How to Evaluate Yourself as We Approach Mid-Year

At the end of 2022, I wrote three posts about how to plan. Earlier this year, I wrote another one on how to fix your schedule. Now, as we approach mid-year, how do you evaluate your plans and your schedule. 

Come down to it, how do you evaluate yourself? 

This isn’t necessarily some deeply spiritual or personal evaluation. We’ve just had two penitential seasons: Lent and Ramadan, to help us with that. Think of this as evaluating yourself in a more business sense. Think of this as a check-up on your working habits, your work-life balance, and your ideas of where you want to go. 

What to evaluate in your mid-year goes beyond the “bottom line.” 

Well, most business people would say “your bottom line” is the only thing that matters. Well, that is true. If you aren’t making any money, then you do have cause for alarm. You are in business for more than just the freedom from having to job hunt–you are in business to make money. 

But your “bottom line” isn’t the be-all, end-all. If you’re just starting out, then your bottom line is most likely not going to be anywhere near where you want it to be. 

So, what you need to look at are other things like, productivity, process, documentation, and your work-life balance. Solopreneurs especially need to look at this because your primary business asset at this point is yourself. 

If you only look at the “bottom line” then you could be ignoring some of your other achievements, and even brewing problems. Businesses are supposed to make money, yes, but how you build your business also matters. If you only build it by running yourself into the ground, and calling yourself and everyone around you not good enough, then you will eventually run into problems. .

And if you ignore those problems, or put them off, then you can make all the money in the world and still be a failure.

Measuring your productivity not only means measuring your to-do list but what actually gets done. 

I have a nasty habit of ignoring my to-do list to go work on something seemingly randomly. I’ll go design a new product when I’m supposed to be writing my next blog post, or I’ll plan out posts when I’m supposed to be uploading to social media. 

Does this mean I’m unproductive? I would argue not. It means I’m being productive in ways that I didn’t plan for. For instance, I’m planning on opening a shop where I can sell classical literature-inspired merch. If I design a new product (like a wine cooler) instead of doing a blog post, then it’s still time well-spent. 

It’s just not spend in how I expected it. 

As long as what you actually do helps you work towards your ultimate goal, then don’t just evaluate what you planned to do and didn’t, look at what you actually did. Now, this doesn’t mean that you throw making your daily list out the window. Absolutely not! 

Instead, perhaps allow yourself the leeway to do something else in place of one thing on your to-do list. For instance, if I don’t post to the blog, will it negatively impact me? In my case, I’m small enough to where it wouldn’t. I have other posts that still perform well that can tie me over. 

However, designing product and determining the price does impact me if I never get it designed and uploaded. Because if I don’t get the shop open, then that’s a potential revenue stream I’m not getting. 

Can you demonstrate to yourself that you have made small improvements? 

Ultimately, if you are still taking steps forward, however small, you aren’t failing. You’re on a slightly different timeline. Life happens. COVID happened, and there are still some people who are suffering the effects. If you are one of them, then your timeline may have to slow down to match your energy levels. 

So, you went all in on a planner (like Clever Fox) and you made big quarterly goals. You met one goal, changed another, and failed the rest. What does your evaluation look like? Well, if you were in another company, it would be cut-and-dry. It doesn’t look good. 

Right? 

Well, maybe. And then again, maybe not. 

Perhaps you didn’t make a specific goal to start that side hustle you’ve been talking about. Well, why didn’t you make that goal? Is it because you changed directions? If so, that’s not a failure, that’s a redirection. 

If you needed to acquire a skill you didn’t know you needed, then that’s also not failure. You have just discovered something else you needed to be successful. That’s still an improvement. 

What you should be worried about is if there were NO improvements made in six months. If you’re still at square one, or even farther behind, then you need to wake up and get to work, however you need to. Because THAT is the ultimate failure right there. 

That is the definition of stagnation and regression and you want to avoid that at all costs. Even if you come down with a serious illness, you can still make small improvements, even if you can’t make the improvements to your life, work, or business that you wanted to. 

Are you forcing yourself into unrealistic expectations? 

I think if you don’t meet your goals, then you need to take a closer look at why you aren’t meeting those goals. It may be that you’re setting yourself the wrong goals. It may also be that you don’t yet have what it takes to meet the goals you’re setting yourself. 

Make sure the goals you want and the goals you can actually achieve are the same thing. You may think you want that 10k month, who doesn’t? But if you aren’t yet at 5k per month, then you need to come up with a slightly different goal. For you own sanity, if for nothing else. 

Adjust your expectations, slightly. Otherwise, you’ll just give up entirely and regress into a toxic cycle of negative self-talk and victimhood. If you have other changes you need to make, then set those as your goals first before you return to your original one. 

Setting goals and achieving them isn’t easy. It’s both an art and a skill you have to practice to really get right. 

It’s not always about rigid discipline or a winning routine, despite what all the self-help books say.

Rigid routines can make for a great ASMR reels, bestselling books, and fodder for cults and ultra religious groups. For most people it’s very satisfying. Inspiring, even. But, it’s not for everyone. Chronically ill people, caregivers, new mothers, and a host of other people out there cannot be rigidly disciplined. I’ve been a caregiver most of my life in one form or another. 

When you’re in that situation, your routine depends on the person needing care. Rigid routines aren’t realistic in that situation. So, if you are in a situation where a specific routine isn’t possible, then why are you making it your goal? 

Then, there’s that whole thing about potential serial killers being able to target you more easily because your moves are predictable….

Are you better off now than you were six months ago? 

Ultimately, that is the question you have to ask yourself. Are you better off now than you were at the beginning of the year? Have you grown more confident? Do you have better direction? 

These are questions to ask yourself that are just as important as “what is my profit margin”? Or whether or not you met a goal. 

Finally, failing to meet a goal, doesn’t mean you are a failure. It doesn’t. It means you failed, true. But if you are able to learn from the failure, and readjust, then you have demonstrated a capacity, at least, to learn from your mistakes and correct so that you can readjust. 

If this was helpful to you, please be sure to “like,” share, comment below, or message me through social media!

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