Reassessing Goals at Mid-Year

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I dislike resolutions, but I do like setting goals.  I know that June isn’t the popular month for setting goals that January is, but it’s a great time to do a mid-year checkup on our goals.

If we’re not where we want to be, my advice is to scrap the January goals completely and start fresh. Feeling forced to play catch-up is really unpleasant.

The most important thing, I think, for writing goals is to make them no-brainers.  Something so easy that we can pile up a bunch of successes in our goal-meeting. I’ll reiterate my advice for goal setting that I posted in January.

Three tips for making mid-year goals reachable:

Set goals for the rest of the year—and make them very easy to meet.  See how modest you can make those goals and still reach your end-goal.

Break those goals down into small parts—small enough to be items on a to-do list or calendar.  Instead of “finish my book,” I’ve found it’s more effective to break it down into smaller deadlines:  “finish chapter ten by July 1,” (maybe accompanied with a note on the calendar) or list 10 ways to approach _____scene (a difficult scene we might be facing).  Or even “write 15 minutes each day for 5 of the next 7 days.”

Track and post accomplishments.  To me, this is key for keeping motivated.  I keep ticked off items on my to-do list and print out online calendars that show past days’ completed items. Or we can post our progress on our blogs or websites.

To help with setting new goals, I’m linking to a free writing goals worksheet created by Gabriela Pereira at DIY MFA.

Have you ever done a mid-year goal check-in? What tips have you got for making goals manageable and sticking with it?

Image: MorgueFile: Dhester

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