Mid-Year Review & Refresh

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: Mid-year review & refresh, published on 29th June 2026.

Today I'm excited to bring an end of June review and look forward type episode. This will be a more personal episode. I will go through my own review questions. I think it's so important to spend time at the end of the first half of the year to do some review and look forward work.

I've come up with a few questions. I haven't spent any time preparing the answers - I've just spent some time figuring out some questions that I think would be helpful.

So what I invite you to do is, as you listen along, maybe pause and think about what your own answers would be, if the questions are of interest to you. You may want to tweak some of the questions too.

Either way, the idea of this episode is to help you unlock some review and look forward time - for what the summer's going to look like, and then also the second half of the year.

The first half review can be a missed opportunity when it comes to goal setting. For those of you who approached January goal setting with lots of excitement, the magic happens in the messy middle - which is exactly where we are right now. This is where we can really alter the course and trajectory of our year, recalibrate if it feels like it's gone a little bit wonky because Q2 has just been so busy. This is an opportunity to course correct, and we can end up having the type of year that we wish to have.

I'm not here to say we need to achieve all the goals. It might be that you wanted to have a specific word of the year, and you've lost sight of that somewhat. With all of that in mind, let's dive in.

If January Maya could see June Maya, what would she be most pleased about?

January Maya was recovering from a few viruses. My throat was really sore. I'd had some back-to-back illnesses, and in the gym I was feeling really wonky - I felt like my left side was out of sync with the right side of my body. This is something I am a little bit prone to. I felt like I'd had a bit of a setback in the gym, and I also didn't really have a clear plan in January for what I was going to do from a fitness perspective.

That plan really came into fruition in February, and I've been really pleased with the progress since then. It has just been about being consistent with three sessions a week, and slowly but surely, because I've built in some tiny Pilates exercises into my warm-up, I do feel that I've strengthened my internal structure - which we know Pilates can do.

What I didn't have time for was to fit Pilates properly into my life. I want to strength train, I like to dance, I like to walk, and ideally I like to run. I just do not have time to also fit in reformer Pilates or Pilates classes. But doing a few simple exercises - dead bugs, bridges - at the start or in between strength work, I really do think is responsible for me feeling much better in my body. I really think that how we feel in our body is so foundational. So I'm proud of showing up to the gym even when I wasn't feeling particularly motivated.

In January I was feeling hugely motivated. In February I printed out a whole load of sheets to track all the weights I was lifting, and I've become a lot more intentional about progressive overload. I've not been outsourcing all of that thinking - I've been owning the process, and it has helped. I do feel strong in the gym, and that spills over into other things. I spend a lot of time in the garden and there's a lot of heavy lifting involved there too, and I'm able to show up strong for that, which is great.

There are other things January Maya would be pleased about. I think she'd be pleased about all the small trips and social events - fun dance festivals, a reunion with university friends, another social trip, a work trip that ended up being a bit social too.

And finally, on the work front, January Maya would be really pleased that even though I wasn't setting out to do anything huge, there have been shifts that are just a quiet build. I typically describe myself as a C-suite coach, at C level - COO, CIO, CTO. But this half of the year I've now been put in front of CEO clients who want coaching. I can notice that incremental shift, but it's a completely different coaching conversation when you're working with somebody who is a CEO. It feels very different, and really exciting.

There is other stuff on the work front, but I'll leave it there - hopefully you get the idea that the ability to occupy different versions of ourselves over time is really cool to reflect on as part of this review.

What did I spend a lot of time worrying about that turned out not to matter very much?

I have been on a bit of a journey in this first half of the year. I had a couple of situations where I felt that my boundaries were really invaded, and this put me into a state of fight or flight. I found it very stressful, had some sleepless nights. I have a lot of clients who describe being in this kind of state, and it had probably just been a while since I'd been there myself.

Realising what our triggers are, and observing how I reacted to those situations, was really interesting. I'm probably still close enough to it that I can't tell you the exact steps I took, but I do know that a few other things have happened more recently, and I can see that I am reacting differently, and in my case, better.

I went through a journey of seeing that I can be prone to over-analysis - particularly overanalysing relational and social dynamic situations. Whilst that's a good thing in my day job, since a huge part of the coaching work I do is helping make sense of relational matters, all strengths can be overblown. I found a couple of instances where the overthinking really kicked in for me.

I did lots of different things. I spoke to friends. Somebody sent me a meditation from Gabby Bernstein, which reminded me that we need to protect our emotional boundaries. What I learned about myself is that I have very clear boundaries, but there are two types - what we say, and then our emotional boundaries, how we emotionally experience things. Whilst my verbal and task-based boundaries are quite clear, I think I can experience a very strong emotional impact from these situations. Part of this is being highly sensitive. Part of it, I think, is also age. Learning that I need to protect my emotional boundaries more has probably been one of the key takeaways.

There are lots of lovely meditations on Insight Timer, which I found really helpful. I'm a big journaler, and I have lots of people I can bounce this stuff off. So it has been many different things that have helped me with this.

Going forward, I can see that I intend to spend the second half of this year not in rumination, not getting stuck in thought loops, allowing things to be - in my mind, not right, not as they should be - but not making that my thing to solve. I spend so much time in coaching helping people think about their locus of control, what they can impact and what they can't. But it's something I also need to remind myself of.

So that is quite a big one, and I do feel pleased to have gone on that journey. There's a flip side to being highly sensitive and empathic, and I think this is one of them - we can end up taking on too much emotionally, and that can really impact our wellbeing. Being able to still have the sensitivity that enables me to do my job and be who I am, but also know how to look after myself in the process, is really important.

What has brought me the most joy?

My first answer here is the garden. I like nothing more than a fairly quiet weekend, spending hours on end in the garden, coming back looking a little bit bedraggled. My son and daughter will join me outside, sometimes my husband too. Just having open time to make magic in the garden has definitely brought me the most joy - and seeing things come to fruition from work we did in the garden at the end of last year, having introduced a lot of new plants and wildflowers.

The other thing that's brought me a lot of joy is the social stuff I mentioned, especially the trips. When you get to go away with people, have that more extended social time, or a whole day-long festival - those are all really fun things.

And then work. Work has been joyous. It's been very intense - a lot of in-person work. I did some training around more embodied, constellation, and systemic coaching, and I've been doing so much in-person work that I've been able to put all of that into practice.

What does success feel like now compared to 10 years ago?

This is quite fresh, from being away for a couple of days. One of those days I had some time to myself and got to do some climbing - I was in Edinburgh, so I climbed Arthur's Seat, and did some other walks too.

I took time to notice that my younger son has just turned 10, which means it's now 10 years since having two kids. That got me reflecting, because I've spent so much time with clients working on their 10-year vision - where was I a decade ago?

A decade ago, well, first of all, I was struggling quite a lot having had my second child. Physically I felt like my body had fallen apart, so a lot of work went into getting back to feeling strong again - even just being able to run. I was an employee of LBS, and little did I know that within a couple of years I would be independent, doing what I'm doing now. We were also living in Central London. We didn't know where we were going to settle down, or where our kids were going to go to school. So much more uncertainty at that time, and life just felt harder. Physically it was harder, with two young kids, and living in Central London everything felt a little bit more on top of you. It definitely wasn't a spacious time of life.

In comparison, sitting on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and looking out, having these thoughts, it felt very different.

So what I'd say is, when I think about all the things that have been built over the last decade, and then think about what the next decade might look like, I don't think the next decade will be about the same level of build. I think it will be about deepening - deepening my coaching work, deepening my podcast work, deepening the relationships that are important to me, deepening my connection with nature and the garden, deepening my health and fitness practices.

I think it will be more about that than about big changes of course or big transformation. But I do think that when you embark on that type of deepening, you can actually get a lot of remarkable transformation, because there's a compounding effect - just like with money. There is a point in investment where the returns from your investment outweigh the annual contribution you've set. It depends on the pot and depends on your annual contribution, but there is a point in the investment journey when that happens. Likewise, when you are doing things aligned with your vision, there is a point at which many of those little things have built up, and while you continue to take little steps, other things will compound - things will find you. So it should feel quite grounding. It should feel quite easeful.

What do I want the summer to be about?

Q2 has been very fast, and the things that have kept me busy are things that I like. However, I prefer a slower pace. I looked back at my journal and wrote about how weirdly much I liked January - for me, January and February have a slower pace, and I love a slow pace. That's just how the current version of me is built. As much as I really enjoy this period, there is some part of me that really needs a kind of rest. And my idea of rest isn't going on holiday - it's having time to do my life a little bit more slowly.

So what do I want the summer to be about? The first word that came to mind was that I need it to feel slow. If this summer has moments of slow every day or every week, that will have been a good summer. Of course, I hope to make lots of memories with the family - we have some trips planned. But when I think about the overall vibe I'm after, I need it to feel lazy. I need it to feel slow.

If the second half of the year went brilliantly, what would actually happen?

While I was away, I realised I want to do a party next year - a birthday party I haven't done yet. I was meant to do one, and then it was COVID, and we were doing the house, and it was just a different time. That's something I'd like to set in motion for next year, not this half.

Apart from that, if the second half of this year went brilliantly, for me it's small things - a lot of just sticking with stuff. One area that has really fallen off in busy Q2 is a little habit tracker I set up, which included the daily delete - spending five minutes deleting photos. It's totally fallen off. I'm much more mindful now as soon as I've taken a good photo or video, I favourite it straight away, which has made it easier going forward, but the habit itself has completely fallen off in the busyness of the last few months. There were a few others too, like keeping a proper log of my clients, and decluttering for five minutes a day. I would love to bring those back in, because when those are happening, I do feel grounded.

What am I excited about?

I do struggle with what I'm excited about, because whilst we have some fun things planned for the second half of the year, trips and so on, when I contemplate them I actually feel a little bit overwhelmed. Once I'm there, I love it - but the bit before, I find a little overwhelming. So I'll be excited about getting to those things, but not so excited about the lead-up.

I'm excited about more garden time. I really do hope my estranged gardener returns to me - if you're out there, dear gardener, please come back, the garden misses you. I'm excited about more opportunities to dance.

But what I'm most excited about is just normal, slow life - because it's felt like there have been so many different trips and events going on. I'm just excited about a normal routine.

What deserves more attention, and what deserves less?

What deserves more attention is Refreshing Leadership. This is a classic situation I talk about with clients - the tension between day-to-day business as usual, versus needle-moving work, which for me is getting the Refreshing Leadership business off the ground and launched. It's very easy, when the business as usual stuff is busy, for the needle-moving work to get put on the back burner or side-lined. In the second half of the year, I would like my business to have more attention - including some of the mental energy I mentioned earlier that had perhaps been going into rumination or worry. I'd like to take that and put it into my business instead.

What deserves less attention is exactly that. I've noticed my ability now to see a situation, see what's happened, allow a response, but then not get stuck into a cycle of rumination. That type of thing needs less attention for sure, and I can see that happening, which I'm excited about.

The other thing that deserves less attention - the minute I get overwhelmed and really busy, I take Instagram off my phone. I put the Clear Space app back on so it's harder for me to access things like WhatsApp, and then the phone gets less attention overall, which is great.

What would make December feel like a successful ending to the year?

If I have managed to do what I've said above - devote more time to Refreshing Leadership, continue consistency in the areas I've been really proud of myself around, revisit habits like photo deletion and other small five-minute habits, and have those displace some of the more time-sucking things like social media or time spent ruminating - then that would be successful.

This reminds me that I'm currently reading Laura Vanderkam's new book, Big Time. Laura was a guest on this podcast, and I've been a guest on hers, and she sells the magic of time tracking really well. I'm contemplating setting a goal around time tracking for the second half of this year. If I could time track all the way through to December, that would feel incredible, and I think it would make a lot of the other things I want to do feel a lot more possible.

So that's one more thing I'd like to add to the picture - more Refreshing Leadership, continuing to build on the foundations laid in the first half, and getting back to those initial habits that I spent a lot of time setting up and that have simply fallen off in Q2. That's completely fine - it was a busy quarter, and they're habits more suited to a slower quarter, or ones that didn't get embedded sufficiently the first time round. I have no problem revisiting those.

I hope that's been helpful. I think it's been helpful for me - I need to re-listen to this and make sure I actually follow through on a lot of what I've said.

If you found this helpful, or you know somebody who could benefit from doing this type of exercise - perhaps somebody who moves really fast through life and doesn't stop to take time to smell the roses and look back at their year and recalibrate - please forward this on to them.

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About Maya

Maya Gudka is an executive coach specialising in C-suite career progression and leadership development. She works with senior leaders in major organisations on strategic career planning, executive presence, and building sustainable influence. Maya hosts The Refreshing Leadership Podcast, which ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and has nearly 300 episodes exploring the challenges faced by ambitious professionals.