59 We're halfway through 2026. How are your goals doing?

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to succeed without the stress. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I am so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Hamm, executive coach, speaker, and founder of Women Lead Well. Join me each week for straight talk, practical tips, and a dash of encouragement.

Hello friend. I hope you are having a great day. Can you believe that we are halfway through 2026? This episode, if I'm doing my mental math right, will air on the last day of June, which means we are moving into the second half of the year.

I feel like it was just Christmas. I really feel like we just went through New Year's. This year has gone by so quickly. And if you are like most people, when we started the year, you probably set some intentions, and you might call them New Year's resolutions.

Uh, people do, some people don't. But you probably had an idea of what you wanted to accomplish, what you wanted this year to look like or feel like. And so we're gonna talk today about how you're doing with that. Now that we are halfway through the year, how's it going?

And so this is just our 2026 midyear check-in episode. I'm gonna walk you through a framework that I use with my clients, but then also inside the Success Blueprint, which is my goal-setting mini course, I also have this kind of check-in template. And so if you're interested in the full goal-setting shebang, how do you set goals that are achievable, how do you actually take consistent action to achieve those goals over time, check out the Success Blueprint. It's linked in the show notes.

Um, but for today we're gonna, all of us together, whether you've bought that mini course or not, we are gonna talk about a midyear check-in, so halfway through the year, where are we at and where are we going? And so the framework works through, like this is where we are today. We can't make a plan to go anywhere unless we know where we're at, so the first thing that we're gonna do is check in on where we are halfway through the year, then we're gonna develop our targets to finish strong so that we can make the most of the time between now and the end of the year, and that includes troubleshooting where we think friction might pop up.

And then I'll do what I do in every one-to-one coaching call, is at the end of the episode today I'm gonna ask you guys to figure out your next steps, and so let's take our plans and let's turn them into consistent action. Number one reason why people fail to achieve their goals is they don't get out of the planning stage and into the action taking and iterating stage. So I'm not gonna leave you hanging like that today. We're gonna come up with those action steps.

But let's start. First step of the process is to clearly articulate the goal, and you might have three, four, five goals for the year. I would encourage you not to have, like, a dozen goals. That's not reason- you're not gonna achieve a dozen goals.

You can't split your energy 12 ways reasonably in addition to everything else that you've got going on in your life. But for our conversation today, pick one of your goals for the year, and that could be, you know, I have launched the Women's Executive Leadership Lab. I have got seven members in the lab right now. We are still just in the early stages of getting launched.

I would love to have 25 members by the end of the year. So that is my goal. Yay. I love it.

But what is your goal for the year? Where do you wanna be on any facet of your life? Could be business, could be personal, but by December 31st, 2026. And now this is the kind of as is assessment, baseline assessment.

Where are you at the end of June, early July 2026? So if my goal is to have 25 members by the end of the year, and I just mentioned right now I've got seven, so I've got some growth. I've got 18 people to enroll between now and the end of the year, 18 people over the next six months. Okay.

That's not concerning to me. That's good. I didn't launch well at the beginning of the year. I launched it toward the end of the first quarter, so I've got some time.

I feel pretty good about where I am relative to where I need to be But you wanna ask yourself, once you know your goal, once you know where you are today with respect to that goal, how is that? Do you need to revise your goal any to make it feasible? And let me take a second here and say that goal setting is kind of a Rorschach test. There's a personality test involved.

There are some people who want to set goals that they know they can achieve. It is motivating for them to achieve a goal, check it off the list, and say, "Yes, I'm done." And so they wanna pick a goal that they know is not just possible, but probable. There are people who say, "Eh," like, "That's not motivate- 'cause that's just me doing what I was gonna do anyway.

That's not motivating. That's not a real goal." And so they pick a stretch goal. And so that is, "I'm gonna pick a goal that I might not achieve, that is still feasible, it is something that I could do, but I gotta exert some real intention, some real effort.

I gotta put my back into it to make this goal happen, because it will not happen on its own without me showing up and doing the work." That's a stretch goal. And then there are people who love the big, hairy, audacious goal. It's a Jim Collins phrase.

And the big, hairy, audacious goal is, like, your moonshot. Like, this is the, Oh my goodness, there is a really good chance we are not gonna make this." This is beyond ambitious into the ludicrous realm, but it's possible. Maybe not feasible, but possible.

It's not an impossible goal, it's a possible goal, but it is a crazy goal. Some people love a BHAG. You do you, but my point is, what is that goal that you set for 2026? Where are you at the midpoint of the year?

And with your goal setting, you need your goals to be slam dunk achievable, a stretch goal, or are you, "I'm gonna shoot for the moon Depending on what kind of person you are, look at that goal you set yourself for 2026 and ask yourself, "Is this still the right goal for me, given where I am at the middle of the year, or do I need to adjust my goal?" Okay? And if you need to adjust your goal, that is perfectly fine. Don't attach any meaning or no, no personal judgment on the basis of needing to adjust your goal.

The key here is to set you up for success for the next six months, period. If you wanna do the backward review of what got you to where you are at the middle part of the year and what you can tweak and improve so that you do better going forward, love it. But all of that is about learning and process improvement, not one piece of that is about judging yourself and what you should have done and what you failed to do and all the stories we tell ourselves. Because if you get stuck on those stories, you're gonna get ground to a halt, and you're gonna get hyper-fixated on what is not real.

What is real is you in this moment have the opportunity to make choices and take actions to achieve your goal. That's where I want you focused. Don't be focused on what doesn't exist, because the past is gone, and she ain't coming back. Look at the present and what you can do today, and position yourself today to make the progress you wanna make going forward.

Okay, so- I do want you to take one minute though, I said all of that take one minute and identify the main point of friction in the first six months of the year. And again, no judgment. This doesn't say one single thing about you. All it does is help you figure out what you need to troubleshoot to achieve success over the next six months.

And so let's say, so for me, I have the goal about enrolling members into the Women's Executive Leadership Lab. And y'all, I'm so excited, I'm launching a quiz. It'll probably be out next week. I'm figuring all of this out for the first time.

It's my first time doing a quiz, with the different results lead into different feedback from me, right? So the, the results of the quiz that you will get will be personalized to your specific score. And so there is a lot of, like, wiring in my system in order to send the right email with the right information. So I'm learning a ton, and that part's fun.

But the quiz is coming out next week, and I'm so excited. WELL, so the lab, Women's Executive Leadership Lab, I opened doors to membership back in March. And so we're in month four now, and it has been... I love the women.

We are having the best time. It has been great. Enrolling new members has been a challenge for me, and that doesn't dissuade me or concern me because I know the quality of the membership, that it is a solid community of amazing women with a great focus, and The women inside the membership are achieving the results that they join the membership to achieve, and it's just all kinds of good. However, there is a lot of noise in the online space, and the particular women who are suited for WELL, for the lab, are senior women, busy executives, and they don't have a lot of time to sift through the mountain of information that's coming at them every second of every day.

And they aren't really checking social media for their professional development. They go on social media to, to, you know, like, watch cat videos and turn their brain off for a little while. Totally understand it. I have been that woman.

I get you. So my main friction for the first half of the year has been connecting with the right women using the right language for them to see a, see a post on social media or listen to one of these episodes and say, "Heck yeah, that's me. I wanna know more." Right?

"I want more of this." And so for me, the challenge has been that my... or the friction has been that my language isn't landing. And so that's, as I move into the second half of the year, what I'm really gonna dial in.

And so that is what I would ask you. What is your goal? Where are you halfway through the year? Do you need to adjust your goal given your particular goal style?

And then what's the greatest friction that you're facing in terms of making progress on your goal? Because we are now, once you've done all that, and, you know, as you go for a walk or drink your cup of coffee or commute to your jo- whatever it is that you do, find some time and just reflect on that. If you can write it in your journal, phenomenal. Open the notes app on your phone.

Whatever works for you. Spend some time reflecting on these questions, particularly that last one on the sources of friction. Because now we are gonna move into how do we go from where you are today to the achievement of the goal by the end of the year? And this is just gonna come straight out of strategic planning, and so we're gonna set targets for each quarter We've got the quarter that's coming up, July through September, and then we've got the final quarter of the calendar year, October through December.

And so ask yourself if th- my goal is X, 25 members by the end of the year, what's a good target to be at by the end of September? And then what's a good target to be at by the end of December? And what I would say is you might just split it in half. It might be 50% of whatever on this side, 50% on the other side.

I would, if you can, if it's reasonable, tailor it to your specific goal. And what I mean by that is if I wanna add 18 members between now and the end of the year, well, I know from my own experience, and then I know just from what market research tells me, people are less likely to invest in professional development in the last quarter, one, because they're ju- particularly women, right? We are just trying to get through the holidays, and we are so focused on other people, presents that we're buying for other people at the end of the year, that we are unlikely to invest in a professional development opportunity, like Women's Executive Leadership Lab in the November-December timeframe.

And so I don't wanna split my 18, nine and nine, 'cause, I, I mean, I might get nine members in the last quarter of the year, but I'm probably gonna enroll more members in Q3 than I'm gonna enroll in Q4, and so I want my targets to reflect that. And so I am intending to enroll 12 new members in Q3 and then only six in Q4 because I expect that drop-off. Whatever your goal is, let's say you're trying to lose weight, same logic is true here, not only because of the calendar, and weight loss is harder at the end of the year, but because we know about weight plateaus.

And so if you are embarking on a weight loss journey or a fitness journey here at the midpoint of the year, it is easier to lose weight. You are gonna feel the gains quicker because you're coming from being out of shape. And hey, I just started Pilates, so I am also talking about myself. Going from having little muscle to getting some muscle, that moves faster than the gains that you're gonna make at months five and six just because of how the body normalizes that strength training and the weight loss, the nutritional changes that you might be making.

And so think about targets for Q3 and Q4 that are dialed into the specific goal that you're trying to achieve and the reality of how progress toward that goal Um, happens. And I would say if this is confusing to you or if you are not sure about your particular industry, this might be something that you turn to ChatGPT to, or Google has gotten really good about, giving you the AI-generated response at the top when you do a search. So you might ask it, you know, like, how, how does goal achievement tend to progress on this topic?

Whatever your specific topic is. And then as always, if you wanna jump on a coaching call, just shoot me a DM. I'm @womenleadwell across all platforms, and we can just talk about it. Okay.

Now that you've got your targets for Q3 and Q4, now we wanna come up with your specific actions to get you there. And here, I love me a backwards plan. So if I wanna have 25 members by the end of the year, so I need 18 new ones, what do I wanna be doing in November, December to get me those last six? And so the actions that I'll take then is, is maybe I wanna run an ad campaign, uh, to focus on a January start, right?

Enroll now, don't start till January. Your membership will process on the 12-month cycle with the new year, something like that. So I'll put that as one of my action steps for Q4. I will focus my podcast on effective leaders and their ability to step out of the grind and know that work will be accomplished because their teams are functioning at a high level, which is what all of us want to have, but that becomes particularly poignant toward the end of the year when our schedules get crowded with so many personal responsibilities and opportunities, activities.

And so then I will continue to think through what are my actions for Q4, and then because my heavy lift again is in Q3, what do I need to be doing in order to get in front of the women that I wanna connect with? Well, the first Q3 thing that I'm gonna do is launch this quiz, and I'm so exci- I'm so excited about it, you guys. I'm, I'm really legitimately excited. Check it out.

I think you're gonna like it. I hope you like it too. Well, here's what I would say. No matter what, you love it, you hate it, send me the feedback at Women Lead Well, because I wanna make it better.

I am genuinely excited about this quiz, um, and I wanna make sure that it is meeting your needs, and so I would value your feedback if you could send it to me. But so, okay, so Q3, I've got this quiz, and I'm gonna do social media around the quiz. I will talk... Next week's episode is gonna pull some of the threads from the quiz, and so we'll talk about that here in a second, but what are your action steps that you can take now?

And then what are your action steps in Q4? And as you come up with that list, my friend, we don't stop with a list on a piece of paper or in our notes app The a - the, the next step is to schedule those action steps. I send out a number of direct messages on social media every single day. It is just part of my workflow, and that is in my calendar every day, one hour for engagement on social media.

It's just part of how I run my business. If you are, and I'm gonna take the weight loss example or the getting in shape. I'm not trying to lose weight, I am trying to get in shape, 'cause your, your girl is 50 and, um, she's got small kids and I need to live. I need to be alive at 85 and able to run around and chase after potentially grandkids or just hang out with my actual grown kids.

My body needs a little bit of tuning. And so, okay, so I put into my calendar now equal with client calls, I put into my calendar that I'm going to Pilates or there's a Qigong class at the Y that I wanna start taking. I put it in the calendar so it happens. So whatever you've got as your action steps for Q3, and whatever you've got as your action steps for Q4 so you don't forget sometime over the next three months, put them in your calendar right now.

And if you are commuting, if you're driving listening to this podcast episode or you're out and about You're cooking dinner, you can't put them in your calendar right now, well, you can set an alert on your phone for a time when you know that you can sit down at your calendar. And so maybe you set an alarm for eight o'clock tonight to go put this in your calendar. Whatever works for you. I don't...

I ain't your mama. Figure it out. But it's not enough to come up with a list of action steps. You have to actually do the thing.

Putting them in your calendar, making them an ac- not a task on a task list, but a time blocked moment, gives you a much greater potential of actually doing the thing you've said you're gonna do. And probably if you're achieving a big goal, it's gonna be recurring, and so lock it in as the recurring event. Don't just schedule the first instance. Okay.

And now the last thing that I wanna leave you with, and then we're gonna wrap up, is I wanna challenge you to pick one thing that you are gonna do this week to make progress towards your goal. Just one. Doesn't have to be crazy. Could be small, and in fact, ooh, let me say this.

Particularly when you're starting out, even with a big, hairy, audacious goal, our minds resist change. Our minds want you exactly where you are today. Why? Because you're alive.

We've talked about this a bajillion times. Your heart is pumping, the blood is, is flowing, your lungs are moving in and out, Your brain's one job is to keep you alive, and right now you're alive. So when you start making changes, your brain shall freak out a little bit. It's just what brains do.

And so the step that you are gonna, the action that you're gonna take this week, I want it to be as small as possible while still making forward progress towards your goal. Make it a nothing burger, even if you have a big, hairy, audacious goal. Why? Because you want your brain to associate progress towards your goal with, "Yeah, totally normal.

I can do it." You want your brain to think that progress toward this goal is safe and something it's used to, and not in any way threatening And then your next action step, a bit of a nothing burger too, right? You start to build some momentum, and then because you're putting your intention toward the goal and you're taking action that you know is toward the goal, even if it's easy to start with, then that reticular activating system, that part of your brain that sorts for patterns, again, always to keep you alive, it's gonna start associating progress toward the goal with the regular rhythm of life, and it's gonna start searching for opportunities to make progress toward the goal.

'Cause that RAS filters out millions of bits of information every second to focus on the things that it thinks that you need for survival. And the more you take those small steps towards your goal, the more your RAS, that reticular activating system, is gonna associate progress toward the goal with your survival. Okay? So easy steps to begin with, and then as you start to get some momentum, you get those early wins, then you can start doing more challenging actions.

But again, reach out. We can schedule a time for a, a complimentary one-hour coaching call. We can talk through your specific goals. Or if you would like, the Success Blueprint is there.

It's a little mini course with lots of videos and handouts to kind of walk you through the broader goal-setting process. Shoot me a DM and let me know what is the goal or the goals that you are focusing on for the next six months through the rest of 2026. I would love to learn what you guys are focused on. That always brings me a lot of joy.

Now, I hope you'll join me next week when we are gonna talk about seven leadership red flags. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you've identified your growth area for the next quarter. I hope you have enjoyed today's episode. I would love for you to share it with a friend.

We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. And if you haven't already, please make sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss next week's drop. And if you're not on my newsletter, The Confidence Edit, what are you doing? Check out the link in the show notes and join.

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