When you own your own business, it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day pace of life and business. When that happens we tend to lose sight of the goals we set at the beginning of the year. That’s where a midyear review comes in!
It’s a powerful process that allows us to assess our progress, identify what’s working and what isn’t working, and make adjustments to achieve our goals. But it’s not just about checking a box. It’s a strategic assessment that gives you insight so that you can make the most of the rest of the year. By pausing to evaluate our accomplishments and challenges, we can make sure we stay on track and avoid wasting our resources.
Planning is great but if you never stop to look at what you actually accomplish, then you keep going and going without celebrating your hard work or really enjoying the fruits of your labor. Not to mention you keep setting new goals without even making sure you need new goals. And that is just insane!
Now I will be transparent and tell you that I didn’t always do a mid-year review. I would do an annual reflection but a few years ago I purchased PowerSheets from Cultivate What Matters and it helped me develop the habit of doing regular reviews not just of my business goals but it also helped me stay focused on what mattered most to me which included my ministry, my health and my family. That helped me fine tune my planning process and be more mindful of the choices I made every day so that I could live my legacy and be present when and where it mattered most.
My Midyear Review Process
Conducting an effective midyear review involves a systematic approach that can be customized to fit your unique circumstances. Here are the steps I take to unlock the full potential of my midyear review process:
Goal Evaluation: Start by revisiting the goals you set at the beginning of the year. You need to get in the habit of writing your goals down and keeping them handy so that you can actually review them on a routine basis. And you should be creating a plan to reach your goals.
Without goals you’re just coasting along or worse, sitting on the sidelines which means your business isn’t making an impact or growing. If you want help setting goals that fit the season your life is in then be sure to check out my free audio masterclass How to Grow Your Business Without Being Overwhelmed. There are five audio lessons in the masterclass and they range from 4 minutes to 9 minutes long. Each lesson includes a quick exercise that will help you take action based on the topic in that lesson.
Now with your goals in front of you I want you to answer these questions:
- Did I achieve it? If not, am I on track to achieve it?
- Why or why not?
- If your answer was yes, what went well?
- What challenges did you encounter?
- What could you improve?
- What if anything would you do differently?
My Main Goal For This Year
My biggest goal of the year is to increase my exponential income via the MY-T Society membership to replace the paycheck from my day job. Have I schieved that? No, I haven’t because I launched the membership in January. And anytime you launch something new, it takes time for it to gain traction.
So am I on track with this goal? Well, the number of members is not where I want it to be. But current members are engaged with the content. Heartbeat, the app that the membership is hosted on, gives some amazing insight and I can see which resources members are using week to week.
At the moment I don’t think there is anything that I need to improve, And as far as doing anything differently, at the moment I don’t think I would change anything that I’ve done. But I did learn a few lessons from what I’ve done so far to grow the membership. Free offers are not appealing to my target audience. So any other special offers that involve the membership will be paid events.
If you would like to hear about the rest of my goals that were included in this midyear review, be sure to scroll to the bottom and listen to the podcast episode.
Life After a Midyear Review
What should you do after you complete your midyear review. If you determine that you haven’t reached some of your goals, that’s ok. Instead of creating new ones, keep working on the ones you have until you reach them. Unless your mid-year review identifies some blatant issues you can’t ignore and it’s better to just move on.
Be sure to celebrate your successes whether they are big or small and take note of the things that went really well. Look for patterns and lessons you can rinse and repeat and document them.
I also want you to acknowledge the obstacles that hindered your progress and look for solutions to help you get better results the next time when possible. This may mean you need to adapt your approach or get some help from an expert.
To finish the year strong, create a clear plan of action for the rest of the year. Stay focused and set specific objectives, deadlines, and milestones to measure your progress.
Intentional Time Management and Self-Care
One common challenge during the midyear hustle is neglecting self-care and proper time management. As business owners, we can get so caught up in our responsibilities that we forget to prioritize ourselves. However, without self-care, burnout is inevitable, and productivity can suffer.
Reflect on how you spend your time and energy. Streamline tasks and prioritize your most critical activities to ensure you’re focusing on what truly moves your business forward.
One way to see if something you’re working on makes sense is to review your progress every month. If that is too much then do every 90 days. This is vital because a review helps you identify where your time and energy is going.
Tracking your efforts regularly makes it easy for you to figure out where you are using your time, energy, and attention. Being intentional with your time means to are spending your resources on the activities that are actually going to move your business forward and leave room for you to live your life.
Additional Reminders
Remember, you can’t pour from an empty cup. So as you determine what you will focus on and create an action plan, make sure you incorporate daily self-care activities that recharge your mind and body. It could be as simple as taking a short walk, meditating, or spending quality time with loved ones.
Sometimes we aren’t accomplishing our goals because we’re tapped out. If you have been neglecting yourself, it’s time to change that. I want you to set a goal to do something every day that fills you up. If you need some help figuring this out, check out this blog post on The Power of Self-Care in Business. I share tips to help you prioritize self-care so you can achieve success on your own terms.
Now as we finish up our mid-year review, I want you to think about the rest of the year. How is your business is doing? How do you want to move forward? We don’t want to repeat any mistakes we’ve made already. And we want to make sure we’re very intentional with our time. So based on what worked, I want you to answer these three questions.
What are you selling? Who are you selling to? And how are you selling it? I don’t want you spending time creating new marketing or promotional strategies. Look at what you already have, improve on it and promote it again and again and again.
One thing no one ever tells us is that we don’t have to keep creating something new. We can refine what we already have. We end up burnt out because we think that if something doesn’t work we need a whole new plan, a whole new strategy, and you don’t. Let’s try a different approach. Do regular reviews, hold on to what is working and improve it and let go of what isn’t working. When something is working, you can continue to tweak it and elevate it and grow it.
You can put that on rinse and repeat, if you perform regular reviews.
I want to remind you that just consuming this content is not going to help you. You have to take action. The path to success begins with a single step, and I’m here to guide you every step of the way. So pick one thing that I mentioned today and take action on, even if that is just setting your goals for the rest of the year.
And if you would like to work with me to set your goals and create an action plan, book a Discovery Call with me and let’s talk about it. Don’t miss this opportunity to move the needle forward and finish the year strong!
If you would like to hear the expanded version check out the podcast episode below.
3:38 – How to be intentional with your time
5:33 – An offer to help you pick your goals
8:37 The questions you need to answer for your midyear review
9:26 – Review of my biggest goal for this year
13:07 – Review of my second goal for this year
15:58 – Review of my third goal of the year
20:24 – I talk about the importance of tracking yor progress
25:00 – What to do when life throws off your plan
Resources mentioned in this post:
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