For high-performing leaders, June isn’t just another month on the calendar. It’s a powerful pivot point and a chance to pause, reflect, and strategically measure their year-to-date progress and reset their focus for the second half of the year.

Mindful Leaders use their mid-year pause to ask better questions, protect their energy, and shift their mindsets so they can lead with more intention. Because true leadership isn’t about pushing harder…. It’s about doing less stress-inducing-busy-just-to-be-busy activities so they can achieve more.

Here are four powerful mindset shifts to help you move into the second half of the year with clarity and intention. I’ve also included some powerful journal prompts that can help you dive deeper and understand what you personally need to address.

How have I been leveraging my strengths so far this year—and how can I use them differently or more intentionally moving forward?

1. From Urgency → Clarity

Urgency and hustle culture is real, and non-stop fires make it easy to stay stuck in go-mode. Rushing from meeting to meeting, reacting to problems, balancing schedules and priorities, and pretending that the go-go-go momentum is resulting in productivity. But true clarity and productivity require people to slow down and pause. (Does this seem counter-intuitive? Read Slow Productivity by Cal Newport)

Why it pausing matters: When you pause to reflect on your strengths, you step out of autopilot. Maybe you’ve been leaning heavily on your communication skills, but now your team needs more vision. Or perhaps your operational strengths are driving results, but not leaving space for strategic thinking.

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing differently, with purpose.

Mid-year journaling prompt:

How have I been leveraging my strengths this year, and how can I use them more intentionally moving forward?
What tasks have been sucking my energy lately, and what are alternative / less draining ways to get them completed?
What, if anything, am I doing for the sake of doing, that no one would notice if I stopped doing them?

2. From Over-Commitment → Boundaries That Serve

Where am I currently overextended? What boundaries do I need to reset to protect my energy and leadership capacity?

Burnout doesn’t happen all at once; it creeps in through over-scheduling, saying yes too often, and forgetting to check in with your bandwidth. It’s the result of unchecked chronic stress, and from not doing enough of the things that light you up and fill your buckets.

Setting boundaries requires you to realize that every time you say ‘yes’ to something, you say ‘no’ to something else.

When you embrace the idea of setting boundaries and protecting your capacity, you give your team permission to do the same. Normalize declining non-essential meetings. Encourage calendar audits. Make space for deep work and recovery, not just output.

You can’t maintain sustainable levels of productivity, focus, or creativity when you’re running on fumes.

Mid-year journaling prompt:

Where am I currently overextended?
What boundaries would help me protect my energy and leadership capacity?
What energy boosting habits or activities should I be doing more of to refill my buckets?

3. From “Job Mode” → “Career Mode”

What am I actually interested in learning right now? Where do I want to grow—or explore—in the second half of the year?

When things get busy, many leaders unintentionally zoom in on the immediate tasks at hand and lose sight of their bigger professional vision. (See Habit #6 in How Women Rise by Sally Hegesen)

Why it matters: If you’re not actively pursuing activities that will help you grow your career, strategically accepting opportunities to get you the visibility you need to grow your personal brand, or regularly engaging your curiosity by developing new skills and learning new things, you risk stagnation. The second half of the year is a great time to reinvest in your development, explore mentorship, or pursue stretch projects that align with your long-term career goals, not just your short-term responsibilities.

And when you ask yourself these questions, you can start asking your team, too. That’s how you foster a culture of continuous growth.

Mid-year journaling prompts:

What am I interested in learning right now? This could include anything from skills, areas of the business, or a new tool.
Over the next six months, what projects or opportunities would allow me to show that I’m ready for the next level?
How could I better leverage my 1:1s with my manager to ensure that we are discussing my career goals and opportunities, not just my daily tasks and responsibilities?

4. From Silent Self-Reflection → Modeled Curiosity

Mindful leaders don’t just journal privately, they model curiosity out loud. This means sharing reflections with your team, inviting them into the conversation, and making it normal to step back and ask: What’s working? What’s not? Where do we want to go together?

My recommendation to clients is to bring many of the above reflection questions into the 1:1 meetings they have with their team members. It could be as simple as saying, “Lately, I’ve been asking myself where I want to grow in the second half of the year, and I’m curious…. Have you put any thought into how you want to grow, or what you may be interested in learning or trying the next few months?” That one question can spark career conversations, strengthen trust, and shift your culture from reactive to intentional.

If your team members are on the quieter side, more prompts might be needed. In that instance, you could structure your mid-year discussion around this agenda:

What’s going well?
What were your half one big wins?
What would you be interested in learning or trying this second half of the year?
Are there any tasks or projects that are bogging you down and preventing you from focusing on bigger or more strategic tasks/opportunities?

Bonus Resource: The Burnout Bundle

If your energy is running low—or your team is showing signs of burnout—now is the time to pause and pour back into yourself. The Ultimate Burnout Bundle is a 38-page guided resource designed to help you beat burnout at the root. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed from a toxic work culture, misalignment in your career, or simply the weight of doing too much for too long, this bundle offers a powerful way forward.

Need Additional Support? I’ve Got You.

It’s not uncommon for leaders to struggle with building the self-awareness needed to shift their mindset, find their motivation, and create intentional strategies that allow them to maximize their potential. As a Mindful Leadership Coach, I offer leadership coaching that meets you exactly where you are, overwhelmed, burnt-out, or bursting with anxious energy and uncertainty over a new promotion, and help you create strategies to get where you want to go.

In my practice, I firmly believe in not doing too much too soon, and that coaching is as much about taking things off your plate as it is about giving you new tools and strategies to make the things we can’t remove feel easier. If you're curious about getting started, I welcome you to explore my private coaching packages and schedule a complimentary call today.