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7 Ways to Make the Most of Your Halftime Transition

Apr 12, 2017, 3:10am EST

 

1. Make peace

Too many people approach the second half of their lives with regrets over the first half. (“I should have spent more time with my family.” “I should have developed better relationships.” “I should have…”)

Regret is a tough emotion to live down: it haunts you in ways that will sap your strength and inspiration to go on to better things. So one of the first things you need to do in halftime is make peace with your first-half set of issues.

This doesn’t mean that you are proud of all you’ve done or that you would change nothing in your life if you could. Any honest look back will recall several things you wish you would have done differently. The key is to keep these things in perspective and accept them as an inevitable part of growth.

2. Take time

The biggest mistake most of us make in the first half is not taking enough time for the things that are really important. So when you enter your second half, you need to make sure you don’t repeat that mistake.

Naturally, this requires a certain amount of discipline and time management, and you may tend to view this as yet another appointment in your already over-scheduled planner. But you would not be heading into halftime if you were not serious about making changes in your life.

I am a big believer in getting away from the crowd for a period of time to do some halftime thinking. A distinctive of my second half is that I set aside time for introspection almost every weekend. My few hours of uninterrupted reading and thinking are the wellspring from which I draw living water to nurture the activities of the rest of my week. For you, this could be anything from getting up an hour earlier and doing some quiet meditating to spending a long weekend at a hotel in another city.

It may have taken you 20 years or more to get to halftime. Don’t expect to solve all your first-half issues and plan for the second half in a few hours. For most -people, halftime spreads out over several months, even years. But it will never happen if we don’t give it the time it deserves…READ MORE