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A Guide To Your Mid Year Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

Hansei is Japanese for self reflection which is an integral part of Lean. I have been using this concept in my personal life for a long time and it’s yet again time for the Mid Year Hansei (reflection).

How has the first 6 months of the year been for you?

Below are the 4 Steps to your Mid Year Review that will help you answer that question. 

I use the Wheel of Life (below) to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution. When reflecting on your year so far, you can use these categories or create some of your own.

It’s important that you document your review somewhere so you can refer to it and hold yourself accountable to the actions that come out of your review. 

Step 1 is all about what went well over the past 6 months

i. What worked well for you in the past 6 months? 

What did you do that you enjoyed?

What worked out exactly how you wanted or better than you wanted? 

There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day, sometimes it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find them.

You may see that life goes your way more than you may realise.

Using a daily gratitude journal can really help answering this question. 

If you don’t have a daily gratitude journal maybe it’s something you could start for the next 12 weeks. Even just one gratitude a day over 12 weeks is about 90 things to be grateful for over 12 weeks, wouldn’t that be something lovely to look back and reflect on?

ii. What did you do that supported this success?

How did you bring success into your life?

How did you contribute to the things that worked well for you?

Did you work hard at something and then reap the rewards?

Did you make sacrifices to improve your life?

When we reflect on how we are successful in areas of our life, we underestimate the part we played in that success.

YOU are successful and YOU are the creator of that success. YOU have brought all of your happiness, joy and success into your life. 

Knowing how you contribute to your own success means you can build on this to bring so much more success into your life.

iii.  What brought you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

When were you at your happiest over the past 6 months?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you? 

Knowing what brings us happiness allows us to create more time to bring more happiness and joy into our lives.

Knowing who brings you happiness means you can create more time to spend with these very special people.

You want to be spending as much time as possible with those who bring out the best in you. The more you bring out the best in yourself, the more you can bring out the best in others.

iv. Are you happy with where you spent your time over the past 6 months?

Time goes by so fast and as we get older I think time seems to speed up that little bit more.

Time is so precious – we all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year but nobody knows how many years we have. This realisation always makes me so determined to live life to the fullest every single day and that means spending my time where I am happy spending it.

Where did your precious time go over the past 6 months?

Are you happy with where your time was spent over the past 6 months?

Are you fully enjoying every minute of your days, weeks, months?

Step 2 of your Mid Year Review is all about what didn’t work well for you in the past 6 months.

i. What didn’t go well over the past 6 months

What didn’t go your way in the past 6 months?

What happened that you didn’t enjoy?

What didn’t go to according to plan?

What is holding you back from living your best life?

Challenges, obstacles and plans not working out are a normal part of life.

No matter how much we plan, no matter how much we try to control our plans there are times when things just don’t go our way. Acknowledgment and acceptance of this fact is the first step to turning challenges & obstacles into opportunities.

In his new book ‘Green Lights’, Matthew Mc Connaughey talks about the fact that if we only had green lights in life, if there were no amber or red lights, then life would be very boring and we would never grow and evolve. Such truth and wisdom in that.

How can you acknowledge and accept what doesn’t work out for you and understand this is all part of your path?

ii. What obstacles got in your way?

Looking back at the past 6 months, were there obstacles that got in your way? 

Obstacles & challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.

The question to ask here is what can you do to eliminate these obstacles & challenges and if you can’t eliminate them how can you think about them differently? 

We all have compete control over our thoughts and just reframing things in our mind can turn obstacles & challenges into opportunities for success.

Dr Wayne Dyer’s book ‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life’ teaches us that all we have to do to change what is not going well in our lives is to think differently about it. A most profound book, I highly recommend it.

iii. What didn’t bring you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand. No human life is devoid of unhappiness just like no human life is devoid of happiness. Acceptance of this goes a long way to find out what exactly makes us unhappy.

When were you at your unhappiest over the past 6 months? 

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you?

Knowing what makes us unhappy allows us to think deeper about the role certain people, situations, interactions and places play in our levels of happiness.

There is no such thing as the perfect life that is happy all the time, however there is a level of contentment and inner peace that can be reached by understanding what takes our happiness & joy away and working to avoid, eliminate or understand more about this.

iv. Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months

We all know time is precious.

Think about all of the key areas of your life from your Wheel of Life. 

Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months?

Did you spend too much time in some areas and not enough in others? 

What areas would you have liked to have spent more time in?

How balanced is your life in terms of where you spend your time?

Step 3 of your Mid Year Review is all about what you learned in each of the key areas of your life over the past 6 months. 

The only way we grow and evolve as humans is by learning more and by turning these learnings into action that propels us forward. 

Going through each of the areas of your Wheel of Life (or using mine below) reflect on the questions below to understand what you learned over the past 6 months in all of the key areas of your life. 

Sense of Self –  What did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Have you dedicated time to personal development? What did you learn about your relationship with yourself, has your relationship with yourself improved?

Relationships – What did you learn about your relationship with others, has your relationship with others improved? Are there relationships you want but don’t have? Are there relationships you have but don’t want?

Health – What did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health? Did your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health improve?

Work – What did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Has your work moved forward and improved?

Finance – What did you learn about personal finance? Did your personal finance improve?

Recreation – What did you learn about socialising and recreation? How can you bring more fun into your life?

Environment – What did you learn about your environment? Did your environment improve? For me environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.

Contribution – What did you learn about contribution?  Did you make the world a better place by giving your time, money or skills? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.

Step 4 of your Mid Year Review is about creating actions that will support you to live your best life every day and move you closer and closer to your goals

i. What can you build on in terms of your success?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 1.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the successes of the past 6 months?

ii. What can you build on in terms of the challenges you experienced?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 2.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the challenges from the past 6 months?

iii. What can you build on in terms of what you learned over the past 6 months?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 3.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on and take advantage of the learnings from the past 6 months?

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the past 6 months and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 6 months.

​Want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change? Download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below and I’ll see you there.

Siobhain 

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3 Steps To Your Quarterly Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

The end of every quarter is a super time to look back and reflect on how things went and plan for the quarter ahead.

Personal strategy is all about creating an amazing, fulfilled, purposeful and meaningful life yet it is only as good as the reflection you do and the action you take as a result.

Your quarterly review is a deep dive into the progress of your goals which is way more than we see daily, weekly and monthly. As humans we are wired to perform better when we are making progress which is why reflection is so important. You may not think you are making progress yet you are probably making way more progress than you think. 

On reflection, this will become very clear!

First let’s start with why your quarterly review is important. 

Simon Sinek is famous for his brilliant TED Talk ‘How great leaders inspire action’ with over 13 million views on YouTube. In this video, Simon talks about the importance of knowing your ‘why’ in terms of everything you do.

When it comes to everything in your life, your why is the first step to success. 

Here are 3 reasons why your quarterly review deserves to be your priority, 

  1. It slows you down and gives you time to think

We live in an extremely fast paced world where we seem to be so busy all the time. 

Reflection of any kind allows us to be still in the present moment and to give the necessary time and space required to learn from the past. 

Not to dwell on or judge the past, but to take the learnings from it and move forward with more knowledge, focus, intention, purpose, motivation & understanding of what our priorities are.

Do you give yourself the gift of sufficient time & space to reflect regularly and learn from reflection?

  1. It allows you to celebrate your success and take action to create more

We make progress in our lives every day yet we are sometimes so busy getting things done that we don’t see all of our wins and successes.

Reflecting on the past 3 months highlights all the amazing wins and successes you have every single day of which we all have so many.

When we understand what contributes to our success, we can replicate and build on this to bring more success. 

Do you celebrate your wins or do you move through life at the speed of light, not looking back to acknowledge and celebrate your success?

  1. It allows you to acknowledge challenges and transform them into success

Challenges are a normal part of life. 

Sometimes we don’t want to face our challenges yet it is from these challenges that we can grow the most as human beings.

When we reflect on our challenges we can learn from them and take action to avoid them in the future. Avoiding our challenges in the future also gives us space to turn our challenges into opportunities for success. 

Do you acknowledge your challenges, learn from them and take action to turn them into opportunities for success?

  • We spend much time learning from the outside world yet our greatest learnings happen when we take notice of and reflect on our own lives.
  • Nothing will teach you more than your own life, isn’t that worth giving some precious time to?​

​Here are the four steps to carry our your quarterly review,​

​Step 1: Grab a notebook and pen

Henriette Anne Klauser’s book Write it down, Make it Happen outlines the science behind physically writing down your goals, giving them a higher chance of success.

One of the most powerful ways to track your goals and reflect on them is daily journalling. If you have been journaling over the past three months, your journal will be an invaluable source of learning.

​I use ​Moleskine journals ​for writing and reflecting on goals. Moleskine journals are beautiful, hard wearing and in my humble opinion the best journals in the world!

If someone were to ask me where to start with any change in their life I would say buy a nice notebook and write down your goals, it’s so simple yet so effective. 

I also use the following online tools yet pen and paper will always be my favourite.

✅ The ​Asana App​  is super easy to use, is highly organised and is an excellent project management tool.

✅ All of the ​Google Suite​ tools (Docs, Sheets & Slides) are easy to use and all connect seamlessly.

​ Step 2: Categorise the areas of your life​

Life can be very busy and so it’s important that your goals have clear and defined categories in which to sit, this also makes reflection so much easier.

I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Fun/Experiences, Environment & Contribution, you can use these or create categories of your own.

​​Step 3: Reflect and learn

Reflection and learning can go as deep as you want to go, below are a list of simple questions if you are just starting out with reflection.

Reflection question 1: What went well over the past 3 months?

There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day, sometimes it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find them, you may see that life goes your way more than you may realise.

Below are examples of questions that will reflect on what went well for you over the past 3 months. Take time to think deeply about the answers, document what comes to mind and enjoy the process.

Over the past 3 months, 

  • What did you do that you enjoyed?
  • What worked out how you wanted?
  • What brought you joy and happiness?
  • How did you bring success into your life?
  • Where did you spend your time that brought you joy?
  • When were you at your happiest over the past 3 months?

Reflection question 2: What didn’t go well over the past 3 months?

Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand, no human life is devoid of either.

There is no such thing as the perfect life that is happy all the time, however there is a level of contentment and inner peace that can be reached by understanding what takes our joy away and working to understand, avoid and eliminate this.

Our challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.

Below are examples of questions that reflect on what didn’t go well for you over the past 3 months. Take time to think deeply about the answers, document what comes to mind and enjoy the process.

Over the past 3 months,

  • What didn’t work how you wanted?
  • What happened that you didn’t enjoy?
  • What challenges did you experience?
  • How did you deal with these challenges?
  • Where did you spend your time that didn’t bring you joy?
  • When were you at your unhappiest over the past 3 months?

Reflection question 3: What did you learn in each area of your life?

The only way we evolve as humans is by learning and by using these learnings to take action that propels us forward. 

The below questions on each category in the wheel of life will support you to turn your learnings into action.

Sense of Self: What did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Have you dedicated time to personal development? What did you learn about your relationship with yourself, has your relationship with yourself improved or disimproved?

Relationships: What did you learn about your relationship with others, has your relationship with others improved or disimproved? Are there relationships you want but don’t have? Are there relationships you have but don’t want?

Health: What did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health?  Did you give sufficient time to your health? Did your health improve? Did your health disimprove?

Work: What did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Has your work moved forward and improved? Has your work moved backward and disimproved? Is your work bringing you joy and peace or misery and stress?

Finance: What did you learn about personal finance? Did your personal finances improve? Did your personal finances disimprove? Did your mindset around finance and abundance improve? 

Experiences/Fun: Did you have fun and enjoyable experiences over the past 3 months? What experiences did you enjoy? What experiences did you not enjoy? How can you bring more fun island enjoyable experiences into your life?

Environment: What did you learn about your environment? Did your environment improve? For me environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.

Contribution: What did you learn about contribution?  Did you make the world a better place by contributing your time, money or skills? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.

⭐️ No matter how the past 3 months went for you, know that you are worth celebrating.

⭐️ Even just being here is reason enough to celebrate, everything on top of that is a bonus. 

Wishing you health and happiness as you look back at the past 3 months and look forward to the next 3 months.

I write a weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and I’ll see you there 😊

Thanks for reading 🙏

Siobhain

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