Reality Check
- Jan 23
- 3 min read
Look forward, not back
If today’s life is built on the last six months, then the next six months are being built right now.
Not by what you plan.By what you repeat.
This idea is confronting in the best possible way. Because it strips away the noise and brings us back to something concrete: what you actually did, not what you meant to do.
If you’re not happy with how parts of your life look today, here’s a useful exercise.
Scroll back six months in your diary.
This will give you a crystal-clear view of your life, and what's working and what's not.
Your diary tells the truth
Look at how your weeks are really filling up.
If you told yourself back in July, “I don't have time to train/eat healthily/ take a month off drinking without missing out/start something new, you can now really assess with this bird's eye view, "Was that true?"
For most of us, the answer is, I could have made that work.
So now it becomes less about time, emotions and overwhelm and more about priorities.
This exercise isn't about judgment, but about a reality check of what our lives actually look like day to day, rather than what we think they do.
Why looking back is easier than looking forward
Looking ahead six months often feels overwhelming. We open the calendar and immediately think: How am I going to fit all this in?
But when you look back, the stress is gone. You can see clearly that you did manage things.
You worked. You parented. You made the meetings and the decisions.
You kept things moving.
But now you look back, can you see clear windows when you could also have:
done regular workouts
taken a weekend away
learned something new
built momentum in one area of your life
Not all at once. Not perfectly. But consistently, every week.
This is why habits matter more than goals, especially in midlife.
Where we are sitting today is a direct result of the decisions we made six months ago.
Look back at your weekends. How many times did alcohol become the default? And when you’re honest with yourself, how many of those nights were actually that enjoyable or restorative?
This isn’t about restriction or judgment. It’s about awareness.
When you step back and take a six-month view, patterns become much clearer. What you repeat matters far more than what you do occasionally. That’s why this kind of inventory is so powerful. It removes the emotion and shows you, very clearly, how your life is really being shaped.
In a very non-doom-mongering way, we don’t have as much time as we think. By 50, we are well past the halfway point. Depending on how you look at it, it can feel uncomfortable or deeply liberating. I sit firmly in the second camp.
Because when you accept that time is finite, you stop waiting. You stop assuming there will be a “later” where everything falls into place. You start choosing more intentionally.
That’s exactly why a six-month look-back can be such a useful reset point.
Take the emotion out of it
This isn’t about regret.
It’s about data.
Your past six months give you a clear, honest view of what you can actually sustain. Not in an ideal week, but in your real life.
Once you see that, you can stop negotiating with yourself and start building habits that fit.
Now it's over to you.
This is exactly why my monthly membership is built in six-week blocks.
Six months ahead feels overwhelming. Six weeks feels doable. Stack a few six-week blocks together, and you’ve quietly transformed your body with six months of consistency.
Six months will pass either way.
The question is whether your next six months will reflect intention or repetition by default.
And that choice is being made quietly, week by week, right now.
Comments