Level Up 2026: Mid-Year Check-In | Badge of the Month | July 2026

Greetings XM Community,

I honestly had to go back and check my original January post on finding an authentic self and trying some new projects.  It’s still a work in progress but I don’t see that as a negative, as I expected this was going to be an ongoing process. 

I did make a summer “bucket list” of things I wanted to do, which I’ve happily started to check a few things off, such as starting my summer reading program.

On the professional front, taking a summer class for grad school and finally got the room and paperwork completed for my newest Qualtrics training taking place in the fall.

Sounds like progress to me! Let us know if there’s anything we can assist with for your Qualtrics training!

Mid-year check-in on Hyrox — went quiet in June, life got in the way and training took a backseat. No excuses, just honest. Getting back on it starting this month though, easing back into the plan and rebuilding momentum for the second half. Sometimes the comeback matters more than the streak 💪

What matters is that you keep going! What Hyrox are you wanting to do? It’s also on my bucket list of items I’d like to try

I just realized that I didnt share any resolution during the January Badge of the Month.

1. Workout: This has been the most consistent one. Although the first couple of months weren't great, I've managed to stay on track since then.
2. Reading: I'm still trying to finish a book I started about five months ago. 😄 I usually read only once or twice a week, so it's been slow, but I haven't given up on it.
3. Art: I was really motivated in the beginning and completed three artworks in the first month itself. Since then, though, I haven't picked up my sketchbook. This is definitely one goal I need to get back to.

The goal I fixed myself at the beginning of the year is a lifelong enterprise, and even though there were ups and downs I’m happy to report that I’ve largely succeeded.

A surprise along the way? It’s been way more simple and easy than expected! :)

My goal for 2026 was be to be able to slow down a bit! Moving to the countryside definitely helped that. Sometimes I have that feeling to be bored because it’s a slower pace but I’m confident that I have to trust the process ! 

Happy with the progress so far! 🚀 I've expanded my Qualtrics skills beyond BX into CX and completed the AI Aware & AI Engaged certifications.

For the rest of 2026, I'm focused on earning more certifications, growing as a consultant, and continuing to learn every day.

We made progress with Text IQ and we also are moving in the right direction with the Lifecycle  - so far so good! I learned more on how the TEXT IQ is working, but still need to fine  tune how to show comments and how to define keywords in all comments . Still a bit of challenges, but that pushes me to learn further which is good! All in all, satisfied with development in 2026 so far! 

Impressive, Umang! Any interesting learnings from the AI Aware/Engaged certifications you can share?

Sounds like you’re definitely heading in the right direction! Excited for all your progress!

Oh thanks, I must add those certifications to my list of ones to take.

Sounds like positive steps. I may ping you one day to chat more on this.  Working on other priorities currenlty.

Thanks for the Mid Year check in prompt. I did take a peek back to see what goals I made for myself in January 2026.

 

2026 Goals for myself:

Work - all things Qualtrics being an Admin. Training and socializing our new program with our front line teams engaging them.  I am excited to see the results, trends and insights that we gain from our 3 surveys that we’ve launched for this year. Excited to attend my 3rd X4 in March - even more exciting now that we just launched with Qualtrics surveys to our homeowners.

July 2026 - Things are going really well. More front-line teams are engaged and asking questions. Our responses are increasing and we are getting some great data insights for opportunities for actoin.

Family - Excited to see where the next chapter takes our daughter who graduates in June 2026 with a Bachelors in Forensics and Psychology as she navigates and plans her next steps for year 5 - likely in Pathology. I will always be her biggest fan and encourager (Dad too)

July 2026 - On a personal note, our daughter graduated last month with honors degree and received the 2nd place award overall for the highest GPA of all graduating 4th year students. She are very proud of her and support her as she navigates her next steps. She is a continuous learner and teaches me new things every day - even at age 21!

Be the best version of me and to never stop learning.

July 2026 - Life has gotten busy at work & personal. I have done a lot of self-education on leadership and through Qualtrics.  The opportunities are endless which is amazing.

As we approach the busiest time of year, I plan to keep pushing through with survey results and watching trends & themes to share with our teams.

We are also launching another survey soon - for our trades!  Exciting adventures.

Work-wise:

Placing the PMP course on hold after completing CAPM course in Mar.

Because PMP exam has a requirement of having at least three years of unique project management experience, which I don’t fulfill.

Just have to keep gaining more experience towards that requirement.

lifestyle-wise:

I hope to get into an exercise routine, at least once every weekend and stick to it to reduce my weight.

P.s. In my recent meet-up with my friends from school, they were shocked to see me gaining a size larger.

As I have a few projects lined up this year, my focus is to develop my technical mentoring skills so I can pass on some capabilities to the rest of the team in order to free myself up a bit to work on these projects. 😅

I stuck to my goal of developing my technical mentoring skills, successfully passing on the creation of dashboards for our annual engagement survey. 

I have also trained the Organisational Capability to send their own survey reminders for all their programme satisfaction surveys.

I have also just engaged our support provider to do a permissions framework audit in the hopes of ringfencing Employee Directory data (using a feature called “Data Access Settings”) to enable super-users from other parts of the business to utilise Qualtrics as a tool to survey our people without accidentally having access to sensitive employee data.

My plan for the second half of the year is to take time to understand our new permissions setup in the hopes I can better leverage it in future.

Professional goals: Pursuing certifications:

• AWS Certified AI Practitioner
• AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer

Personal goals: Reading and exploring at least 2 new cities

I've always wanted to learn a new language, and this year I've stayed committed with a 190-day Japanese learning streak on Duolingo. It's been a fun 😁

Another important goal is to complete my CX Certification before the end of the year. Fingers crossed!

As planned back in jan 2026, I expanded my expertise beyond Customer Experience by strengthening my knowledge of Employee Experience surveys and employee engagement. I successfully completed the Qualtrics Platform Expert Certification and earned the Qualtrics Employee Experience Consultant Accreditation. These achievements have enhanced my ability to design, implement, and deliver Employee Experience solutions, complementing my strong Customer Experience background and enabling me to support organizations with both CX and EX initiatives.

What a proud parent moment! And best of luck with the upcoming projects!

Impressive! I imagine it’s not an easy language to learn. Is there a specific reason why you chose Japanese?

What cities to explore are on your list?

I've long been interested in learning a foreign language, and a big anime fan

​@nikamshubham73 Favorite shows?  

I’m in a book club that meets monthly and my goal was to always have the book read before we meet.  So far, I’m 6 out of 7 months, but I still completed the other book (just not in time for the meet up).  We rotate hosting and whoever is the host for the month selects the book and we have a diverse group, so I really value the books that I wouldn’t have typically chosen for myself!