Alright, Team! We are officially 11 days from being halfway through the year!🫨 Now, the question is… does that elicit excitement or stress… or a little bit of both? Either way, we’re going to take a minute to guide you through a mid-year check-in on your goals. We’ll investigate how far you’ve come, what you’ve accomplished, what’s gone right (or wrong), and where you need to focus next to make sure you stay on track for 2024!
A Quick Review!
First and foremost, remember when we talked about annual planning back in December? (You can check out that blog here in case you missed it, and we actually were so excited about it, we did a Webinar too àlinked here!) Now onto step one, we are going to review our notes on the goals we set. So, pull out that sheet of paper & dig in. The goal of this review is to identify if the goals (annual or quarterly) you set for yourself and your business in December still are relevant to what is happening in your business right now. If they are, that’s great, you’re ready to move on. If they aren’t, let’s identify why.
If they are not on track, there’s a definite overachiever part of me that would just chalk this up to me/others not staying on track, or in other words, failing. (Cue the guilt & blame-game). But in actuality, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, situations change and thus, a pivot is in order. The change could be a result of outside influences (e.g. the economy) or could be internal situations that were out of your control (e.g. losing a key team member). These situations have the ability to throw a wrench in any well devised plan and hence, require you to pivot. The key is identifying that you need to pivot and doing it sooner rather than later.
If a pivot is required, dig into that and identify a new goal & roadmap for the remainder of your year.
The Goals Thus Far
Next step is to look at the goals you have set for yourself to date. (Typically, this will be your Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 goals.) Did you achieve your goals?
- If Yes:
- What was the result of achieving the goal?
- How did it impact your annual goals and initiatives?
- Was there something that you could have improved upon?
- What were the skills you employed to help you be able to achieve this goal?
- If you had to go back and reset the goal or re-do the goal, what might you do differently?
- If No:
- What hindered you from achieving your goal?
- Thinking about what hindered you, how can you mitigate these things in the future?
- What other things might happen in the future that could cause issues to stop you from achieving your goal?
- How can you plan for those things so that they do not distract you?
- What tactics, skills, or outside resources could you employ if you were to attempt the goal again?
- Is the goal still relevant to your business?
- If so, is this goal important enough to prioritize for this coming quarter?
Be realllyyyyy honest with yourself during this internal conversation (or better yet, have it with someone on your team that can probe to dig a bit deeper). Getting to the root of the issues is only going to make you a better goal setter & goal achiever in the end.
Your Goals Moving Forward
Now, these may already be set, or you may need to come up with them. If you’ve identified that you need to pivot, then you most definitely should come up with new quarterly goals that will support your new annual goal or strategy. If they are already set, you will want to really think through them to ensure that they do still support the annual goal AND that they are the most important thing that you need to be spending time on right now. If you weren’t able to accomplish your prior quarter’s goals, then decide whether they need to get moved forward (i.e. you need to prioritize them now) or if they need to change to better support the annual goal.
Once you know what your quarterly goals are, write them down! This should be a given, but it’s also worth saying. Once they are on paper, let’s go ahead and dig just a bit deeper to ensure that success is just around the corner.
Answer the following questions for yourself (write these down too):
- How does this support the annual goal?
- Why is this a priority now?
- How will achieving this goal benefit the team and the company as a whole?
- Who is relying on you to achieve this goal?
- What skills or resources will I need to utilize to achieve this goal?
- What are possible scenarios that would cause you to get off track?
- If those scenarios arise, what steps will you take to mitigate the distracting situation at hand and get back on track with your goal?
These questions will help cement this goal in your brain and help you get back on track if something throws you off-course. While some answers may feel like “duh, I already know this,” they will help cement this goal in your mind. They give your subconscious brain the info of why it’s so important and who is relying on you to complete it. Additionally, they help to create a roadmap back to the original destination when you happen to veer off course.
Make it SMART!
I know we’ve talked about SMART goals before, but the next step to your mid-year check in is to ensure that your goals are SMART. In case you forgot, SMART is an acronym that stands for:
S-Specific: whatexactly are you setting out to accomplish?
M-Measurable: how will you know your progress and when the goal is completed?
A-Attainable: can you realistically attain this in the amount of time allotted?
R-Relevant: does this support the overall goal (this should already be answered!)
T-Time Bound: how much time do you have to complete this?
Onward & Upward
Now that you’ve taken a minute to reassess… it’s time to calendar that goal! (Sidenote: when I wrote “calendar-that-goal” I envisioned it being read as if were on a game show… “Spin! That! Wheel!"😂) This will ensure you have the time set aside ahead of time to be able to complete it, and if you need a refresh on calendar blocking be sure to refer back to this blog from January.
That’s it for today, keeping it short and sweet! Unless of course, you did the actual work to review your goals, which we hope you did! And if not, calendar that too!😉
Until next time, go out and dominate those goals!
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