54. Reflecting on the First Half of 2024: Journal Questions for SLPs

When's the last time you did a check-in on your goals? How about the last time you actually paused to celebrate one of your accomplishments? I'm willing to bet it's been a while. In today's episode, I'm guiding you through a mid-year reflection to assess your progress and set goals for the second half of 2024. Regardless of when you're listening to this episode, this is the reset you need to recognize all that you've tackled so far and get clear on what you want else you're going to accomplish in the future. 

Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Mid-Year Reflection
00:05:30 - Reflecting on Accomplishments
00:09:21 - Planning for the Remainder of the Year
00:13:31 - Course Correcting Goals
00:14:03 - Time Management Evaluation

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Transcript

This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name's Theresa Harp, and as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnout, and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in. 

Hello, SLPs. Welcome to another episode of the Your Speech Path Podcast. I am going to be sharing with you today some sample journal questions…just sort of check-in reflection type questions for all of you to think about because as this episode is being released, it is the very beginning of the second half of 2024. And if you were here for last week's episode, if you listened to that episode, you might have heard me mention an upcoming episode about systems. I actually misspoke and I just wanted to address that. That episode that I've recorded for you about some sample systems for SLPs is scheduled to be released, I think it will be on July, I think it would be Tuesday, July 9th, if I'm not mistaken, and this episode that you're listening to is scheduled to be released on July 2nd. So I wanted to make sure that I got this one in at that sort of halfway mark of the year because I don't know about you, but if you are If you are anything like me, you may sort of be scratching your head thinking, how is it possible that it's already July and where has the time gone, right? Super cliche, but that's just how things have been feeling for me. That's what I've been hearing clients say in sessions and this is a perfect opportunity for you to check in, see what is working well for you so far in 2024 and really dial in what you want your focus to be for the remainder of the year. And I wanted to give you some very quick, actionable questions that you can ask yourself to help you do just that. So that's what we're going to be doing in today's episode.

So the way that I like to do this is to start first and foremost with reflection. And some of you might be able to do this just sort of on your own as you sort of think back and reflect on these past six months. Others might need a little bit more of direction or a little bit more of a narrowed focus. And so what I would invite you to do first, if that's you, is to look at what If anything, you had intended for the beginning of this year, right? So at the start of the year or at the end of 2023, what goals, what vision did you have for 2024? Now that might mean you need to go back and look at, or I don't know how each of you sort of keep track of these things, whether you keep them written, do you have them in a journal, do you have them in a, you know, doc, Google Doc, or some sort of document on your computer. Do you have something in your, like a vision board or hanging in your office? Whatever that looks like for you, right? And if you didn't have any sort of vision or focus for the beginning of the year, that's fine, right? Then that, what I would do is start with reflecting on these past six months. Okay. But for those who maybe did have a very clear outline of what you wanted to accomplish, start by checking in with that. Where are you with that? Okay.

So the very first question that I would invite you to answer is what did I, the first question, okay, what did I set out to accomplish in 2024 and specifically within the first six months? And what have I accomplished within these first six months? Okay, so looking at what did you plan to do if you did plan something? What were your goals? And what's the reality, right? What actually did you accomplish? Another version of this question, if this lands a little bit better for you, would be in reflecting on these past six months, what have I achieved so far? And I want to offer that when I say “achieve,” I want to encourage you to think broadly about that word. Achieve doesn't necessarily need to mean an accomplishment, something that you've earned or something that a milestone or something that you got done, a project that you finished, or, you know, a certain number of clients that you now work with, or, you know, maybe it's a certain number of a certain amount of revenue in your private practice or whatever, right? It could be that, but it could also be a little bit more qualitative, a little bit broad. So it could look like, you know, spending more time, more quality time with my children or establishing a morning routine or making movement a part of my everyday or weekly schedule. Right? So you get to decide what constitutes an accomplishment or not. 

Okay? And think about that. Really think about that in a way that's going to support you. All of this today is meant to be done in a way that supports your growth. This is not about you looking back and shaming yourself and identifying all the ways that you fell short. I mean, trust me, when I look at what I had set out to accomplish and really what my sort of focuses were for 2024. So much of that just did not happen for a number of reasons. And then there were other things that did happen that weren't even on my radar. Okay. Which brings me to the next question. In, you know, regardless of what you had intended for this year, what are you most proud of so far? Okay, so what have you accomplished or what have you changed that you are proud of that maybe you didn't actually set out to tackle? Okay, maybe it wasn't on your radar at the beginning of this year or at the end of last year and that's okay too.

Alright, the next question I have for you is are there any goals, and really I should rephrase this too, what goals have you not yet accomplished and why? Okay, and again, this is from a place of support. This is from a place of encouragement, not from a place of, hey, you've fallen short. Okay, so what, if anything, on your plan, what was on your plan for the year that you did not yet accomplish and why? And be honest with yourself when you answer those questions. So making excuses for reasons why something didn't get done or giving shallow, surface level reasons for why stuff didn't get done, that's not doing anyone any favors. It's not going to help you. It's not going to help your clients. It's not going to help anyone. So just being really honest with yourself, right?

So for example, for me, I had set out to have a certain number of coaching clients per week. Have I hit that goal yet so far? No, I haven't. And so when I had to answer this question for myself, why? Why do I think that is? I had to get really honest because if I could give a sort of, you know, answer that feels feels good or feels sort of like I can avoid taking responsibility. Like, oh, there's not enough time, right? Or, oh, there just isn't enough – I don't know. There's not enough – I started teaching another course and I didn't count on the amount of time and energy that that would take. Okay, well that might be true to some degree, but really truly, the reasons why I don't have the number of clients that I had intended to have at this point of the year would be x, y, z. And answering those questions for myself. Because that's the only way, by answering those questions honestly, that's the only way that I will then be able to course correct and start planning for the remainder of the year. And that's where we're headed next. 

Okay. So then the next question would be, what, if anything, do I want to change with regards to the remaining months of the year? So looking at what you had originally set out to accomplish, in 2024 and asking yourself, what am I going to change? Because at that point, I would imagine, when you've created your goals, your vision for the year, you didn't have all the information that you have now. And so we don't want to hold ourselves accountable, or we don't want to hold that against ourselves. And so what we can do now is say, now that we have the information we have, knowing what we know now, What, if anything, do we want to change for our vision for the remainder of the year? And if you didn't have a vision for the remainder of the year, then great. Blank slate. What do you want to accomplish in these next six months? Another version of this question is six months from now, what will you look back and feel incredibly proud that you have accomplished? Okay, what, looking back, so you're sort of imagining yourself six months from now, what will I feel really proud for having accomplished? And then you can use that answer to guide you. to provide an answer for this next question, which is, what am I focusing on for the next six months? Once you've answered that question, identify the sub-steps or the sub-goals. In order to achieve those goals or in order to focus my attention on those things, what specific steps do I have to accomplish? What you're breaking each thing down into smaller steps. And this is an opportunity where if you had, let's say, a revenue goal or you had a goal about, I don't know, I'm thinking about SLP-related goals, maybe something about being so far along in terms of your continuing ed hours, right? Maybe you wanted to be halfway through your obligation for the number of hours you need to complete this year. And let's say you are not. So look at how far are you from that mark, right? How far am I from where I thought I would be? And what do I need to readjust? How can I recalibrate these numbers or these benchmarks to still allow myself, if those things are important, right, if you decide that those things are still important to you, then how can I adjust the numbers or the benchmarks so that I can continue to work towards that goal, but maybe in a more realistic way? So maybe you had wanted to be halfway through the number of required CEUs you needed by this point of the year, and maybe you haven't even started. So how can you sort of tweak the goal in a way that's going to be realistic and still support you in the vision that you have. So yeah, maybe you need to then say, all right, I thought I was going to be halfway through. Like I thought I was going to have maybe 15 hours done by this point of the year and I don't. I have none. So that clearly either was unrealistic or I wasn't clear on or just didn't follow through with the actions needed. How am I going to course correct? Do I want to still try and meet the 100% of hours by the end of the year? If I have to, right, maybe you have no choice. So it's like, okay, well, now we have six months time to get done what we had wanted to get done in a whole year, right? Well, we had thought we had a whole year to get done. We now only have six months to get it done. So is that realistic? If it's necessary, how do we make it realistic? What's that going to look like? Okay, maybe that means an hour a week. It's added to your weekly plan. Maybe you go away for a weekend or you take two days and you're just immersing yourself and continuing it. I don't know. Not necessarily the way that I would do it, but whatever works for you, right? So kind of thinking about how you need to course correct. 

Okay. And then last but not least, and this is a question that is specific to time management. And this question is, what do I want to spend–there's actually two of them, so stay with me: What do I want to spend more time doing in the next six months? And what do I want to spend less time doing in the next six months? Okay? What do I want to spend more time doing and what do I want to spend less time doing? And check in with yourself about those questions because as you know, my value, right, is time. I have several core values, time being one of them. And I truly, truly believe that it is our most valuable resource. And when you start thinking about how you want to spend it, it can start making all of these other questions easier to answer. So what do I want to spend more time on in the next six months? And what do I want to spend less time on in these next six months? 

All right. That is it for today's episode. Short and sweet. If you are in the SLP Support Group, I will be sharing these questions in the group and would love to hear some of your feedback. If you're not in the group, make sure you pop into the group and join so you'll be able to join in the conversation there. And I will talk with you all next week for what will be our systems for the SLP episode. I will talk to you then.