We just crossed the midpoint of 2026. Six months down, six to go.
If you’re anything like me, that fact landed with a small jolt. Not because the year has flown by, though it has, but because it forces a question I’d rather avoid: how am I actually doing on the goals I set back in January?
My honest answer is: not great.
The Goals Were Never the Problem
Every year, I sit down and think through what I want to be different by December. Some years it’s a new certification. Some years it’s a process I want to redesign, a team capability I want to build, a habit I want to establish. This year was no different. I had a list. Some of it was even written using the SMART framework: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound.
And I still believe in that framework. Compared to vague intentions, SMART goals give you something to actually check yourself against. They force clarity. They turn “get better at delegating” into something you can point to and say yes or no.
But here’s what nobody tells you: writing a SMART goal doesn’t create the time to work on it.
Where the Time Actually Goes
The gap between what I intended and what I’ve done isn’t a mystery. It’s the ordinary weight of running a department, sitting on shared governance committees, managing vendor relationships, showing up for my team, volunteering, being present for my family, and, on a good week, sleeping enough to function.
None of that is optional. None of it is wasted time. It’s the actual substance of the job and the life. But it also means that the goals I set for myself in January are almost always competing against things that feel more urgent in the moment, even when they’re not more important.
That’s the part goal-setting frameworks don’t solve. SMART tells you what “done” looks like. It doesn’t tell you how to protect the hour you need each week to move toward it when three meetings, a vendor escalation, and a committee deliverable are all asking for that same hour today.
What Accountability Has (and Hasn’t) Looked Like
If I’m being honest about the first half of the year, most of my “accountability” has been passive. A goal written down in January, revisited maybe once in March, and otherwise living quietly in the back of my mind while the calendar filled in around it. That’s not accountability. That’s a wish with a deadline.
The moments where I’ve actually made progress this year have a common thread: someone or something outside my own intentions was checking in. A colleague who asked how a project was going. A commitment I’d made publicly enough that backing away from it would have been visible. A recurring calendar block I couldn’t quietly skip because someone else was also on it.
Left entirely to my own follow-through, the goals lose. Not because I don’t care about them, but because nothing forces them to compete on equal footing with the demands that show up with their own deadlines already attached.
What I’m Taking Into the Second Half
I don’t think the answer is a better list, or a more detailed SMART goal, or more willpower. I’ve tried all three, and the day-to-day chaos wins anyway.
What I’m trying instead for the back half of 2026 is building in real, external accountability, not just intention. That means fewer goals I’m quietly tracking alone, and more goals that are visible to someone else, tied to a recurring check-in, or built into a structure that doesn’t depend entirely on my memory and motivation on a Tuesday afternoon in October.
If you’ve done better than I have this year, I’d genuinely like to hear how. And if you’re in the same spot, halfway through the year with a list that hasn’t moved as much as you hoped, you’re not alone. There’s still real time left in 2026 to close that gap.
Final Thought
Goal setting is easy. Protecting the time and building the accountability to actually get there is the hard part, especially in roles where the day-to-day never really slows down. That’s true for individual goals, and it’s just as true for the larger initiatives institutions are trying to move forward.
If your team or institution is working to turn strategic goals into actual progress, and needs help building the structure and accountability to get there, I’d be glad to help. Contact me for a consultation.