Happy Midyear! How Are Your Resolutions Holding Up?
Forget January. The best time to revisit your resolutions may be right now, when experience has replaced good intentions.
Jul 05, 2026
What were you doing on July 2? If I had to guess, you were likely gearing up for a long holiday weekend and the celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
While we were busy preparing for fireworks and other festivities, another occasion quietly slipped by: the midpoint of 2026. For one brief moment last Thursday, exactly six months sat behind us, and six months stretched ahead.
Granted, that milestone is easy to miss, but it offers a unique perspective: Few moments invite us to look backward and forward at once. We can celebrate what we’ve accomplished and decide what still needs our attention before the year slips away.
For many, New Year’s Day is the traditional time to reflect and set goals. We make resolutions and ask ourselves questions like "Am I spending my time the way I hoped I would?" and "What do I want the year ahead to look like?"
But there’s a strong case to be made for a July check-in. We’ve lived half the year and now know which promises we’ve kept, which ones have slipped away, and which still matter enough to begin again. A fresh start doesn’t have to wait six more months.
A better time to begin again
The problem with New Year’s resolutions is they often ask us to change too much, all at once, during one of the darkest and busiest times of the year. As a result, a staggering 88% fail within the first two weeks of January.
Yet resolutions still matter because they give us a reason to reflect and choose a direction. Even when we fall short, setting an intention reminds us that growth rarely happens by accident. It comes from the small choices we make, often in ways we don’t appreciate until we look back.
The midpoint of the year gives us the chance to renew those intentions with more perspective. Our aspirations have been tested by real life, making it easier to see which goals still matter and where a small adjustment could make a meaningful difference.
If I were choosing just one resolution to carry into the second half of the year, it would be this: stay connected to the people you care about.
My midpoint resolution
This goal may not sound as ambitious as training for a marathon or finally organizing the garage, but few choices have a greater impact on our quality of life. Both research and experience point to the same conclusion: strong relationships sit at the center of a healthy, fulfilling life.
As I’ve written in many Celebrations Pulse letters, scientists have found that strong social ties reduce stress, improve physical and mental health, and protect us against loneliness. They also support nearly every other goal we care about, from career growth to emotional resilience.
Yet relationships rarely disappear all at once. Life gets busy, responsibilities stack up, and time moves faster than we expect. Most relationships don’t end with a blowup or a falling out; they simply fade when we stop tending to them.
That may be why this resolution feels different from most others. It asks us to pay a little more attention to the people who matter most. And summer makes that easier than almost any other season.
Put the season to work
Summer gives us countless reasons to connect. Vacations, weddings, reunions, backyard cookouts, neighborhood gatherings, and long evenings naturally bring people together. The opportunity is there; we just have to use it.
A long drive to the beach becomes time for the phone call you’ve been meaning to make. A graduation or wedding becomes the perfect reason to tuck a handwritten note into a card. A cookout becomes an opportunity to invite someone you’ve been meaning to see.
You don’t need a new planner or another productivity app. You need one name that comes to mind and one message: “You popped into my mind today. I’d love to catch up.”
That’s your power of connection put to use in a single message — one that may not change someone’s life overnight but can reopen a conversation, rekindle a friendship, strengthen a family bond, or remind someone they’re not forgotten.
Because summer has already made room for moments like these, you could keep that resolution before you finish reading this letter. You never really know what a simple act of reaching out might mean to someone else.
There’s only one way to find out. Use your power.
All the best,
Jim
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AUTHOR
Jim McCann is the founder and chairman of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. as well as a business leader, author, and philanthropist with a passion for helping people deliver smiles. Devoted to helping others, he also founded Smile Farms, a 501(c)3 organization that provides meaningful jobs in agricultural settings to young adults and adults with developmental disabilities.
