Capturing Wins and Setting Goals: A Mid-Year Review Guide

Can you imagine achieving clarity, focus, and renewed energy just by hitting pause at the midpoint of the year? This episode of Paths of Leadership invites you to join us at Catalyst Development as we embark on our mid-year review process, a powerful exercise to recalibrate, refresh, and strategize. Inspired by Emma and Jenna's recent LinkedIn post, we expand on their insights and share practical steps for conducting your own reflection, both personally and professionally. Get ready to capture your weekly wins through our “rose buds and thorns” practice, and learn how to turn honest self-assessment into a celebration of progress.

This month, we're emphasizing the importance of taking a moment to evaluate what's been accomplished and where there's room for improvement. Discover how our team at Catalyst Development leverages strategic planning sessions, weekly check-ins, and mid-year reviews to stay on track with our goals. Whether you're leading a team, working towards personal ambitions, or seeking to boost your self-awareness, this episode equips you with the tools to make your mid-year reflection a meaningful and motivating experience. Grab your journal or notes app, and let's dive into this transformative practice together.

Follow Catalyst Development on LinkedIn @catalystdevelopment, @drkatieervin, @jennascott

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Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/

Transcript

Dr. Katie: 0:42

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Paths of Leadership. Hope you are having a fantastic week so far. It is the first podcast in June, which I'm super excited for. This month we got so much going on at Catalyst Development. So this is going to be a short and sweet one again today as I am continuing to still dig myself out from the family stuff that I've got going on. But I did want to jump on here because it is the beginning of June and at Catalyst Development this year we have really looked at having themes for each month and so what does each month mean to us and what do we want to share with our clients and friends? And this month, as we really talked about what June means to us, it's really that midway point of the year, not just because it's the middle of the month, but it's the. You know we're moving towards summer, it's the longest day is at the end of June, we're getting sunlight again, hopefully, where you are as well and really leaning into this time of year where it's time to really recalibrate, refresh, do review.

Dr. Katie: 2:06

At Catalyst Development we do a really big strategic planning session into December, beginning of January. What did we do in the previous year, what do we want this year to look like how is it going? And then each Monday, we do kind of check-ins on goals how are we doing, how are we tracking, how is it going? And then each Monday, we do kind of check-ins on goals how are we doing, how are we tracking, how is that going? But those are very quick check-ins, and so this week we're actually doing our mid-year review, which is really where we're going to be spending four-ish hours really pausing to say you know, where are we, how are things going, what's going on? And so I wanted to share a little bit of that with you all. Emma and Jenna posted a really great piece on our LinkedIn page and I'm just going to really talk about that because it's really good practice for you, whether personally, professionally, individually or as a family or as a team, this is just a really great time to do this activity. So you really start with whether it be your journal, whether it be your notes app, wherever you want to do reflection, but be in a place where you can really sit and think through these type of questions. Don't do them necessarily in a rush just to get the assignment done, but be really reflective and honest with yourself and really raise your self-awareness, because this is really a gift for you and your team to do this. But if we sugarcoat things, if we just kind of move past them, then we're going to miss the point of doing this exercise.

Dr. Katie: 3:50

So the first step is what has gone really well this year. One of the things we do each week is we do rose buds and thorns as part of our discernment of our meeting. So roses are really we reflect on the previous week of what went really well, what are our celebrations, what are the really beautiful moments of the past week. And the nice thing about us capturing that each week is it helps us go back and reflect. Whether it's mid-year or at the end of the year, we can really go back and see all of our wins. And this is so important because when you are trudging along, it's mid-year or at the end of the year we can really go back and see all of our wins. And this is so important because when you are trudging along, when you are trying to get things done, sometimes we don't really pause to reflect on the great things that are going on. So we really want you to start with that, as you're really leaning into your mid-year reflection.

Dr. Katie: 4:45

The next thing is what could have gone better Maybe it'd be no fault of your own, whether it'd be a client engagement, or whether you all had things budgeted for something and a higher priority came about, or you were hoping to hire a staff member or whatever it is on what could have gone better. And so really do that reflection again, both personally and professionally. What are the things that you committed to yourself at the beginning of the year? And or whenever you set your goals or your intentions or your habits or whatever you do, whatever you call them, wherever you kind of track those really reflect on what could have gone better. And then, where are you in relation to the goals that you set? Again, it could be your January goals. Jenna has shared with us previously that she does this on her birthday, so she's actually coming up in September. She'll be doing her end of the year personal reflection. So whenever you set your goals, where are you in relation to those? How are you doing on your intentions? What does that look like for you? And then I love this question that Emma and Jenna put forth, which is do all of your goals still feel true to you or do you need to pivot and really be honest with yourself, because where we think we are headed whether it be six months ago or even maybe it's just last month where it's like, ooh, I'm going to explore this really cool opportunity, I'm going to go down this road, and you know, maybe you find out it's not the road you want to go on, for whatever reason. It's okay to pivot, that If we just keep going down the same road, knowing it's the wrong road, we're just getting further and further and further away from where we wanted to head. So it's really important for us to do that real honest reflection with ourselves and acknowledge what do we need to do and how do we do it. And then, what's your plan moving forward? And when you really do that, all of these reflections, it helps you to recent, center, recalibrate, refocus on your plan.

Dr. Katie: 7:19

Personally, one of the things that I really wanted to do at the beginning of the year was to do meal prepping for my family. We're so busy during the week. It's just so easy to order DoorDash or to grab something on the way home, and it's not always healthy. It's more expensive. There's a hundred reasons why you should just cook at home, but I'm sure I'm like many of you where by the time you get home at the end of the day, you're like, oh, whatever's easiest. Well, where I failed myself was I got too ambitious. I thought I would do it on Sundays. I don't like to do anything on Sundays. I like to have family time, I like to relax, I like to just decompress and get ready for the week. And so I set myself up for failure by expecting myself to change habits to do it on Sunday. If I were to do it on Friday, even Saturday or Monday, there is so much more likelihood that that's going to happen. So that's one of the ways that I am pivoting and recalibrating myself going forward. As I mentioned, catalyst is going to be doing that this week.

Dr. Katie: 8:29

For some of our goals, we are right on track or ahead of track. We are just doing so great. And then there's other things that it's like, oh boy, what we're doing, what our strategy is, what's happening, is not working for us. And so how are we going to reset, refocus, redo what we're doing? Maybe it's a pivot away, maybe the goal that we set at the beginning of the year is not where we should be focusing our priorities this year, especially as a very small business. There's just three of us as we are just getting ready. In July we will be two years old, so we're still in the toddler phase, and so were some of our goals really recalibrate and get ourselves set up for great success for the rest of the year and to really, by the time we get to our December January reflection, be able to really celebrate the pivot that we made.

Dr. Katie: 9:49

So I encourage you to do this. It can be short. I like to take some real reflection time for me. When I personally do it, I will really sit with it for 30 minutes to an hour. We do it. I'm planning to do it, hopefully, with the family. We're all traveling in different directions, but do it over a Sunday dinner with the family, and then all traveling in different directions, but do it over Sunday dinner with the family, and then, like I mentioned for Catalyst Development, we are going to do it over four hours.

Dr. Katie: 10:17

But really take the time and don't just write it out and then set it aside. Write it out, make the plan, make it visible, make sure you're revisiting the plan, as we talked about at the beginning of the year in January. If know, if you just if you make goals but you never revisit them, you never check in on them, then what even is the point of doing that? So making sure that you're checking in on those and that you're still going in the right direction. So hope this is helpful to you. I can't wait to hear. We love when people reach out to us and share with us your little gems that you get from the podcast, your little aha moments, and I would love to hear what you're going to refocus on or how you're going to recalibrate or what's really going well that you're celebrating. So thank you for spending this time with me. Hope you have a fantastic week and I will talk to you soon on the path to leadership. Bye, everyone.