Adam Lueken
In just a few days, we’ll hit the halfway point of 2021. Time sure flies, which can make it even more challenging to hit all the personal and professional goals we set at the beginning of the year. But whether you’re on target or a little bit behind with your goals, there’s still time to finish the year strong. To determine where you stand, it’s beneficial to do a mid-year checkup on your goal status. This can also be done in conjunction with mid-year team performance reviews.
This can be for personal and professional goals you set for yourself, as well as collaborative team/practice goals (or all of the above). It’s important to take a look and see how much progress you’ve made, what opportunities still exist and what goals need updated (or nixed).
What Have You Achieved and What Remains?
First, review what goals or action items you have completed. And for those that are incomplete or not started, what is the reason behind that? A big part of the SMART goal formula is setting goals that are measurable, so progress can be marked. If you set specific measuring criteria at the beginning, use that to measure where you’re at with each goal. Are you on track? Are you ahead or behind schedule?
If you or your practice is behind on certain goals, adjust your action plan as needed:
- Write your goals down if you haven’t, and keep them accessible – whether they’re in a notebook, on your computer or on your bulletin board.
- Set some ongoing time to review goals and stick with them. Whether it’s weekly or bi-weekly, you be the judge. Make it part of your daily routine. If you’ve set goals with your team, involve them too. Set a regular staff meeting or check-in just for goal review.
- Make sure you’ve set actionable steps for each goal. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when tackling a goal as a whole, but if you break it into smaller steps, it’s much more doable. Set realistic deadlines for your action items too. If you’re struggling to keep these deadlines, what’s the reason? Were they unreasonable or did changes in resources prevent you from meeting them?
- Set a measurable aspect of each goal and assign it a number. That way, you can continually use that number to help measure your progress.
- Track each goal by the amount of time you spend on it. This can help you identify areas where you’re getting stuck or spending extra time.
Celebrate the Wins and Recognize Obstacles
For the goals you’ve completed or made progress with, reward yourself (and your team). Share these successes with your team and what progress has been made. This will help keep everyone excited and motivated to achieve more. In addition, take a closer look at what opportunities remain and what obstacles are in your way. Are your resources available to meet these goals (time, money, knowledge, team support) good enough or is a lack of resources the problem? Or perhaps these goals/action items aren’t top priorities anymore?
Adjust Your Priorities As Needed
Are your set goals still attainable or still relevant? Did you set goals that were too high? Or are you missing key pieces to achieve them? Are some goals you made at the beginning of the year not as important now? Consider these questions and adjust accordingly. Once you’ve had a chance to review what to keep, add to, remove, etc., update your current list and actions.
Setting goals each year is crucial for growth and advancement as a leader. But it’s easy to make goals in January then toss them aside. To make your goals a reality, you have to continually evaluate what’s working, what isn’t and what needs to be updated. As we hit the middle of 2021, set you and your team up to finish strong.
Need additional support hitting your practice goals? We’re always a phone call or click away. Schedule a consultation with one of our practice management experts today.