Ep 66 - Summer Reset Series 1 - The Mid-Year Check-In You Actually Need

Episode Show Notes

Halfway through the year, the world starts buzzing with checklists, KPIs, and performance reviews. You're asked: "What have you achieved? Are you on track? What's your revenue year-to-date?"

But if you're a dietitian, clinician, or healthcare professional juggling client care, family, and a business that rarely fits into tidy little boxes—those questions can feel more suffocating than supportive.

So let's do something different.

This is your invitation to pause. To gently check in. Not with numbers or metrics—but with you.

Why Traditional Mid-Year Reviews Don’t Work for Clinicians

The "business world" often assumes a certain baseline: dedicated CEO hours, endless energy, and a team behind you. But you? You're likely:

• Still seeing clients part-time (or full-time!)
  
• Juggling school holidays, care responsibilities, or household chaos
  
• Running your entire operation solo
  

In that context, a spreadsheet won’t capture your resilience.

It won’t show the 5am client notes or the late-night email replies. It won’t reflect the emotional labour of holding space for clients while suppressing your own anxiety.

And it definitely won’t credit the quiet wins, like choosing not to launch because your nervous system said "no."

The Mid-Year Check-In That Prioritizes You

Here’s a softer way to reflect on your year so far. One that honours the truth of being a regulated professional and a human being.

You don't need a journal or a fancy planner (although if you do want one, I've made you something — The Summer Reset Planner is free and printable).

You just need a quiet moment.

Here are three reflection prompts that will bring clarity without pressure:

1. What have I done this year that I’m proud of, even if no one saw it?

Maybe you:

• Created your first lead magnet
  
• Said no to a draining client
  
• Took time off when your body was screaming for rest
  

These don’t show up on dashboards. But they matter. Deeply.

2. What feels heavier than it should right now?

This could be:

• A half-finished course you no longer want to finish
  
• The pressure to post daily on social media
  
• A service offer that no longer aligns with how you want to work
  

Letting go isn’t failure. It’s freedom. It creates space for what wants to grow.

3. What kind of business owner do I want to be heading into September?

Not what do you want to achieve.

But how do you want to feel?

• Spacious?
  
• Grounded?
  
• Calm?
  

Choose one word. Let that become your anchor.

Real-Life Reflections from the Clinic Trenches

Here’s what this looks like in real life:

One of my clients inside the Accelerate Mastermind didn’t post on Instagram for a full month. She was burned out. Instead, she sent one beautifully aligned email and signed three new clients. Her total income that month? £8,991.

Why did it work?
Because she trusted the relationship-building she’d already done.

Another client — we’ll call her Lauren — felt like she was “coasting.” But when she looked back, she realised she had rebuilt her entire offer suite, updated her pricing model, and planned a waitlist funnel. No big cash moment (yet), but massive foundational progress.

We miss our own momentum when we only measure revenue.

Your Business Isn’t Behind — It’s In a Season

Think of your business like a garden.

Some seasons are for blooming. Others are for pruning, composting, or planting seeds you won’t see sprout for months.

If this season feels slow, it doesn’t mean you’re not growing.

It means you’re human.

Ready to Reset? Here’s Your Next Step

Follow along with our summer special six-part podcast series and download the free accompanying Summer Reset Planner. It includes space to reflect on these questions, track your energy, and gently reset your business without the burnout.

You don’t need more pressure. You need clarity.

And sometimes, that clarity comes not from doing more… but from doing less, more intentionally.

Sarah Almond Bushell is a Registered Dietitian and business mentor for health professionals, creator of Accelerate Mastermind and the founder of Sarah AI. You can learn more at sarahalmondbushell.com.

The Master Plan:

Helping you build the business of your dreams. Get your 22 point step-by step workbook here: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/master-plan

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dietitiansinbusiness/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dietitiansinbusiness

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beyondtheclinicbusiness

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondTheClinicPodcast

Episode transcription:

Hello and welcome back to Beyond the Clinic. This week we are starting the first of six really special episodes called the Summer Reset Series. So this is going to be a really special six part podcast series designed to help you gently reset your business during the summer months.

So it's not about big dramatic overhauls or working hard while everyone else is at the beach. It's about reflection. It's about clearing the fog. It's about creating some space and giving yourself a kind of deep exhale that we all need at this time of year. And it's also that you can head into September with more clarity, more calm, and maybe just a bit more confidence as well.

So if you're a dietitian or a clinician or any kind of healthcare professional who's just feeling a bit foggy or perhaps feeling a bit behind or just over it, then this is your invitation today to pause, to reset and to make space.

So over the next few weeks, I'm going to walk you through some really simple frameworks and reflections and rituals to help you reconnect with your goals and prepare for a really focused and feel good autumn in your business. And to support you through it, I've created a free printable guide, the Summer Reset Planner. It's packed with prompts, it's got planning tools, it's got space for you to work through each episode and you can grab your copy using the link in the show notes. So whether you're tuning in from a campsite or even a sun lounger or while your kids are splashing in the paddling pool, you know what? That is perfect because that's exactly how this series is meant to feel.

So today we're starting with a question and it's the one that might feel a little sticky. How are things really going? Not your business revenue, not how many clients you've seen, not your Instagram follower count, but you, your brain, your energy, your sense of self.

Because so often halfway through the year we hear it's a really good idea to do these formal mid-year reviews. What goals did you achieve? Which ones did you not achieve? And why not? What got in the way? We are encouraged to look at the data, the KPIs, the targets you might have set for your business's performance. We look at revenue audits. Are you on track with how much money you'd plan to earn?

And if you're anything like me, sometimes that kind of pressure can feel, well, actually crushing. So today, and in fact, for the next six weeks of summer, I'm inviting you to do things a little bit differently. Today, we're going to take a softer approach to looking at how things are really going. We're going to acknowledge your lived reality, like juggling client appointments and check-ins and maybe raising a family and maybe still working part-time for somebody else and running a business during what might actually be for you, one of the most emotionally draining six months you've had in a little while.

I want this episode to feel like a big exhale, not another thing on your to-do list, but a small movement of pause of reflection, like a warm hug for your business brain.

So I remember doing one of those proper mid-year business reviews a few years ago. I was sat at the kitchen table. It was July, trying to be the diligent CEO. I'd printed out my spreadsheets, I'd reviewed all of my offers, I'd looked at every marketing campaign that I'd done so far that year. And on paper, I felt like it looked like I was failing because not anywhere near the number of sales that I'd set myself a target for had arrived. I hadn't done my big live launch in quarter two. I'd started an email campaign, but it was half written and it wasn't quite finished yet. And Instagram, well, I think I posted once or twice a week instead of my usual Monday to Friday posts.

But what that spreadsheet didn't show was that my daughter had been struggling in the previous months. For those of you who've been here a while, you'll know that she's been home schooled for the last couple of years. But back then, I was trying to get her to go to school every single day. And it was a battle, often resulting in meltdowns, panic attacks, and me driving her home again, all the while being threatened with legal action for not taking my child to school.

And I'd also been navigating a full-time NHS caseload. I was a consultant dietician at the time, and to be honest, I was barely sleeping. So the truth, I wasn't failing, really. I was surviving. And that version of me, that exhausted but still showing up, you know, even quietly, she deserved compassion, not critique.

And that's the thing about numbers. They can't measure your resilience. They can't tell you how many emotional plates you've been spinning. They don't show you the 5 a.m. starts or the 11 p.m. panic scrolls trying to figure it all out. So many clinicians I work with come to me and say, I feel behind. But my question is, behind who, though? Behind what?

We treat the calendar like a ruler, a fixed benchmark to measure our success, but your business doesn't have a set timetable. Think of it more like a garden. know, some seasons are for planting, some seasons are for blooming and some, well, they're for resting and pruning. And if your garden doesn't look lush right now, maybe it's not because you failed to water it. Maybe it's just because it's winter.

So if you're looking at your year so far and you're thinking, I should be further ahead or I've wasted so much time in the first half of this year or I haven't even launched that course or program that I planned in January, I want you to pause for a moment because let's be honest, you've probably been doing way more than it looks on the outside. You will likely have been holding space for clients, especially those high maintenance ones, whilst suppressing your own anxieties.

You might be managing school runs and family needs and clinical sessions and trying to write content. You might be thinking about your business while you're cooking dinner or folding the laundry or even lying in bed at night trying to sleep. You're just carrying this invisible weight of feeling like you have to make it work even when actually no one's holding you to account. And that's the reality, I think, for so many of us. But there is another side.

You truly want to build a successful business to feel like things are moving forward. You want to feel calm. You don't want to feel overwhelmed. And wouldn't it just be great to have some clarity, not just manage the chaos. You want to show up in your business feeling proud, not guilty for being where you feel you should be by now. And I know you want to feel excited about what you're building, not just relieved when you survive another week and get a couple of days off at the weekend. That desire for progress.

You know what, that is not selfish. It's totally normal. And actually I believe it's sacred because we're here to help other people because the work that we do as clinicians truly matters. And actually, you know what you matter, but just to be clear, progress isn't just big launches or a load of new clients or income spikes or a bunch of new Instagram followers. Progress might be saying no to a client that you know will drain you. It might be raising your rates, even if you feel you're going to be more expensive than any of your colleagues. It might be finally setting boundaries around when you check your inbox or for me, when I check my social media. And those are real wins, wins that preserve your energy, your nervous system, your sense of self-worth, even if they don't show up in a revenue graph.

So let me give you some real life examples from some of my clients. One of the dietitians in our Accelerate Mastermind didn't post on Instagram at all in June, zero content. Because she was burned out, she was exhausted and frankly, she needed a break from social media. And yet she welcomed three new clients who converted from her email list. Why? Because she stopped spreading herself so thin and she focused on sending a simple offer via email to the people who already knew her.

She made £8,991 all because she started trusting the relationship building work that she'd already done. Or let me tell you about my other client. We're just going to call her Lauren. She felt like she was coasting through spring, but when she looked back, she'd actually restructured her entire offer after some truly in-depth market research and she'd created a more profitable pricing model.

She'd mapped out a new wait list funnel in order to be able to sell that offer. And she had the bones of a brand new freebie to bring people into the funnel. So she had been working with Sarah AI to come up with a strategy and map out the funnel and create the content that was needed to make it work. So there was no big cash dollars for her yet, but the quiet work would lead to income generation. And this was a huge mindset shift for her, just to recognise just exactly how much she had achieved.

So imagine your business, like a camper van on an epic year-long road trip. Some months you're cruising. You've got the windows down, the wind in your hair. Everything feels light. Other months you're stuck in traffic or you're pulled over at the side of the road, checking the map, wondering if you took a wrong turn. But the truth is you're still on the journey. So even if you're crawling, even if you take a nap in the back, progress isn't always fast, but it is still progress.

Okay, let's shift a gear now and do a check-in. So not productivity audit here, a you audit. So if you've got your summer reset planner to hand or even just the notes app on your phone, that's fine. I want you to sit with these three questions sometime this week.

So the first one is, what's something I've done this year that I'm proud of, even if no one saw it? Maybe you created your first lead magnet. Maybe you showed up to your clinic sessions even when your heart wasn't in it. Maybe you rested when your body said no.

Second question is what feels heavier than it should right now? What might I gently let go of? Could be that half finished course that you started creating or the pressure to post every single day or a client who just no longer fits. Nothing is off limit with this question.

And the third one is what kind of business owner do I want to be heading into September? So not just what you want to do, but how do you want to feel? Spacious, certain, in control. So write that word down and let that guide your next steps. You don't need perfect answers here. You don't need a beautiful journal. You just need a few honest moments with yourself because clarity doesn't always come from pushing harder.

Sometimes it comes from taking a pause for long enough in order to be able to hear your own voice again. So here's what this looks like for me. So this summer I sat down with my own planet and I realized I'd been carrying the weight of an offer that I no longer really wanted to run. It had served its purpose, it helped people, but it just didn't light me up anymore. So I closed it quietly, no big announcement. And in that new found headspace that I had,

I found room to dream again. And that's actually where this summer reset series was born. That's what letting go of something can create, not failure, but actually freedom. Okay. So that is all I've got for you today. I'm wanting to keep these episodes nice and short for you.

Next week, we're going to talk about how to clear the business fog. We're going to work through what we should be keeping, what we should be killing and actually what needs to evolve so that you're not carrying unnecessary weight into the autumn.

But for now, if this episode has resonated with you, I want you to go and download the Summer Reset Planner. It's free, it's printable, and it's designed to guide you through these exact reflections. There's no pressure here. It's just you reconnecting with the hopes and the dreams of the business that you actually want to build.

You'll find the link in the show notes and I'll see you next Monday for part two.