The Realistic Mid-Year Reset

Are you on track with your midlife goals? If you’re lacking in energy and motivation, a mid-year refocus could be just what you need to boost your productivity and get clear about what you want to achieve in midlife.

With the first of January now a distant memory and the halfway point of 2022 already passed, realising you’re nowhere near where you had hoped to be can be a little demotivating.

But don’t worry: whether is losing a bit of weight, embracing grey hair, learning a new language, meeting a new partner in midlife, changing your job or achieving more followers on social media, a lot can be achieved in the remaining months and Summer is the perfect time to reset our focus and motivation.

After all, mid-year resets aren’t just about goal setting. They can also serve as a time for reflection on some of our favourite moments from the year, re-focus on our routine and recommit to our well-being.

However, these things don’t happen by accident.

According to the host of the UK’s number 1 peak performance podcast Take FLIGHT, Mark Whittle, “accomplishing all the things you need and want to do requires continuous energy and focus“.

Yes, visualising our goals and then finding our WHY are important steps of the process. However, being proficient with vision boards and motivational apps, won’t get you there, where you want to belong to. Why? Because we often dismiss the importance of good habits. 

Habits shape our lives far more than we probably realize. Not only are habits important. They grow stronger and stronger over time and become more and more automatic. Taking small, consistent actions over a long period, are likely the best way to get us closer to our goals, for we are what we repeatedly do.

The trouble is, these small actions can take you two different ways – Mark Whittle explains-. If you’re not being productive, you may have picked up some unhelpful habits that are sabotaging your focus. Perhaps you’re getting distracted by your phone or you find yourself easily stuck in a Netflix binge. Try to catch yourself whenever these distractions occur and refocus on your task, making concentration your new, more constructive habit.

What’s more, to be productive dreams must be connected to our potential. Otherwise, they are idle fantasies.

Basically, according to a research report published by Harvard Business Review, the key to reaching our goals is staying open to the range of possibilities our experience has actually qualified us for—but at the same time remaining realistic about what we can achieve.

Hence the ability to differentiate between dreams and fantasies is crucial: without dreams, we are unlikely to make any changes in midlife, but getting lost in fantasies is not only a waste of energy but can also become an impediment to actual change.

“The notion of midlife as a magical transformation won’t help you reach your goals. This myth tries to sell us the illusion that if people have enough vision and willpower, they can be anything or anybody they want to be“, said the late Swiss and Israeli psychologist, philosopher, existential psychoanalyst and public intellectual Carlo Strenger.

“Paradoxically, this doesn’t make midlife career changes easier either—it makes them more frightening. Faced with stories of doctors who get up one morning knowing that they want to become chefs, housewives who have a sudden vision of the business empires they are about to build, and lawyers who one day have crystal clear plans for high-tech businesses, real-life human beings are bound to feel inadequate“, he concluded.

Instead, the midlife years can be a period of unprecedented opportunity for inner growth if we are able to set realistic expectations. Let’s take this mid-year reset as a time to listen to ourselves, map our real possibilities in the world, and create our new lives with care.

The journey may take odd twists and turns before it ends up in a satisfying place but it will be worth it.

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