Get Back on Track with a Half-Year Assessment

Does it sometimes feel as if you're spinning your wheels? You set ambitious goals in the New Year and now we're well into the second half of the year and those goals are starting to look way out of reach.

Don't panic. What you need is a half-year assessment.

In the August 2011 edition of Whole Living Magazine, author Doren Darcy suggests taking some time to look at all the things you've accomplished and all the positive changes in your life since the beginning of the year.

Take a moment and look back at your New Year's resolutions or the last set of goals you set. Run through your head month-by-month or goal-by-goal and make a list of everything good that's happened. Did you start a new job, dump a toxic relationship, stick with an exercise program, or take a class? What positive steps have you taken in your Plan B life?

Now look at how they happened. Was it through persistence that you made a useful contact? Did you get lucky finding the job? Was it careful planning that made it possible to take the trip to France? Was it sheer determination that made you pick up the phone and break the news that you were leaving?

Now you can see how far you've already come, where do want to be by the end of the year? Do those original New Year goals still make sense, or have other opportunities arisen? Do you even want the same thing now that you thought you wanted just a few months ago? Now's the time to pull out your favorite goal-setting techniques to re-assess and adjust your course, if needed.

If making lists and deep self-assessment isn't your thing, don't despair; Doran has a great suggestion for a quickie overview that she borrowed from a friend. She suggests calling an old friend that you haven't spoken to since last year. When the inevitable, "What's new?" question comes up, listen to what you say. "Eavesdropping on yourself is a fabulous source of information," says Doran's friend. "We don't always notice what we're doing while we're doing it."

Time goes by so fast and sometimes it's easy to lose track of how much has changed-for the better-over just a few months. Taking a half-year assessment can really help you see how far you've come, highlight some things to focus on for the remainder of the year, and offer insight into how to get them done.