2025 Goals: Mid-Year Review

Now is the time to reflect and revise your goals for the year

Jun 28, 2025

In the corporate world, employees are accustomed to having an annual performance review with their boss. Some dread this event. Those “crushing it” look forward to the meeting knowing that the review is a precursor to a potential promotion and pay increase. Only the seriously foolish wait a whole year between reviews to check in with their manager. A simple, “How am I doing? Or, better yet, “What could I be doing to bring the most value and get to the next level?” would provide a road map that can be turned into higher pay. Be open to the feedback, write it down, then do what is asked.

I’ve performed hundreds of annual performance reviews over the years and considered it a personal failure if any of my employees were surprised (good or bad) during their review but that’s not the norm from what I’ve seen of most managers. Whether professionally or personally, we must check in on a regular basis to make sure we are on track.

In our personal lives, we should hold ourselves accountable for our performance. This is especially true for the things we tell ourselves we want most in life. That is why I highly encourage people to create goals on an annual basis, write them down, review progress regularly, honestly and objectively to track progress. My goals have prime placement inside the front cover of my journal. I look at them weekly to remind myself of the commitments I’ve made to myself and make sure I’m on track. I also like doing a more formal mid-year review to assess progress, update goals where needed and make sure there is a solid plan for meeting each goal.

I’ll go through the self-assessment here so you can see the sausage making step by step which should help you with your own goals. If you don’t have goals yet, read this and this.

Assuming you have goals already and you have done some activity to achieve them, today we will focus on assessing and adjusting.

Here are my 2025 goals as originally presented back in January.

Travel to Japan and hike Mt Fuji
Swim well. Swim 750m using Total Immersion technique without stopping
Do my first Triathlon; Sprint Distance (750m swim, 5k run, 17 mi bike ride)
Learn to Draw: self portrait recognizable as me
Attend Telluride Bluegrass Festival and explore local area
Skeletal Muscle > 42%, Body Fat <=13%
Increase monthly passive income by $1,000
Read >= 12 books
Launch consulting website, continue working at self-imposed capacity (20hrs/wk) for a great company
Cook at least one family dinner per week
Take kids on first backpacking trip of >3 miles
Hike >= 3 14ers (mountains > 14,000 ft elevation)
Do 1 Epic backpacking trip of at least 4 nights with friends

Goal Mid-Year Assessment

To track progress for goals, simply add a note to each one as shown below. Either you have completed the goal, its on track or its off track:

Travel to Japan and hike Mt Fuji - On Track. Trip underway, hut on Fuji booked.
Swim well. Swim 750m using Total Immersion technique without stopping - Complete - able to swim 1km without stopping! No celebration.
Do my first Triathlon; Sprint Distance (750m swim, 5k run, 17 mi bike ride) - Complete. Finished in 1hr45min. Celebrated by binge watching Season 2 of The Last of Us and eating a pint of Salted Cookies and Cream ice cream.
Learn to Draw: self portrait recognizable as me - Little progress. Replace goal.
Attend Telluride Bluegrass Festival and explore local area - Complete. The festival itself was the celebration!
Skeletal Muscle > 42%, Body Fat <=13% - Close but not on track. Hover around 41.5% and 13.8%. Need to reassess and revise my eating.
Increase monthly passive income by $1,000 - Slightly off track. Passive increased by ~$400/mo.
Read >= 12 books. On track. 9 books read so far.
Launch consulting website, continue working at self-imposed capacity (20hrs/wk) for a great company. On track. Website launch complete. Work for great company ongoing.
Cook at least one family dinner per week. Off track. At risk! Doing ~1/month.
Take kids on first backpacking trip of >3 miles. On track. Permits in hand for Aug trip.
Hike >= 3 14ers (mountains > 14,000 ft elevation). On track. Will begin hiking 1-2 times/wk at elevation in prep for doing this Aug-Nov.
Do 1 Epic backpacking trip of at least 4 nights with friends. On track. Permits for trips in Indian Peak wilderness and to Mt McKinley in Oct (also a 14er) in hand.

For those keeping score, we are half-way through the year and I’ve completed 3 of my 13 goals. 6 are on track so we won’t worry about those. 4 are off track with 1 of the 4 at risk so those are the goals to focus on in the self-assessment.

Off-Track Goals

When goals are off-track, try to diagnose what is going wrong and where you might be able to adjust to get back on track. In project management this is called a recovery plan. By doing a mid-year review, you should have plenty of time left in the year to assess what’s going wrong and put your recovery plan in place to accomplish your goal. I further label off-track goals as “at risk” if I consider there to be a high probability of failure.

Learn to Draw: self portrait recognizable as me - Little progress. Replace goal.

I’ve spent about 5 hours working on this goal and while its still something I want to learn, I haven’t been prioritizing it and don’t foresee being inspired to spend time on it during the 2nd half of this year. Meanwhile, I feel strongly that I need to get my arms around AI both personally and professionally and think that justifies replacing this goal with one that has to do with AI. I’ll hash out this goal in a future post.

Skeletal Muscle > 42%, Body Fat <=13% - Close but not on track. Hover around 41.5% and 13.8%. Need to reassess and revise my eating.

I’ve been consistently working out multiple times per week all year; at least 3 times cardio and 3 times on weights each week. I’m probably stronger than I’ve ever been and am still making gains…albeit slowly. I did much better than I had hoped in my first triathlon which shows a strong level of fitness. I eat pretty healthy. And yet, I’m not quite there with muscle and body fat. They say 90% of body composition is how you eat and given my sweet tooth, there is plenty of room for gains in this area. My recovery plan is to bring more discipline to my eating, workouts and update both behaviors based on self-education as follows:

Prepare an eating plan which cuts down on sugars, carbs and ice cream,
Add 1 more weight lifting session each week focusing on legs and/or do a bike ride or hike that includes consistent uphill,
Re-read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, read Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, read and potentially take The One Year Challenge for Men and adjust workout and eating routines based on what I learn.

Need to reassess this goal in September after recovery plan has been put in place to make sure I'm seeing the expected results.

Increase monthly passive income by $1,000 - Slightly off track. Passive increased by ~$400/mo.

During the second half of the year I plan to move money from non-dividend paying stocks to dividend paying stocks, move some savings to higher interest-rate CDs and raise rent slightly on a rental property. This should get me back on track.

Cook at least one family dinner per week. Off track. At risk! Doing ~1/month.

I honestly hate this goal. I’m failing miserably and I’m miserable while failing. If I keep going as I have been, I will definitely not complete this goal. I thought I’d find some joy making meals. I haven’t. There is always something I’d rather be doing; digging holes, painting, scrubbing toilets, you get the idea. Unfortunately, this goal also hits on my intention to “Be a better husband. Cook for family, spend quality time with kids and spouse.” Well, I have the quality time with kids and spouse down but if being a better husband means I cook for my family…welp, I’m to a better husband as soggy peas are to a nutritious meal. Are they even trying or just making everything worse by their mere presence?

Clearly, I need help here as I am far into victim territory and to paraphrase one of the greatest bands of all time, I need to, “take the power back.” So, in alignment with my new AI goal, and because we all have to do things we don’t want to from time to time, I asked ChatGPT what I should do:

ChatGPT went on to give me these strategies:

Step 1: Get Clear on the "Why"

Ask: Why do I have to do this?
Even if it’s unpleasant, there’s usually a reason: responsibility, long-term goal, avoiding a worse outcome.
If the task aligns with your values or future goals (even indirectly), reframing it that way can help.

Step 2: Minimize the Pain

Break it into chunks. Small steps reduce overwhelm.
Time-box it. Set a timer (e.g., 25 minutes). Just start—momentum helps.
Pair it with something enjoyable. Music, a podcast, or a small reward afterward.

Step 3: Shift Your Mindset

Instead of “I have to do this,” try:

“I’m choosing to do this because ____.”

This subtle change restores your agency, which can reduce internal resistance.

Step 4: Consider Alternatives

Is this task truly necessary?
Could you delegate, postpone, or eliminate it?
If not, accept that doing hard or boring things is part of being effective and mature. Sometimes, that’s enough of a reason.

Step 5: Reflect Afterward

Ask: Was it as bad as I thought?
You’ll often find the dread was worse than the task.
Noting that can reduce future resistance.

Hey ChatGPT, not bad advice. Here are my answers:

Step 1: Get Clear on the "Why. "Why do I have to do this?
- Because I want to take some of this burden off my wife and I committed to trying. More importantly, I would feel great if I had a few signature dishes.
Step 2: Minimize the Pain. Pair it with something enjoyable.
- Good idea. I’ll pick some meals that can be prepared in bulk which I can make and freeze such as enchiladas while listening to music from the country of origin, in this case, Kevin Kaarl. Even better if I combine it with a delicious cocktail or drink from said country.
Step 3: Shift Your Mindset. Instead of “I have to do this,” try: “I’m choosing to do this because ____.”
- I’m choosing to do this because I want to become a better cook, control what goes into my meals, help my wife with household duties and to show my 2 girls that both genders are responsible for cooking.
Step 4: Consider Alternatives. Is this task truly necessary?
- Unfortunately, yes. Unlike AI, humans need to eat so preparing food seems like a good thing for human competence. I could consider doing a service where they send all the ingredients with recipes to my doorstep in giant boxes with lots of dry ice but I’m too environmentally minded and frugal for that.

Upon further reflection on this goal, I realize I don’t like how its written since its way too strict; miss a single week and I’ve failed at the goal. In that case I’ve already failed. However, I don’t want to be off the hook. I never actually expected to make a meal every week out of the year, I just want to contribute more and become a better cook in the process. Given this I will rewrite the goal as: Cook 2-4 family meals per month and at least 36 meals during the year.

Celebrating Completed Goals

Some will say that every goal achieved deserves a celebration. I don’t say this. You can be on cloud 9 all week from completing a goal and that’s good enough for me. The key is to reflect and be proud or to celebrate in the moment. What you shouldn’t do is downplay what was just accomplished and quickly move on to the next thing. All goals seem easier once done.

Now that I know how to swim 1/2 mile without drowning, it seems very doable but when I set the goal, I would have drown attempting it on that very day. I didn’t celebrate when I met my swimming goal; after 8 months of going to the pool at least twice per week in all types of weather, I was just proud and relieved to know that I had met the goal which was a pre-cursor, a stepping stone if you will, to a bigger goal; completing my first triathlon. I saved the celebration until after completing the tri. How? I binge watched a tv show while taking down a pint of my favorite ice cream; something I never do. It was glorious!

More importantly, in both swimming and training for the tri, I loved the discipline it created in my life, the routine and the level of fitness I maintained. The tri was the stated goal but the process is what brought me the most satisfaction.

Mid-Year Review Conclusion

A good goal review results in knowing exactly where you stand in accomplishing your goals and a plan in place for all the goals that are off track and especially those that are at risk. This is only possible if the goals were written in a way where you can objectively assess them. Doing a mid-year review will help you determine if you need to rewrite goals or abandon some to focus on what’s most important to you now. Don’t let the you of 6 months ago dictate your life today if they no longer matter but also don’t kill off goals that matter because you don’t want to admit that you might fail to achieve them. Keep them and keep working at them.

By spending the time to write down and track your personal goals, you’ll get much more proficient in preparing professional goals. Both activities will lead you to get more of what you want in life and are worth the time, thought and reflection. Now get out there and DO THE WORK to crush your goals and get everything you want in life!

Like what you just read, disagree with anything or want to add your own advice?

Jared’s Weekly Wisdumb

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