I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year. I feel like time has just flown by in 2025 (and if you’re in the U.S., not in the best of ways).
For those of you who know me, I am a planner girlie to my core, and I always do an annual and a mid-year guided reflection. This year, I figured I’d share some of my reflection questions with all of you.
Enjoy!
The Setup: Find a location where you feel inspired and where you can work uninterrupted for an hour. Put your phone on DND, get yourself a beverage of choice, and use pen/paper if you are able. I prefer listening to instrumental music (the Bridgerton Soundtrack is currently a favorite) or put on some noise cancelling headphones.
Review the goals that you’ve set for yourself for the year. If you didn’t set any goals, go through your calendar and mark down important milestones.
What have you accomplished?
Take a moment to meditate here: what is your definition of accomplishment? Of happiness in 2025? Have you lost sight of it based on your list? Do you want to recalibrate for the rest of the year?
What goals are in progress?
What do you still hope to accomplish (based on your refreshed definition of accomplishment)?
Scroll through your phone or your social media feed to review experiences. You can use your calendar for this one, too. Create either a list, or free write.
What experiences brought you joy?
What experiences were learning moments?
What did you miss out on because of fear?
What experiences did you pursue despite your fear?
Set some new intentions for the rest of the year.
“I want to live my life with abundance. This is how it will look like:”
“I want to pursue joy. This is how it will look like:”
I want to create meaningful connections. This is how it will look like:”
But also, look at your goals, or establish new ones that fall into 4 categories. Career, Cash, Community, Culture.What are your career projects you want to accomplish?
What savings goals/debt repayment goals do you have, and what are some steps you plan on taking to meet those goals?
How are you going to serve and support your community? Does this mean setting phone reminders to call your parents more often, or volunteering at your local food pantry?
And what are you doing to feed your soul, your mind, and your heart from a culture perspective? My readers! Break out those TBRs!
Here’s what my 4 C’s generally looks like when I’m done with my draft.
SOME MORE THOUGHTS:What are you looking forward to? (free-write a response)
Eat the frog first thing in the morning (this is what that means)
Block out your calendar! (I am a huge proponent of time blocking. It’s okay to be unavailable to everyone but yourself)
LASTLY. The audit.
Clean out your inboxes as best as you can, or organize your content in folders. I am a huge proponent of Inbox Zero.
Refresh your planner if it’s not serving you.
Do a house deep clean if you haven’t already. This includes emptying out your closet to donate clothes, making a list of chores that you’ve been neglecting and trying to tackle one every weekend, and deep cleaning your fridge. IMO, if you have the financial means (or a very involved parent who LOVES this stuff, ask for help).
Delete your voice mails, organize your cloud drive, and back up files. Make sure your desktop doesn’t look like a toddler was messing with it.
If this last one stresses you out, skip it. I used to skip it all the time when I was a broke law student working 3 jobs, so trust me, I get it. But take a look at your money, and pay off any smaller debt if you can. Refresh savings goals and start to think about bigger expenses during the holidays. Use a cash envelope system if that may work better for you.
The key to effective mid-year reviews is to set aside what you wrote for a day or two, then go back and revisit it. Add anything you feel like you missed, and then do a ‘rewrite.’ Take all your work and try to condense it to a short page of notes. For example, this how mine usually turns out:
Goals
Intentions
To-Dos
I hope some of this is helpful in reassessing your 2025. If you are not a goals person, and this is overwhelming then don’t worry about it! But I hope you stuck around to see some of the information below.
Have an awesome week/weekend, Besties
XoXo, Nisha
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Lastly, ILLUSIONS OF FIRE comes out October 7! If you’re a Buffy and Percy Jackson fan, this book is for you. Pre-orders include custom art work, and tour information is forthcoming!
SteamyLit Con attendees! I’ll be at the Forced Proximity event with authors like Kennedy Ryan, Ali Hazelwood, Elizabeth Stephens, Julie Soto, Susan Lee and more. If you have the funds, come check us out!
And if you’re going to be at SteamyLit Con, I’ll have copies of Illusions of Fire for purchase (but it helps way more if you pre-order, friends) as well as a ghost romance - as long as printing happens fast enough! You can check out other pre-order information here.