When Motivation Dips: The Mid-Year Goals Refresh

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: When Motivation Dips: The Mid-Year Goals Refresh, published on 4th May 2026.

Welcome to Refreshing Leadership, where I help refresh your leadership in both life and work.

This is about the stuff that actually works in the messy reality of real life. Stress tested through thousands of coaching sessions.

This is particularly relevant today, because we're in May, and for many of you, you will have made solid progress on your goals already this year. You've got momentum, you've got things in place, and you're not starting from zero.

But energy can dip at some point towards the middle of the year. Things can feel repetitive or effortful, or you might question why you're doing things at all.

So today I wanted to offer a slightly different take. We are not going to reset your goals, but just re-energise your relationship with them. Or step back from them in a way that is both restful and joyful, but also really serves you and your future goals.

Sometimes the most strategic thing is not pushing harder, but actually changing how you are engaging with the whole thing.

Why "follow the plan, not the mood" doesn't always apply

I am not a huge fan of the phrase "follow the plan, not the mood" for my incredible high achievers who are highly competent.

Yes, I understand that when motivation is low and you are not used to achieving a lot of things, you probably need to just bite the bullet and follow the plan.

But when you are used to being able to achieve a lot, listening and tuning into your intuition is worth doing.

So if you are facing a point of slightly lower engagement or motivation, I want to offer a few different ideas and ways to address that.

Idea one: a goal-free period

This doesn't need to be forever, but it is for a defined period of time.

I experimented with this in December 2024, and then did quite a lot of it across 2025. I found it to be very liberating as somebody who has been quite goal-focused for a lot of my life, and who obviously works in the arena of goals with clients.

It was very disorientating initially to think, you have no goals. What does it feel like to operate in the world without any goals?

After that initial disorientation, I found it incredibly liberating. I went on goal-free walks where I felt I had more intuitive ideas. I felt more creative, and more in line with the universe. I experienced some strange coincidences that I do think were part of being more unblocked when it came to my intuition and being more free-flowing.

My word of the year last year was also surrender, so I think there was just a general letting go vibe that I was really embracing.

There is a classic experiment, often shown in business schools, where people are so focused on counting basketball passes that they miss the big bear walking across the screen. The lesson there, of course, is that we can get so focused on a goal that we miss the glaring opportunity that might pass by.

So whilst having goals can provide focus and sharpen your thinking, it can also narrow it at times. I think it's important to appreciate both, and to take time to step out of that even briefly, to widen that field of vision again.

Even a goal-free period of a walk in nature, a couple of weeks, or a holiday can be very powerful. If you, like me, are somebody who has always tended to have a goal or two up their sleeve, I encourage you to give this a go.

I had Stephen Shapiro on the podcast, who wrote the book Goal Free Living. Go and have a listen to those episodes - we will link them in the show notes. There is a lot behind this concept that I think can be really good for opening back up that creative aspect of our thinking.

Idea two: a filler period

This is not necessarily about drifting and doing nothing. It is a period where you are not pushing for big breakthroughs. You are kind of just getting by.

You let go of having to optimise everything. It is a simpler approach. You do what needs to be done. You are just living and letting things stabilise.

Perhaps you become very good at switching off at a particular hour of the day, putting your device away, and really relaxing into your evening.

These periods can be absolute gold dust. Your energy settles. You start to enjoy things more. You get more on top of the basics of life - admin, routines, and quality time with people - because you are not so distracted.

I make a point of having some evenings where we use a lockbox for the phone. My cue to switch off is having a shower or a bath. I feel like that gives me a state change. After that I am in a more naturally relaxed mode, more likely to do some stretching, and less likely to be thinking about the things I didn't get done in the day.

There is always that tendency to just get a couple more bits done, and sometimes those things are very important, so I'm not knocking them. But what I have noticed is that when I am trying to hold that boundary at the end of the day, I can get a little bit more efficient about knocking off the most important things and then switching off.

This can feel uncomfortable for high achievers. But if you are feeling a little burnt out or a little detached from life, a filler period can bring that sense of enjoyment back into things.

Idea three: shifting into a systems-led phase

This is something I have been talking about on my Substack, The Diary of an Executive Coach.

This is where you have set your lifestyle up in a way that naturally moves you towards your goals without constantly having to think about them. Your business as usual takes you towards your needle-moving goals.

You have designed your routines, your environment, and your defaults so that just by living a normal week, just by getting by, you are progressing anyway. You are not having to constantly check what you need to do to hit your goal. You just need to know whether you are following your system.

And if your system is well designed - by which I don't mean perfectly optimised, I mean one that actually works with your personality and your energy - then that is enough.

For example, I recently put all my little morning habits into order in a tickable format. I realised that having them in that order made everything easier. Small things, like having my creatine upstairs because that is where I tend to be after breakfast, and moving other supplements to the same spot so it all happens quickly in one go.

It is just about fine-tuning little things. Once you are in this position, it is easy to think, what, really? It's that easy? Just keep following and tweaking the system.

But that is the point at which you can step back mentally. You don't need to be in push mode. You can almost be a passenger. Just follow the system, allow the results to compound, and then stop and review.

Idea four: intentional contraction

We are very comfortable with expansion - more output, more activity. Most of us want some form of growth in our lives. But in the natural cycle of things, there is a natural pullback as well.

If you have had a few very full months, or a very full year, you may very intentionally need to put a period of lower intensity in.

Some of the people I coach, for example those who were teachers before moving into other roles, had that contraction naturally baked in through longer school holidays. When they moved into a different working environment, that was no longer built into the structure of their work. They had to take that responsibility themselves, because nobody was going to offer it to them. That can come as a bit of a shock.

Taking the time to intentionally say, you have had an intensive period, and now it is going to be in your best interest to scale back, can be very helpful.

I had a lovely client recently tell me how he wished he had done this the year before. He had a really challenging year and does have the ability to power through. But there came a point when he was operating in a blur and he felt he experienced some kind of burnout. That is not a place you really want to get to, and it is much better to preemptively schedule a period of more contraction.

January and February are very good periods for that, where you can be more inward, have less going on socially, and lean into that hibernation feeling. But if we are in a busier phase, it may be that part of your weekend or some part of your week can give a nod to that contraction, so that you don't overextend and you maintain your energy for the things that really matter to you.

Wrapping up

I hope that has been an interesting way of thinking about how to refuel and re-energise. Whether that is to give more to your goals later on, or whether it is simply to stop, smell the roses, enjoy life, and enjoy everything you have already created - which I think is really important.

You might have good systems in place, and this could be a time to honour those and just let them do their work.

If this resonated, or if you know somebody who could benefit from this and who has perhaps been running pretty fast on a lot of dimensions, please share it with them.

You can ask questions and comment via the YouTube version of this or via Spotify. I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear any questions you have, and I look forward to connecting with you next time.

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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.