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This post is based on an episode of The Glow Up Guide Podcast. Press play below to listen, or keep scrolling to read the full article.
Welcome!
You don’t need January again. You need to lock in.
I’m not the only person who feels like we were celebrating New Year’s yesterday. Now it’s July, and we have just six months left to make our dreams a reality this year.
Maybe the first half of your year went exactly as you hoped. If so, keep that momentum going.
Or maybe you blinked and it’s July. I promise you, the feeling is so much more normal than you think.
Step One: Reflect Before You Reset
Most people skip this step because they’re so focused on everything they haven’t accomplished yet.
Reflecting on the past six months will help you move into the next six months with more clarity and motivation.
Reflection Prompts
What are you proud of?
Start by thinking about what you’re proud of from the past six months.
Maybe you built a new habit and worked really hard on that. Or maybe you stepped outside your comfort zone and tried something new.
Big or small, every bit of progress counts.
What didn’t go as expected?
There may have been some goals you just abandoned. Or maybe you wanted to learn a new skill, but every time you sat down to do some work, you ended up scrolling.
Things don’t always go as planned. That’s okay. A lot can change in six months, and even more can change in the next six.
What did I learn about myself?
Think about what you learned about yourself this year. You might be surprised by the answers.
Maybe you learned that you need more structure in your life to get things done.
Maybe you realized you felt exhausted all the time because you were overcommitting.
Or maybe it’s the same old reason. Things changed. You changed, your goals changed. Things just changed.
Step Two: Revisit Your Goals (Without the Guilt)
Too many people treat their goals like promises that can never change.
But the reality is that your goals should evolve as you do. They grow with you.
Pull out your lists and vision board and sort them into three categories.
Keep
This is the first category: the goals that still matter to you and still excite you.
Ask yourself: Does this goal still matter? Would achieving it actually improve your life?
Change
These are the goals that need adjusting.
You might need to make them smaller scale to work with the six-month timeline you have now.
Maybe you just realized something is way out of reach and want to make it more realistic.
Changing a goal isn’t failing.
Let Go
There may have been a few things you were super excited about at the start of the year that just feel like chores to think about now.
Letting go of these goals is not failing. When you decide to let go of the things that no longer fit, you’re making a lot more space in your life for what actually matters to you.
The energy you would have spent on things that no longer matter can now be invested in the things that truly make you light up.
Step Three: Reset Your Daily Life
I once read that around 40% of what we do every day comes from habits. That’s a huge portion of your day.
If those habits are good, your life will improve. If they aren’t, they’ll hold you back.
Reset Your Space
There’s a reason people say, “A clean space leads to a clear mind.”
Your environment has a much more important role in your mindset than you think.
Try deep cleaning your space twice a year: once in January and once in July during your mid-year reset.
By deep cleaning, I don’t just mean picking up the papers and dusting stuff off. Actually go through everything and deep clean your space.
We all have so much junk we probably don’t need. I have old clothes I need to get rid of. You probably do too. Take some time and get rid of things that no longer serve you.
Reset Your Digital Life
Our digital spaces deserve the same attention as our physical ones.
Take some time to make sure your digital space keeps serving you too. Go through old photos, organize your notes app, and unfollow the accounts that bring bad vibes.
Make your digital space one you want to be in.
Step Four: Create a Plan You’ll Actually Stick To
Visualize Where You’re Going
Visualization is powerful. It’s much easier to stay motivated when you can see what you are working towards.
You can print out cute photos to make a physical vision board, or you can make a digital one in Canva.
Keep your vision board somewhere where you will actually see it every day. That constant reminder makes it much easier to stay focused on what you’re working towards.
Break Big Goals Into Small Ones
Everyone always says they want to “get fit” or “save money” or “read more”. Those aren’t plans. Those are final destinations.
Goals aren’t enough.
You don’t just get in a car and drive. You put something into a GPS and it tells you how to get there. The same concept applies to any goal you want to achieve.
Those huge end goals become a lot less scary when you stop looking at the finish line and focus on baby steps.
Build Goals Around Your Identity
When people set goals, they usually focus on what they want to do instead of who they want to become.
Instead of saying you want to read more, say you want to become a reader. Instead of saying you want better grades, say you want to become a straight A student. Reframe it like that.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. The more you act like that person now, the easier those habits will become.
That shift in identity is a huge part of what an internal glow up actually looks like, because lasting habits start with changing the way you think about yourself.
Give Yourself Deadlines
You can dream all you want, but dreams without deadlines will always stay dreams.
Don’t just say you are going to organize your room because it’s probably going to keep getting pushed to “later”. Tell yourself you’re going to do it by July 15.
It’s as simple as that, but you’re ten times more likely to do the second one.
Another key thing to remember is to take big deadlines and break them down into smaller ones. Your big deadline is probably the end of the year.
Break big deadlines into monthly, weekly, and daily checkpoints.
Step Five: How to Stay Consistent When Motivation Fades
You might feel really motivated after reading this blog post. Everyone feels motivated after listening to a podcast or watching a youtube video.
Now let’s see if that motivation is still there two weeks later. Motivation is one of the most fickle things to exist. It fades faster than it happens. That’s perfectly normal.
But there is a way to keep doing great things even without motivation.
Find Your Biggest Time Wasters
Time is your most valuable and most limited resource. Money can be earned back.
Time can’t.
Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Maybe it’s doomscrolling. Maybe it’s binge watching TV. Maybe it’s procrastination.
If your phone has become more distracting than helpful, my 5 digital detox strategies that actually worked for me can help you create healthier screen habits without giving up technology completely.
This isn’t meant for you to shame yourself and feel bad. Just become more aware of where your time is actually going. The first step to real change is awareness.
The Twenty Second Rule
The 20 second rule is almost exactly as it sounds. It’s about making things you want to do either 20 seconds easier or 20 seconds harder.
If you’re trying to build a good habit, let’s say going to the gym in the mornings, make it easier to do by laying your clothes out the night before, packing a bag, and finding your shoes.
If you’re trying to break a bad habit, like constant scrolling, make it harder to do by turning off notifications, using screen time limits, and deleting apps.
Twenty seconds doesn’t sound like much.
But those twenty seconds can make the difference.
Don’t Chase Perfection
You’re going to have off days.
You’re going to miss workouts.
Forget about habits.
That’s okay.
What matters isn’t whether you fall down.
What matters is whether you get back up.
Conclusion
Earlier I said it feels like we were celebrating new year’s yesterday.
That’s because time moves whether we’re ready or not.
Six months from now, you’ll probably wonder where the rest of the year went.
You don’t need to change your entire life today.
Take the first step.
The second half of the year is still yours to write.
Image Credits
- Hero image — Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Pexels.
- Reset Your Daily Life — Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.
- Reset Your Space — Photo by rtb3 Photography on Pexels.
- Reset Your Digital Life — Photo by Om Thakkar on Pexels.
- Time Management — Photo by Deni Chandra on Pexels.
- Vision Board & Goals — Photo by Melody Ganjian on Pexels.
- Planning Section — Photo by Kiersten Williams on Pexels.
- Deadlines Section— Photo by Karina Kholina on Pexels.
Original journaling photograph by Saadya Bojja.