be appreciated. It is all about putting the efforts in.
And if you often find that you are not achieving your goals, maybe you are just trying to focus on measuring the wrong metric. For example: You want to grow your blog, so you set a month page views goal. And you do not reach it. Maybe you’ve set really high expectations or may be you are trying to focus on a metric that you have very little control over.
I find it best to measure and set goals for metrics that are fully under your control. So for the blog example, it makes much more sense to set a goal to write 2 posts a week. Or to focus on writing detailed blogposts, instead of focussing on page views, which is an external factor.
When you focus on internal factors that are in your locus of control, you feel more in control.
And then you can celebrate the amount of work you have put in and how consistent you have been, irrespective of the results or outside factors.
STEP 4: Re-prioritise your goals:
Our priorities changes as we grow and 6 months is sometimes a long time. Your life and your priorities can totally change in that time frame. So it’s important to ask which goals are most important to me right now.
I always take the opportunity to think about how my priorities have changed in the last 6 months and align my goals accordingly. Only when your goals are fully aligned with your life, can be totally content and happy. And I find that there is so much beauty in readjusting your goals and even letting some of them go.
When you take this time to think about your priorities, you can also tweak those goals to make sure they are achievable. Because now, after 6 months, you know how much time and energy commitment some of those goals demand. And you can possibly give all your time and energy to all of them.
Prioritising at this point will also help you in scheduling your day better, later on. Because when you are clear about your priorities for the month/week, you can plan your day better. I usually like taking up the most important tasks in the morning. And I leave the less important ones for afternoons when I am a little low on energy post lunch.
STEP 5: Make New action plan:
So maybe you set goals and even made an action plan at the beginning of the year. But because your goals have changed and your priorities have changed as well, you may need a new action plan.
And the mid year review and reset is the perfect time to do so. You have already analysed what worked well for you and what mistakes you made. And the new action plan for the rest of the year can be about doing more of what works.
Also, because your goals and priorities have changed, you will definitely need new action plan for those specific goals as well. And this new and improved action plan can take into account the changes you have been through and the time and energy you have at the moment.
Let me explain in a bit more detail. My goal at the beginning if the year was having more home cooked meals and trying new recipes every week. But ever since I became a mom, I feel like I have no time to experiment in the kitchen. So trying out new recipes was out the window.
For having more home cooked meals, I changed my action plan and started doing a more extensive meal prep on the weekends, which cut my cooking time by almost half. I had never been a fan of meal prep, because the idea of having the same meals everyday, bored me. So I made the necessary changes and just prep the ingredients on the weekend. I do the actual cooking when it’s time to eat.
This simple change in my action plan, helped me have more home cooked meals and to eat healthier as well. So I achieved one of the goals and the other one (trying new recipes) will come into picture when the baby is a few years old and I have more time haha.
STEP 6: What habits do you need to adopt:
I keep saying on the blog every now and then, that your life is all about the habits you have. So much can change just by adopting a few simple habits and quitting the bad ones. And when you are re-evaluating your goals and setting new priorities, it is important to think about habits too.
Your new priorities will require you to level up in a different way. So ask yourself, what habits do I need to adopt to achieve my goals? Which habits will serve me in this season of my life. Maybe it’s all about waking up a little earlier for you. You lack the time to do things you want to do in the mornings. So waking up early is a habit you need to start.
Or maybe it’s simply drinking enough water. Hydration is key when it comes to feeling energetic and productive. And just by adopting a simple habit of drinking more water, you can actually change so many aspects of your life.
STEP 7: Make Routines:
After you have adjusted your goals and made a new action plan, you need routines. Routines are what allow you to stay consistent with your goals and your priorities.
I have learned that when it comes to sticking to a new habit or being consistent with a goal, motivation and inspiration are overrated. You are human and you certainly won’t feel motivated every single day.
And that’s where routines come in. Routines allow you to put yourself on an auto pilot and do whatever needs to get done to improve your life.
And when you put a lot of thought into making routines that work for you, you are essentially setting yourself up for success.
I have a Morning Routine, a night routine, a weekly house reset Routine. I also have a monthly planning routine, a daily cleaning routine and then some more. Of course you don’t need all these routines and your routine will look totally different than mine.
The idea is to make routines that fit you and your life at the moment. And that are sustainable for you. You don’t have to do it just for a week. SO keep in mind the time you can spare everyday for every routine.
And that’s it for this post. Doing a Mid year review will help you look at your goals with more clarity. it will also give you the opportunity to make the changes so that you can hit your goals by the end of the year.
I hope this post inspires you to review your goals and realign yourself, in order to achieve your yearly goals. What are some things that you do for a mid year audit? Let me know in the comments! 🙂
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