Rev Up for the Rest of 2024!

We’re midway through 2024 and I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. It’s been a challenging six months, and I feel like I’m in the final stretch of a marathon I didn’t train for, praying for my legs to hold up.

Unlike New Year’s resolutions, EOFY goals aren’t born out of a relaxed holiday season with family and friends or wrapped in festive cheer.

We’re tired, our clients are tired, and our employees are tired.

Refocusing our goals might feel like just another task on our never-ending to-do list, but it can actually be a chance to pause, breathe, and figure out where we really need to spend our energy.

Think of this mid-year check-in as a pit stop in a F1 race. Even the fastest race cars and best drivers need to pause, refuel, and adjust as recommended by their team. Without it, they risk equipment malfunctioning and certain defeat. Similarly, taking a strategic pause now will ensure you’re in top shape to victoriously cross your 2024 finish line!

Reactivate

Taking a break lets us step away from our work and when we return, we’re pushed to think more strategically about our goals. Without a break, we lose perspective and easily get bogged down in the day-to-day.

Some helpful questions to reactivate your and your team’s thinking include:

• If we could accomplish only one goal from now until December, what would it be?
• When we think about working on this goal, do we get excited about it? If not, which parts are making us feel uninspired or anxious?
• Is this goal moving us closer to our overall vision, or are we getting caught up in what we think we ‘should’ be doing?

These questions will help you identify what really matters and enable you to communicate a very clear strategy to the team. Stop wasting time on goals you don’t care about.

Recharge

If the idea of taking a break makes you anxious, keep reading.

A well-known study found that judges were much more likely to grant parole after taking a break. The approval rate dropped dramatically from around 65% after a break to almost 0% after working for a few hours straight.

Without a break, the judges defaulted to the easiest decision: just saying no. Not a great outcome for the prisoners and definitely not a good outcome for your business!

Working without breaks can cause decision fatigue and impair your judgment. Think about how many decisions you make each day. What could go wrong if decision fatigue sets in?

Recognise

Constantly rushing from one task to the next leaves no time to review or celebrate our accomplishments.

Yes, employees can work without feeling accomplished, but it significantly affects the quality and quantity of their work.

Feeling a sense of completion is fundamental for everyone, and taking pride in our achievements gives us all a sense of progress.

This is especially important on the tougher days when we question why we should bother putting more effort into something we won’t see the end product anyway. Hard work needs recognition.

By acknowledging a job well done, you set the tone for your organisation’s culture and model the behaviour you expect from your leaders.

Reinvigorate

In any organisation, energy and output can vary greatly between individuals and even within the same person at different times. An employee might be highly productive at the start of the year but less so halfway through.

A lack of meaning at work, the exhausting mental load of dealing with difficult clients, the struggle to balance family and work, and personal challenges can all contribute to lower morale and performance.

Take this pause as a chance to re-focus and re-energise your teams.

Get your employees back on track by reminding them why their work matters. People crave meaning, and as a leader, you can help shape that meaning by:

• Emphasising the importance of their work, often.
• Celebrating past achievements and connect them to future goals.
• Supporting their friendships and shared experiences to foster a sense of connection and commitment to the mission.

Make your pit stop count and set up your next financial year to be the best one yet!