A 6 Month Goal Check In (2024)

I have this terrible habit of setting goals with pomp and ceremony at the start of the year, and then quickly forgetting them. Or, if not forgetting exactly, becoming waylaid along the way and letting them slip from my attention. So here I am, checking in. (For context, find my Goals, Intentions and Word for 2024 here!).

Goal progress

There is an interesting discrepancy between my goals this year. Two of them have been achieved: I am now working in a full time job and making what I would define as a good income (for now), and I’ve moved in with my partner and am truly experiencing a more settled home life. These were things that were “big” and hard to get to, but once they’d happened they were done.

Another goal was to “fix my back problems”, which I would say was in progress. I’ve had a regression over the last month, but with now getting back into regular exercise and soon restarting with a chiropractor, I am hopeful to be stronger and experience less pain by the end of the year.

Where I have not seen goal success is in the more “work” related area, or at least in the goal I most wanted progress with: my writing. I did complete a proposal, part one of the goal, but that was rejected by part two of the goal, getting an agent.

While I had really lovely feedback (“it’s not you it’s the market”) and I know rejection is part of the game, I must admit I feel knocked by it. My confidence has been shaken, and without the momentum of having a big book dream to work towards, my desire and focus to sit down and write has evaporated (helped along by the busy-ness of new job and new house). This means I’m now also not making progress on part 3 of the goal, being externally published.

I’ve debated what to do about this. Part of me thinks I should get back on the horse, keep pushing, don’t be one of the people that lets rejection stop them. Part of me thinks that I should let it go, stop living in these hope-rejection cycles and move my focus to something more positive. Part of me thinks I need to get strategic, that perhaps engaging with fiction is the way to tell my story. Part of me thinks I should keep tapping away here and on Substack, enter a few competitions, keep it fun and see what happens.

I haven’t yet decided which part of me I agree with. What I do know, is that the discomfort of the effort of getting back into writing can’t be spending quite as much time in the driving seat as it is. Whichever of those directions I decide to take my writing goals in, I shouldn’t choose it just because it feels easiest.

New goals

As I’ve gone through the year, a new goal has emerged. A very surprising new goal. I’d like to do more with marketing.

I know, I know, I spent three years trying to distance myself from being a marketing person. But now that I have been back marketing something that’s not myself, I’ve been really enjoying it. I’m enjoying making strategies, analysing data, designing campaigns. In my new role within a bigger team where I have less oversight, I feel drawn to do more of it in my spare time, especially as I think about my career trajectory as a not 100% self employed person. Maybe that’ll be consulting, maybe it’ll be mentoring, maybe it’ll be something else, but I would like to figure out a way to bring that into a sharper focus in my work.

Intention progress

This year I set intentions of how I wanted to be, mainly predicated on the assumption I’d be working for myself. Do less with more conviction was about not spreading myself thinly, and now I’m really doing virtually nothing without much conviction. Which is flippant, but I’m in a bit of a transition and perhaps working out what I can feel conviction about will help me towards re-figuring these goals.

I said I’d be open and willing, and actually I’d say that I have. I applied for things and tried things if I hadn’t been opened to being surprised. This is an intention serving me well.

The final intention was to stop the overthinking and have better self-talk, which I most probably haven’t done. But these ways of being are long held habits, and I’m also starting to wonder whether these things I believe everyone does and thinks are actually anxiety, but - I am trying to be kinder.

Word of the Year

Sometimes I think about my word of the year and chuckle to myself. This was the year I was going to UNLEASH. I was going to create and make and just do the things and show up on social media and pitch and be everywhere. Instead I’ve all but shut up shop.

But I’ve unleashed in life. I’m making new friends, having fun weekends, exploring a new town, making future plans, trying things. I’m unleashing, just not online. Just not in the way I intended. I’m still not sure if that “counts” or not.

Perhaps, for this second half of the year, I can try to unleash more in the direction of the creative work I crave.