One of the biggest mistakes many professionals make is not taking advantage of midyear.

I’ve seen people make this mistake over and over again. They assume the second half of the year will be the same as the first half. But this thinking can be costly for your career.

Whether you’ve had a strong year so far or it’s been challenging, what you do or don’t do at the midyear mark can make or break your year.

5 Common Midyear Mistakes

No matter how your year has been up to now, these are the most common mistakes to avoid at midyear if you want to finish the year strong.

1. Resting on your laurels

If you’ve had an awesome start to the year, the natural tendency is to coast along and ride the early waves of success. But like a wave in the ocean, you’ll eventually run out of momentum and you’ll need to catch another wave.

By all means celebrate your successes, but don’t take the rest of the year for granted. Careers are about momentum and it’s important to keep finding new waves and riding them through to the end of the year.

So go out and win that next client, line up your next presentation, throw your name in the hat for that next opportunity, or whatever your next wave looks like.

2. Giving up on the year

On the other hand, if you’ve had a challenging start to the year, it’s all too easy to write the entire year off and give up on any positive outcomes. But every plan can look like a failure in the middle.

Instead of giving up and waiting for the new year to start fresh, let midyear be your new starting point.

So if it’s been a tough first half of the year for you, remember that career setbacks are a necessary part of career success and no career goes completely smoothly. What matters is what you do next, and that’s to get back on track.

3. Thinking it’s too late

If you’ve been wanting to change a habit, take a new approach or start something new but missed kicking it off at the start of the year, it’s not too late. The new year doesn’t have a monopoly on the best time to “turn over a new leaf”.

Instead, use midyear to galvanize yourself into action. That way, the new year can be a time of celebration for all the progress you will have already made.

What habit or change will you give yourself permission to make?

4. Forgetting to revisit your plan

If you’re a high achiever who’s in demand, it’s easy to let work and other obligations keep you too busy to look after your own interests. Even though you set ambitious goals at the start of the year, you can get off track if you don’t make time to revisit those goals periodically.

To make sure you stay on track to achieve your goals, midyear is the perfect time to set up a meeting with yourself to review your goals. Where do you stand with your goals? Are you on track to accomplish what you want and need?

Doing your own personal mid-year review is essential to make sure you’re still on course.

5. Assuming people are away

While summer is traditionally vacation time, it’s a mistake to think your clients, mentors and sponsors are away and not to be interrupted. Some will fall in that category, but for others, their inboxes will be less cluttered.

This makes midyear a perfect time to stand out from the crowd by reaching out, whether to add value or ask for advice.

Think about what advice or guidance you could use at this point. Consider whose radar you want to get on or who is someone you haven’t connected with in a while but matters to you. Who will you reach out to?

Use this time to ensure you have a strong second half of the year

Midyear is the perfect time to reflect on the actions you can take to finish the year on a high. When you use this time of year correctly, you have a major opportunity to set yourself apart from everyone else and become more energized and motivated.

If you want to set yourself up for success for the rest of the year, then join my FREE 5-Day Career Mastery™ Challenge from June 19th to 23rd.

Over 5 short days, I’ll guide you step-by-step through my proven framework to achieve outstanding success in your career this year and beyond.

You’ll come away with your personal Career Success Roadmap that gives you a clear plan and the actionable steps to take to thrive at work and achieve your goals.

As one Challenger said, “Completing the Career Mastery Challenge is the best thing you can do for your career!” I invite you to see for yourself.

Get the details and save your spot for the FREE 5-Day Career Mastery™ Challenge.