We’ve peaked. We’re past the half-way point. The summer sale signs are being plastered up in shop windows and people are traipsing around in flip flops and strappy dresses resigned to the fact that if they don’t shiver their way around town now, their summer pastels may never see the light of day. And for anyone who hasn’t tried it, flip flops in the rain aren’t great.
So how are you entering the second half? Is it all to play for or game over?
Did you do it in the first half of 2012? Are you running around with your top over your head and your hands in the air? Or have you taken your eye off the ball and slunk onto the side lines?
Football analogies aside, this is for all of you who planned to do something differently in 2012. To write a book, start a business, change jobs, lose three stone, give up smoking, cut down on alcohol, save up for a new sofa, walk every day, revamp the house, do a cookery course and entertain more, start a college course, learn Spanish or go vegetarian. This isn’t about those fizz-filled resolutions you vaguely recall earnestly pledging at five past midnight on 1 January 2012. This is about plans. Real plans. Statements of intent and a real sense that THIS year it’s going to be different.
Because if this is ringing a bell with you and making you feel mildly guilty/useless/slightly narky and bringing lots of excuses to your lips, then ssshhhh. Don’t fret. There’s time to turn it around.
Start with the biggie. What do you want to have achieved by the end of 2012? Stretch yourself here, but don’t go mad. If it’s going to take a lottery win or a great-aunt you’ve never heard of to leave you a million for your plan to succeed, you may want to focus on taking some steps towards it rather than trying to go the whole hog.
Break your plan down into six monthly chunks. What can you achieve in July, August, September, November and December? Now break it down into weekly, then daily chunks. So if you want to make progress on writing your book, 500 words a day will be 3500 a week and suddenly by the end of the year you’ll have written 84,000 words – a bit better than the first half of 2012 maybe?
If you’re overwhelming desire was to lose two stone and you’ve been down and dirty with the diet of the decade, but still seem to be wobbling when you laugh, try cutting down on one thing and/or get a couple of power walks in a week. One pound a week lost between now and New Year’s Eve will see you drop almost two stone and this year’s party dress could be two sizes smaller than last year’s.
So we may be over the hump, but it doesn’t have to be all downhill from here. As Martin Luther King said, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Here’s to a great second half.
Mary Keeley 