2020 Mid-Year Check-In - Certifiably Financial

3 minute read

We’re halfway through a crazy year. In normal times, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of life and not pay attention to your personal finances. It’s been much easier to do that this year with everything that we’ve been facing. Ideally, you’ve been monitoring and tracking your progress towards your financial goals on a consistent basis throughout the year. If you have, then this may be a good time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. If you haven’t then this is a great opportunity to start.

Revisit Your Goals

Halfway through the year is a great time to revisit your financial goals and take some time to be intentional and proactive with your money. If you went through the exercise of writing down your financial goals at the beginning of the year I think that there are plenty of questions that you can ask yourself now to help reflect.

Are those even still your goals? If they are, then are you on the path to achieve them? Should you create loftier stretch goals? If you’re not on track to achieve them, then what needs to change?

If these aren’t your goals any longer, then you owe it to yourself to write down some new ones. It’s important to actually write your goals down and keep them in a place where you can see them daily. This can help to force yourself to stay focused and disciplined when life starts leading you down a different path.

Take Control Of Your Money

In 2020, some people have experienced financial hardship due to the pandemic. For some, the pandemic has made things worse than they already were. That’s terrible. This is obviously something that is out of our control and those people should focus on making sure that their basic needs are met. I understand that what you’re about to read below comes from a place of privilege and definitely isn’t practical for everybody.

The fortunate have experienced financial gain from spending less on going out to restaurants and bars and on gas while they work from home. If you’re in this category, or even if you have only been affected slightly negatively by the pandemic or not at all, then I think that you owe it to yourself to take control of your money. Re-read the paragraph above and take some time to think about how fortunate you are.

It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to take control of your money.

At the end of this article there is a list of past blogs that I’ve written which should help with the “how” of being more intentional and taking control of your money.

Money Is A Tool

Money is a powerful tool and you get to choose how you want to use it, if you’re on the fortunate side of things. You can sit on the sidelines and let it control you, or you can get in the game, take control of it, and make it work for you the way that you want it to.

Be purposeful with your money. No, money isn’t everything, but it is important. And it helps you do a lot of things that can include building a better future for yourself and for others who are less fortunate as well. If you have goals that you really want to achieve that you review regularly then you’ll be more likely to be purposeful with your money so that you’ll reach those goals.

Reflect, Reset, Refresh

If your mid-year check-in shows you that you’re on track to reach your goals, then acknowledge it and reward yourself and potentially even set your goals higher. Consider creating stretch goals that challenge you even further.

If you’re not on track to reach your goals, then take this time to reset, refresh, and get yourself in a better mental place going forward. Having too much stress and pressure isn’t going to help anything.

If you have trouble sticking to goals like most people (and even if you don’t) I recommend reading the book Atomic Habits. If you have read my blog at all in 2020, then you know this is something that I’ve harped on all year. I think that the two taglines/subtitles on the front of the book provide a pretty good summary of what you need to know about it: “Tiny changes, remarkable results”, “An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones”.

Below are some resources that I think should help setting financial goals and tracking your progress towards reaching them through the rest of the year.