Planning and Goal Setting

How To Do a Midyear Goal Check-In

It’s that time of year again. We’re almost halfway through the year, which tends to bring to people’s minds the goals they set back at the beginning of the year. But if you’re like a lot of people, you may have set your goals and put them on the back burner of your mind for the past six months. Whether you’ve been actively working on your goals all year or just starting to think about them again, it’s time for a midyear goal check-in to ensure you make progress for the second half of the year.

Midyear Goal Check-In

Here are the steps you can work through to review your goals and set yourself up for success for the rest of the year.

1. Review your goals

The first step is simply to review what goals you set and were working toward achieving. Hopefully, you have a system in place, like the Spearity App, to easily view and track your goals. However, if you don’t, it’s not too late.

Gather everything you have related to the goals you set together so you can see them all in one place.

2. Evaluate your progress

Now that you have your goals in front of you, it’s time to see how you’re doing so far this year. Spend some time reflecting on the progress you made or didn’t make.

The goal of this step is to get an accurate picture of where you currently stand on reaching your goals. The only way this process works is if you are honest with yourself:

Did you write your goals down, put the paper in a drawer, and forgot about them completely?
Did you hit your goal already?
Have you made a little progress? A lot of progress?

Get detailed on where you currently stand before moving to the next step.

3. Celebrate success

This is an often overlooked step in the goal-setting and achieving process—take time to celebrate any successes. If you hit your goal, celebrate it. If you made some progress, celebrate it.

And if you have others working with you on a team, make sure to celebrate with them.

It’s easy to get tied up in how busy you are as a leader that you forget to take these moments with your team. Let them know what’s been going well and where the team has succeeded together.

4. Analyze challenges and obstacles

This is the part of the goal-setting process where people start to get a little squirmy. We don’t like to admit where we failed and what challenges we’re facing, but it’s the only way to continue to grow and improve.

Remember, the goal is for continuous improvement, not perfection.

There are going to be areas where you didn’t make any progress or where you tried something, and it failed. That’s okay. Look at it as a learning opportunity to help you adjust as needed so you can succeed going forward.

While this is easier said than done, focus on removing your emotion from this part of the midyear check-in. Your worth and value aren’t dependent on where you succeed or fail, so don’t let those thoughts sneak in. Instead, focus on the facts.

Where are you facing obstacles? What challenges got in your way? What could you have done differently to be further along the path toward achieving your goals?

Once you’re armed with this information, you’re headed in the right direction to start making progress once again.

5. Realign or adjust your goals as needed

Now that you know where you stand, it’s time to decide what to do with the information you have gathered.

Start by assessing if the goals you set in January are still relevant and the goals you should continue working towards. It’s okay to admit if things have changed, and it’s time to toss a goal you originally set or make changes to it. In fact, not only is it okay, it’s essential to take this step. Don’t let pride cause you to hold onto goals that aren’t relevant anymore.

Or, maybe you already hit your goal or are getting close, and it’s time to increase it. Continue to challenge yourself and your organization for the remainder of the year.

Spend time adjusting and realigning your goals as needed. Make sure you incorporate the information you learned about what worked and didn’t work for the first half of the year.

6. Create an updated plan

With your realigned goals in hand, it’s time in your midyear goal check-in to create an updated plan to hit those goals.

Start by breaking your goals down into small actionable steps. You want to create an easy step-by-step plan you can follow to achieve your goals.

If you’re interested in learning more about setting goals, check out the following articles:

7. Communicate changes as needed

Once you have your updated plan, don’t forget to update anyone who is impacted by these changes. Communicate what you’ve discovered and the results of your midyear goal check-in with your team.

Let them know how the updated goals impact their work. Help them see how their work aligns with the goals so they can see and understand the importance of the role they plan in helping the company succeed. Click here for some additional tips on how to get employee buy-in with the company goals.

8. Get a system in place for staying on top of progress throughout the year

Now that you have updated goals and a plan, ensure you have a way to track your progress throughout the remainder of the year.

Setting goals is necessary to make intentional strides toward growth and scaling, but if you set goals and forget about them, it’s not going to do you any good.

Write your goals down where you’re going to see them on a regular basis. Create a system (we recommend the SPEAR process) to track your progress along the way and realign as needed. It’s much easier to stick on the path to achieving your goals when you’re actively monitoring progress and adjusting as you go.

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