Summer is here! High five for making it this far. This year has presented us with its fair share of unique challenges, but we can take assurance in our unwavering determination and drive over the past six months. Now, how about taking a moment to catch your breath, take a well earned break before getting into the second half of the year. To help you plan for the next six months, we’ve pulled together a comprehensive guide to help you.

A Half-Year Review – Goal Achiever Planner Guide

This comprehensive guide has been designed to help you take a bird’s eye/helicopter view of the past six months to approach the next six with more vim and focus. While most of us can randomly call out some of our significant wins over the past six months, a more intentional review of our goals and actions from the year’s first half will benefit our planning for the next half, helping us identify the hidden lessons and less apparent wins. 

This process will also give you an idea of gaps, informing your goal-setting process and improving commitment and consistency.

1. Activity 1 – Set up for success 

1. To do this well, you need to unplug your usual distractions, such as the internet, technology and phones, and work off-line from an environment set up for quiet, distraction-free working. Ideally, get away from your everyday working environment. The fewer distractions you have, the more likely you are to make the most of whatever time you dedicate to this. You don’t need a fancy retreat in a hotel, just a private and quiet space. You will be able to accomplish more in less time with more focus.

2. Use a dedicated journal like the Goal Achiever Planner to walk through the steps to do the review in a structured way. If you started the year with a Goal Achiever Planner, you will need your current Goal Achiever Planner and a new one for the next six months. 

3. This set-up stage is to encourage you to hit pause. It is not an exam. There is no right way or wrong way to do this. Enjoy the process. As with most things in life, planning for goal achievement is a skill that will improve with practice.

Reflection and Review

Activity 2

1. List your top three achievements from the past six months. This should be fairly obvious if you’ve been reflecting and reviewing each month using the Goal Achiever Planner. Quickly scan your monthly calendar or daily pages from the past six months. Now, why is this important? High achievers tend to focus on what they didn’t get done rather than what they’ve accomplished. It’s good to balance that out by listing your top three to five accomplishments so you can see how much you’ve achieved and how far you’ve travelled. The ” 3 positive things” session of the daily pages in the Goal Achiever Planner reinforces this focus on the positives and what we’ve achieved. 

Action Review

Activity 3

1. How did you manage to achieve your top three wins? Please write down your reflections to make them real and give them context and life. Next, please take a moment to identify what worked and kept you motivated, as well as what didn’t work, especially as it relates to achieving your goals for the last six months. What lessons have you learnt? What will you keep doing? What improvements can you make? What do you need to stop or start doing? This exercise is repeated monthly in the Goal Achiever Planner monthly review pages, as the intention is to identify areas for improvement incrementally as you progress through the year. 

Assessment of Goals

Activity 4

1. Look at the goals listed at the beginning of the year. What goals have you made progress on? What percentage is complete? Honesty is the key. Which ones have you yet to tackle and why? Write them again as it helps reinforce the goal in your mind. When do you intend to focus on each goal in the next six months? Limit your focus to one key goal or just two to three goals for the next six months to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Exclusively focusing on one goal that will enhance all areas of your life can be a game changer. In your new Goal Achiever Planner, recommit to your goals by rewriting them; don’t worry about having to write them all down again. This repetition helps imprint your goals in your mind again. It makes it easy for you to visualize and act on opportunities to dramatically increase your chance of achieving your goals.

Long-Term Planning

Activity 5

1. If you have one, you can also review your longer-term five-year, ten-year plan. The goal here is to reconnect with your long-term goals plan. Life changes, and we need to adapt, so feel free to revise, remove or replace items in the goal list. 

Planning A Commitment Schedule

Activity 6 

1. Turn to the monthly calendar pages of your new planner, and write down essential deadlines without forgetting milestones you want to celebrate and well-deserved breaks that are vital for motivation and well-being. 

Optimizing Your Daily Routine

Activity 7

1. Do you have a daily morning, afternoon or evening routine that supports your optimum performance? If not, why not create one? When is your mind and body at its peak performance? What do you need to do to maintain it? Think of sleep patterns, movement, food as fuel, mental well-being practices etc. What changes do you need to make to your daily routine? What do you want your ideal week to look like? Plan it out and leave nothing to chance. 

Goal Visibility Is Key!

Activity 8

After all the writing, one of the best ways to increase consistency is to keep your goals visible throughout the year. Life is busy, and it is very easy to forget your goals and lose focus. You can keep your goals front of mind throughout the year by carrying around your Goal Achiever Planner. You can update your vision board if you already have one, block out time in your digital calendar, and set digital reminders for activities you don’t want to miss. You can also use sticky notes to remind you of your goals. 

Smash Your Goals – Get To Work

It will amaze you what milestones you will be able to achieve should you commit daily to the routines you have outlined in your planner. The only distance between you and your goals is consistency! Get the support you need and keep moving forward no matter what.