How are you entering the second half?

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.

Do you need a ‘think break’?

Have you been hit by ‘bank holidayitis’ – that strange limbo-land normal life simply can’t penetrate? Have you been buried under a mountain of chocolate and family gatherings, abandoning all hope of keeping to your routine? I have: daily power walk: gone. 10 minutes ironing every day: gone. Book-writing: gone. Front, side and one-legged planks: well they definitely went.

Why? I stepped back. For four days I was in that wonderful world where I didn’t have to do accounts with one hand, spag bol with the other, while keeping one eye on orders and the other on the time.

Yes Easter has been a time to switch off the routine and indulge ever so slightly more in all that I love: family and friends, fizz and chocolate. And stepping back from it all is good for you. Being ‘away’ gives us space to think and pay attention to the stuff outside our day-to-day doings. Stepping back gives us a different perspective, the space to lift up our heads and view the horizon. And when we see the bigger picture we set our sights differently from when we’re immersed in the flurry of our daily hurry.

Many of us have lives that are casualties of too many demands on our time and energy. In the face of this it can be hard to see – or even care – if our daily activity is moving us forward to where we want to be in life or keeping us concreted firmly in the same place.

If this resonates with you and you feel you’re too busy running the gauntlet of everyday to have time to consider what’s next, then it could be time to take a ‘think break’. And whether you plan a weekend away to walk along a windswept beach and let your mind soar or simply arrange to get the kids out of the house for a couple of hours, you deserve to have that time to stop and check your pulse. If it’s thud, thudding in time with the drudge of monotony, then how are you going to get it racing in anticipation of your next exciting project?

Here are three kick-starters:

1. If you’ve lost sight of – or perhaps never had sight of – what will get your heart racing (allowable heartthrobs excepted) then focus on your passions. If you could get up tomorrow and spend the day doing whatever you like, what would it be? Shopping? Maybe you’re a budding fashionista. Eating? Maybe you’re a gourmet cook in the making. Reading? Maybe there’s a researcher in you just trying to break out. Look at what you love doing and it’s a good starting point for letting yourself explore how that could translate into what you’ll love doing!
2. Who has the life you love? It could be the woman down the street who has retired at the age of 38 and lives on less money, but does more with her time. It could be a colleague who seems to have so much more confidence than you and always gets heard in meetings. It could be someone famous who has made their dreams come true. Learning from other people on how they did it is a great place to start. Read your idol’s biography, talk to your colleague and pick their brains, have a coffee with the woman down the road and find out how she managed to break free.
3. Make an action plan. Break it down into small, achievable tasks and give yourself realistic deadlines. Find out what help you’ll need to complete each task and plan in some proper time to get cracking. If you’re after a big life move, like changing careers, relocating or starting a business, you’ll need to take it in stages. If it’s a simpler approach of introducing nice things into your life, identify what it is and just do it. And if you need help, hire a life coach, ask a colleague to mentor you or ask a friend to be your nagging buddy.

But whatever you do: it’s your life : live it!