Mid-Year Check-ins (remember those New Year's resolutions? ...)

Hi! Oh geez...I forgot to do my mid-year reflection! I guess at this point in the year it's a 2/3 of a year reflection, but...better late than never :) And by the way, for the sake of this post, we'll keep this version of a reflection as personal, and not part of your mid-year performance review, given those tend to have organization-specific intentions and processes.

In this brief post, we'll:

• Understand the importance of reflection on performance

• Learn a few quick frameworks for a reflection

Benefits of Reflection

(1) Learning: According to research from Harvard Business School, reflecting on learning, as opposed to just learning from experience, not only greatly increased learning, but also created greater self-efficacy, which in itself, increased learning speed.

(2) Goal Orientation: Reflection, when looking back at our goals, also does something we need every once in a while - being reminded of what we said we wanted! I don't know about you, but I sure did forget a lot of what I said I wanted for this year, and that means a whole lot of spending my time and energy on things I don't actually care about in the long term.

(3) Reset: In addition to forgetting some goals...a lot of what I said I wanted has changed! This opportunity for reflection allowed me to rethink how I am seeing this year of my life. This reflection was not only a way to check in on what I wanted, but it allows me to change course thoughtfully. I got to scratch off some goals that were no longer the case and redirect resources to goals that are more challenging than I expected. And NO I did NOT add any new goals, I was too ambitious to begin with :)

Reflection Questions/Process

If you're interested - take a look at my reflection here.

Some questions to get you started:

• What did you say you wanted at the beginning of the year?

• To what extent are you on track to reach your goals?

• How important are these goals to you now? Should any be adjusted or removed?

• Have you been the person you wanted to be this year so far? In what ways yes, and what ways no?

• Have you been living the life you wanted? In what ways yes, and what ways no?

• Is there anything new that you want for this year that you want to make room for?

An activity, once you've reflected on the above, is:

​Stop	Start	Continue
What should you stop doing? Who should you stop being?	What should you start doing? Who should you start being?	​What is going right? What should you continue doing? Who should you continue being?

At the end of your reflection, you should have a bunch of learnings and potential next steps. My advice is to end with only a few items in your brain - maybe 1 learning, and 2 next steps. You will not remember everything! Give yourself a break (also, it's summer people).

Hopefully by the end of this activity (please do this in a quiet place, maybe some chill music no lyrics, during a sunset or in the peace of night, with a coffee/tea/glass of wine, and good vibes only. ENJOY!

Let me know if you want to talk through a mid-year reflection - schedule a discovery call here!

For Learning and With Love,

Chris