Its June - How Are Your Goals Progressing For The Year?
Time moves fast and before you know it half the year has passed by. Have you found yourself in that situation so far this year? The middle part of the year is a natural point at which to complete a goal reflection exercise. It is also a point at which to realize that six months of the year have expired and recognize what has been accomplished.The sometimes challenging part is also realizing that six months have passed and taking an inventory of what is still to be accomplished from your original list. Alternatively, it is the perfect time to wipe the slate clean and update your goals based on any changes that have occurred so far and require a course correction. Here are a couple of other activities you can engage in to assess your goal progression at the midway point of the year.
Assessing and reflecting on the year
This is an excellent activity for a day-long or weekend getaway with yourself. I described this activity in Are Your Planning You Time in 2019? Get away from everything and everyone for at least a day and take time to complete an in-depth assessment of what you have accomplished so far this year. Even if those achievements have nothing to do with the goals you set for this year, it is important to reflect on those moments and what they mean to you. Celebrate those accomplishments! Just because it may not have been precisely what you expected doesn’t mean they aren’t important. You may find patterns that point you in new directions that require updates to your goals. Be honest with yourself and do not lock yourself into just assessing the goals you set six months ago. Look at the bigger picture and take that in before you narrow your gaze back.
What hasn’t gotten started?
After you reflect on was has been accomplished, take a look at what has NOT been accomplished. Do not make any judgments on those items yet. Capture them first and then take a step back to understand why those have not been started yet. Perhaps it was a matter of prioritization. It is possible that those are no longer relevant steps or even goals at this point. It is OK to recognize that and change. If there are items that are important but have not started yet, set those up for a final review and reprioritization as you look ahead to the remainder of the year.
What should be removed because things have changed?
Refine that list from what has not been achieved so far this year. Take a hard look and evaluate whether they are still important. This is YOUR list, and you can change it if you want to. Things change over the course of the year, and it may be that this is no longer relevant to what the remainder of this year holds. Cross those items off the list or move them somewhere to evaluate at the end of the quarter or even year to determine if they should be added back at a later time. You want to walk away from your session with a clean, updated list of what CAN be completed in the next 26 weeks.
Things that are underway - how are they progressing?
Looking at the black and white of what has been accomplished or what has not been accomplished is the easier part. Now take a look at what you have in progress. What are the things you are working on right now? That in itself may not be a challenge; it is determining whether those are the RIGHT things to be working on. At this point, you need to complete a Stop or Continue exercise with the work in progress list. Is what you are working on right now contributing to where you want to be in the next three to six months? Are these activities adding to the bigger picture for the year? This is the point at which you may be able to recapture the time necessary to take action on the items you know you need to work on.It is easy to get caught up in activities that seem important when you began, but show their true identity when you take the step back and assess where you are. That is what you want to achieve during this step. They may be fun activities, they may be things you want to do, but ultimately do not have the same impact of the things you know you need to do.
What extra support or resources do you do need?
Once you have a good feeling for what you have accomplished so far, cleaned up your list for what you want and need to achieve in the coming weeks and months, it is time to also look at what resources are necessary to achieve those. Where do you need help? What additional support would make achieving your priorities a reality. Your first step coming out of your assessment stage might be to pick up the phone and call a friend or mentor. Just getting that next step on paper and one that can easily be accomplished could be the jump-start the next phase needs.As I complete my own reflection session and assess where I am at for this year, I realize how important setting shorter goal windows can be. Referring back to the idea of goal SPRINTS could be a good way for you to ramp up your urgency and activity for the remainder of this year. That is certainly my plan. I am going to double down on the quarterly and weekly activities in the back half of this year to see how much more impact it can have in what I am working towards. Half a year sounds like a lot of time, but it seemed like a lot of time six months ago as well. Make every week, every day count towards what you want to accomplish in the coming six months, and I bet you will see amazing results when we look back in December. Happy goal achieving!What new actions will you take based on your assessing and reflecting on the past six months?Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive FREE leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills all at no cost. JOIN NOW!No spam ever - just leadership goodness.Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash