Where have the first six months of the year gone? Wow, we are now half way through the year! This is the time for a mid year review – to pause and reflect on the first half of 2022 and look ahead and plan for the next six months up to December.

World events

One of the key lessons in 2022 is the unpredictable nature of the world we live in. For example we started the year under COVID-19 restrictions here in Ireland due to the Omicron variant. To our pleasant surprise most of these restrictions were lifted on January 21st. The speed at which the restrictions, such as mask wearing, were lifted surprised many.

In February we then had the dastardly invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia and all the terrible consequences that have flowed from that. Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine who are suffering and dying at this time.

We have soaring energy prices, soaring inflation, a refugee crisis, a looming world food crisis and of course an ongoing climate crisis. There is talk of a global recession. Many parts of the world are also just coming out of the global pandemic. Not so if you live in China for example with it’s zero COVID policy where millions are in lock-down. A new virus, Monkeypox has hit the news headlines. There is a lot going on in the world at the moment!

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Reflect and plan

Whatever happens in the world at the macro scale we still have to get on with living our ordinary lives at the micro scale. This is a good time of the year to step back and reflect on your key goals. Do you have one to three written goals that you are working towards right now? Have you gotten closer to achieving your key goals over the past six months? Or perhaps you have achieved what you had set out to do? If so, congratulations and well done! Or perhaps life got in the way and threw your goals off track? I think the quote below has a lot of wisdom – we need to keep making progress towards our goals no matter how small. The biggest mistake is to take no action.

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still”. .

Chinese Proverb

Reflection questions

Let’s take an action research approach. Action research is a Plan – Act – Reflect cycle and I have written about action research before on this website. There are three key reflection questions we need to ask ourselves:

1. What do I have to do/want to achieve in the coming six months to the end of 2022?

2. Looking back at the first 6 months of 2022 what did I do right? What am I doing wrong that needs to be fixed?

3. What new actions am I going to take over the coming days, weeks and months to take my life in the direction that I want to go?

Don’t forget that your personal review should be a regular thing. I would suggest doing this on a weekly basis. Set time aside each week for an after action review and planning. If you can make this habitual then you’re well on your way to achieving your goals.

My own reflections

For the past 6 months I have been working hard on my new course How to make and sell beeswax candles. As usual I fell foul of the planning fallacy and the course took way longer than I had anticipated. Anyway I am delighted to say that now the course is nearing completion and will launch on June 16th. Please subscribe to be notified of the course launch offer. I have included the course promo video below:

I love developing and teaching online courses and I am very clear on my own ikigai (life’s purpose). If you need help with your mid year review and planning please check out my thought provoking course on goal setting. Using the course you will get clear on your life’s vision and purpose and your own inspiring goals will stem naturally from there.

Very best wishes,

Tom