7 Tips For A Mid-Year Career Review

 Susan Heathfield of About.com says a mid-year review of your professional and personal career goals can help you refocus your energies and establish new mini-goals to advance them.  According to Heathfield, whether your career looks like an amusement park, or you might feel like you're stuck in a line that's barely moving, or maybe you feel you rode one roller coaster only to see the other rides (goals) differently.

Whatever you review reveals, what can you do in the second half of this year to move closer to your goals be they looking for a new employer, launching a side business or landing a new client?  Good Question. Here’s Heathfield’s and About.com’s 7 good answers.

1. Write down your goals
"When you write them down, you are committing" to them, Heathfield said. Without a written record of them, "you sort of let yourself off the hook."

2. Clarify what you really want.
Take time to consider what really matters and what is not so important, six months later. Decide which goals you could abandon and which ones are crucial. Pick a No. 1 and No. 2 goal and start visualizing what success would look like when you achieve them.

3. Measure what you've accomplished so far.
Count the number of networking events you've attended. Go back and see how many letters of praise you've received (and how many of those have been forwarded to your boss). How many blog posts have you written, or have ready to post when you launch? How many potential clients have you approached? What else have you accomplished that wasn't on your official list? Write down your stats and status updates.

4. Break down your top priorities into small parts.
Some people find it helpful to put a weekly reminder on their calendar to check on their goal or to move it forward, said Heathfield. Others like clear action steps mapped out or written into a file.

5. Uncover your motivations.
Sometimes we forget the real reasons we want a promotion or a new client. If those are the means to a beautiful honeymoon or a way to pay for your kid brother's college costs, make that emotional connection clear to yourself again.

6. Reward yourself.
If you've achieved one of your goals, it's time to celebrate. And a Facebook post does not really equal a celebration. Go out for a sundae or take your goal buddy out for an afternoon of jet-skiing.

7. Take a break.
"Think about other things that are important in life," she said. You can become burned out if you have applied for jobs non-stop while working full time. So give yourself a week away to savor summer, friends, recreation, life. That will help recharge your batteries – and make it easier to reconnect to your goals.