Mid-Year Goal Checkup
It’s Not Too Late to Redirect Yourself
by Robin Blakely
So here we are, already past the halfway mark of the year.
A lot of pages in the day planner have been written out. Looking back at them, we can see that it’s been quite an adventure so far… and for many of us, the story so far isn’t turning out at all as we hoped. We have somehow made it to the middle. But the plot is clearly sagging, and the characters aren’t nearly as sparkly as we imagined they’d be.
So, if your life were a book, what would you do here and now?
You know the write answer: Redirect. Rewrite. Recommit.
The middle of the year isn’t the end of the road—it’s the turning point. The next chapter of your life—your writing, your work, your wonder—can still surprise you. As writers, we are by nature dreamers. We were made to imagine things that haven’t happened yet. We’re fluent in possibility. We know how to picture big things that don’t yet exist, things that are hard to make happen, things the world doesn’t always welcome.
That’s not a flaw. That’s our gift to the world…and the world truly needs a good protagonist. Spoiler alert: in your life story, that’s you.
This week, I lived that by sitting in a weird business meeting where do-or-die changes were required for a company. I shared my written ideas with clarity and passion. I was then quite harshly reprimanded for thinking differently, doing things differently, imagining the end of the company’s story differently. I sat in a tense room filled with considerable discomfort with the most surprising feeling about the feedback. The angry remarks shot at me were meant to shame. But in the writing world, you and I know that accusations of thinking differently are actually badges of honor. So, Thank you for the feedback. I would never wish to be seen any other way.
Here’s the truth: thinking differently is what creative people do. At the beginning of this year, you probably saw the future differently than how it is turning out. If your goals have gone quiet…if the year hasn’t gone the way you’d hoped…this is your invitation: Redirect, not retreat. You still have time.
Here are a few steps to get things rolling toward the destination you choose:
Step 1: Revisit Your Original Goals
What did you want back in January?
Look at the goals you wrote down…or the ones you carried quietly in your heart.
Ask yourself:
- Were my goals too vague?
- Too bold?
- Or maybe… right on time?
As creatives, our goals (like our creative works) often come in layered dreams—not just word counts or deadlines, but deeply personal visions. At this mid-year point, some of those dreams still want your attention. Others may have shifted—and revising what you want now is fine. Shifting your goals isn’t giving up. It’s editing. Writers revise. So do dreamers.
Step 2: Celebrate the Wins (Even the Small Ones)
We all tend to minimize our creative progress. “I only wrote a little.” “I haven’t published anything yet.” But showing up at all in a world that tries to silence creative thought? That’s a win. Did you try something new? Start a routine? Say no to something that drained you? These are not small things. They’re milestones. Celebrate them. And here’s a big one: Did you survive mean-spirited discouragement with your creativity intact? That’s a major victory.
Step 3: Get Honest About the Gap
This isn’t about blame—it’s about awareness. What’s causing the gap between you and the goals for your creative career? Is it overwhelm? Fear? Uncertainty? Isolation? Competing priorities? Did you fail to even treat your writing work as a real career?
Each week, pay attention to the gap. Ask yourself: Did I move one step closer to what I want? If you are not sure about the gap, it is often because your goals are not quite clear enough.
Step 4: Refocus and Refine Your Goals
Now is the season to refine your creative fire. Choose up to three goals that truly matter—and light them up with clarity.
- Maybe it’s writing one short story or writing one chapter a month.
- Maybe it’s submitting your work to a developmental editor.
- Maybe it’s carving out an hour each weekend to make something just because.
Make your goals specific. Make them visible. And make sure they feed your spirit—not just your productivity tracker.
Step 5: Create a Check-In System in Writing and With People
Writers know the power of deadlines—not just external ones, but the kind we set for ourselves. Look back at the first half of the year with the creative eye of a writer doing meaningful research.
- What helped you stay on track?
- How can you build more of that into your routine?
No need for a fancy app. A sticky note or a dry erase board—it all works.
The goal is simple: look at your dreams often.
In that weird business meeting I mentioned, I wasn’t just defending my ideas to the folks in the meeting—I was defending creative thought itself. That meeting reminded me how exhausting it can be to explain yourself to people who only trust what’s familiar—even if it’s broken. Sometimes the gap holding us back is not having the right people walking beside us. They do not need to be literally beside us every day. Mine are across town and across the country—a phone call or zoom link away.
So: find your people. They are the ones who also think in stories and metaphors. The ones who don’t flinch when you dream aloud. Dreams happen when we’re seen and heard by people who get us and try to understand. Sometimes we just need someone to mirror our dreams back to us so we can see who we are and what we are doing more clearly.
Step 6: Make Room for Grace
Creativity doesn’t run on perfect timelines. It comes in rocket bursts. It spirals. It has the most fun coming alive when we make space for it.
Half the year is over. Half the year is still ahead. Give yourself grace to shift, to rest, to begin again. That’s not failure. That’s stamina.
So, if you’re behind? Breathe.
If you’re tired? Pause.
If you’re lost? Write your way back.
This is the part of the story where the protagonist regroups.
Your Story, Your Dreams, Your Goal Isn’t Over…Yet
Let's talk about how your goals for the year are shaping up in the comments.
* * * * * *
About Robin
A top business coach with an extensive background in books, brand development, and strategic planning, Robin Blakely is the CEO of Creative Center of America.
She is the author of four business books, which include PR Therapy and Six Hats. Thanks to SCORE and the US Small Business Administration, three of her national webinars are available on-demand for free to anyone starting a creative business.
Top photo by Deleyna via Canva.
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24 comments on “Mid-Year Goal Checkup”
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Hi Robin,
Thanks for the advice on starting a creative business. I look forward to watching the webinars as well.
Taking a pause can do wonders for the creative soul!
Kris
Hi Kris! Thanks for the focus point that the pause itself is incredibly helpful not just at the midpoint of the year...but often along the way.
Wow!!!! This so benificial to me and I know it will be for so many others as well!!!
You get it, and this will help others get it as well!!!
Thanks for the wonderful enthusiasm, Joy! That's the spirit! Not everyone can embrace the wake-up call like you. This morning, I sent a link to this post to one of my author friends and she humorously responded: "I haven't met any goals and I immediately deleted your link." She didn't, but that was her kneejerk response to the reality check that half the year is behind us. LOL
Welcome to WITS, Robin, and thank you for this thoughtful post. I finished my mid-year check last night. Fortunately, I'm mostly happy with my results. I found some systems a few years back that help me keep on track and make me figure out what went well and what obstacles I encountered. I think from now on I'll choose to use the term "gap" rather than obstacles. It's a slightly different way to look at those times when I missed my goal that has already made me see things a little more clearly. That's been helpful, so again, thank you.
Congrats on the terrific results for your Mid-year review, Lynette! "Mostly Happy" with results is a fabulous place to be. I love the word 'gap' too. I have a souvenir from London that says 'Mind The Gap' and my little metal keepsake has come to me to mean the distance between here and the desired there, rather than the intended meaning of the space between the train and the platform. I like gap better than obstacle when trying to reach my goals.
This post was the reminder I needed!
I seem to have to revisit my yearly goals at least once a month since I always seem to be missing them! BUT, after reading this post, I did a check back, and while I am not bursting with joy over how much I have accomplished mid-year, I am not crying in my pillow either. This past couple of years have been full of change for me, well career wise, so I am giving myself the space to figure it out and not stress myself out that it is not happening as quickly as I would like.
Good for you, Jenn!
Looking things over with clear eyes is a tough moment in time. Navigating progress while the sands of change shift under your feet is also tough. Many of us would welcome the not-crying-in-my-pillow spot that you have surpassed. Congrats!
Thanks for this, Robin. My goals have changed and I'm not where I want to be... but I'm still pleased with the progress. A mid-year check in is ideal.
Changing your goals is really kind of fearless, Lisa!
Many of us decide that we have gotten this far so we have to stick to it. Sometimes sticking to it makes sense, and sometimes sticking to it is crazy-making. You look at where you are now at and you decide where you want to be. Good for you for being intentional.
When you're chronically ill, goals are a joke the universe plays on your mind.
But it's still helpful to stop and think periodically whether your time is going somewhere useful, as you have so much less of it.
I have one major goal in life: finish my Pride's Children mainstream trilogy. The first book, PURGATORY, took 15 years; the second, NETHERWORLD, took 7. Look! I'm getting faster. 🙂
They are big (167 and 186K), and the trilogy is meant to be about as long as GWTW when complete. And people like me can't and shouldn't do these projects - but I've loved every minute.
And been richly rewarded in a curious way: I find I can reread any of what is already published, at any time, without wanting to change a word (beyond a pesky typo or two).
At 75, I need to face reality sometimes, but reality just poked us in another way: we have received our genetic inheritance with the birth of our FIRST grandchild. Compared to that (it happens when you have your children late because you are pursuing professional goals), writing is doable. Definitely falls under 'GRACE.'
NOTHING seems completely impossible - and I do have to get Pride's Children: LIMBO finished and published, so I will! Take that, Universe!
One good thing about having a single goal is you don't have to worry about competing ones: as per Alan Lakein, I'm either working on the book (the A1), or I'm doing something that isn't as good a use of my limited time and energy. No struggling - just awareness. It isn't going to write itself.
Sometimes I envy people with options - but most times I realize how lucky I am to have a single possible focus - if today I get any good time at all.
Thanks for the mid-year reminder.
Chronic Illness does do wonders for sharpening a person’s focusing skills. And look at what you have shared with us—-you are wise enough to know that you had to not only focus but also you had to clear the runway to get your huge dreams to take flight. Bravo! You are also wise enough to accept and enjoy your own work and not grieve over the pesky typo. Pretty cool stuff! Pass that wisdom on to the next generation! Congrats on the new addition to your family! Late-in-life kiddos reap a lot of rewards…my own parents were already grandparents by the time I arrived at the beginning of Act Three. I never regretted that placement in their storyline.
I love this post, Robin! At the beginning of this year, I had "day job goals" and "writing goals." Interestingly, I met the writing goals, but not the day job goals. I was so happy when I realized that...that has literally never happened before.
But I've moved across country (West Coast to East Coast), recovered from cancer, started a new business, and rehabbed two surgeries, so it's been a tumultuous time. 🙂
Jenny! Wow. Wow. Wow. You have packed major, multiple highest-stress-level activities into the same time frame...and you are still standing and able to talk about it. A season to get through. I am inspired. Some major resilience there. COngrats on that!
I'm behind, but I can catch up.
That's the key, Denise. Figuring out the gap. You'll catch up.
Thank you Robin. I always learn something new from you but the best part is affirming my different brain. Awesome piece. I don’t know where my career would be without you!
Rebecca,
You think different.
Me and the world...we thank you for that.
Thank you for this refocusing, Robin.
Thanks for the feedback, Leanne. It is fun to have a creative community to share our ideas long the way.
Robin,
Great post! I'm so glad you focused on refine and refocus. A goal should motivate you but also serve you. When you're not hitting your marks or life gets in the way, it's ok to make adjustments or start over! I've had years where I was very consistent with my writing and years where I tossed out my list and started with a new Day 1, even if I was halfway through a calendar year.
I have a ridiculously thorough calendar that I use to track my writing activity. Coming into the mid-year, I realized I had been spending twice as much time blogging as I planned, which ate into my WIP time, but this has given me the opportunity to scale my intentions and adjust my schedule so that my focus is much more balanced.
Will,
Thanks for the great response. And cheers to you (and me) and the "ridiculously thorough" calendar...got to love that! It took a while for me to decide that the refine and refocus part is as much of a decision as putting the item on the calendar in the first place.
Bravo to you for letting Day 1 be any season.
Have you been spying on me??? My current project's journey is a prime example of your "You know the write answer: Redirect. Rewrite. Recommit." So much so that your post here inspired me to reveal the pain and renewed excitement I've been experiencing to finish this goal. THANK YOU.
Diana,
Fantastic to hear your progress. I love your description of the process "reveal the pain and new excitement." Gosh you hit that exactly. Let us know when your project reaches its destination. Very excited for you!