Here we are, we have reached our twentieth blog. Given that we cheated and reposted a couple of older blogs, we have now reached the 6-month stage of social media posts, communications, and pushing out our message to all and sundry.

I know that it's an old cliché, but it is genuinely incredibly gratifying to hear (as we did this week) from a candidate who has taken the time to read our messages, to understand our process and to engage in what makes us unique.

And no, that wasn't a lawyer from Peru. Anyone remember my blog about commonwealth lawyers?

Of course, there have been a couple of disasters along the way.

The post on LinkedIn without a link? That was efficient. Or the game my co-directors played called "spot the number of typos in one twitter post"? An example of rushing your work and not concentrating on what you're doing.

The biggest disappointment has been the audio recordings. Great idea, and I will still do it. The problem? The weather. My initial intention was to do it in the evening sun over a glass or two of rosé and bring a ten-minute segment of insight much like Test Match Special. Unfortunately, recording in a monsoon defeated the purposes and I ended up feeling more like a drowned rat than I did Jonathan Agnew.

However, we must always find positives, and the good news is that the experience we've gained from the audio recordings will stand us in good stead for when we come to produce our blogs.

There is, actually, a purpose to this message.

Have the honesty and bravery to always evaluate your performance, and to be open (at least to yourselves) about your performance. That way, you can help perform to your full capabilities.

I know that doesn't appear to be particularly enlightening. I'm not a life coach and have never purported to be. Besides, there's enough nonsense posted online (including on LinkedIn) of former professionals instructing anyone with too much time on their hands without me inadvertently adding to it.

Whatever is your best way to reevaluate performance, now is the time to do it.

The next couple of weeks of the summer holidays is the perfect opportunity to take stock of where you are, and either plan for your own future or for that of your firm or team. As I have already said, time spent on the sun lounger or watching the "world go by" on the corner of a piazza, is still time spent well.

And I am sure many of you will remember the story about a Derek, a friend of my late father, who surprised everyone by taking a risk, a risk that could have ended either in bankruptcy or as a millionaire. Thankfully for Derek, it was the latter.

Despite the seemingly instantaneous nature of Derek's financial success (leading to speculation that he had won the lottery), the reality is that Derek had been planning this move for months, if not longer. It's just that he kept his plans to himself (including his wife).

Success isn't just money (apologies, I know that I am veering into the realms of the life coach...). It's about finding the balance between where you as a candidate can progress your career or the culture of the firm (especially after a bad experience) or the ability to strike a better relationship between work and homelife. Remember, an Englishman's home has always been his castle, perhaps until now as we all have access to work at any hour of the day or night.

It is this balance that many candidates have come to appreciate whilst working with RSP.

This leads to success for our clients, as they are assured higher quality candidates.

There is another theme that we have noticed in recent weeks. Candidates intention to seek that challenge in order to continually improve and to push themselves to reach their own aspirations.

I compared candidates to Formula 1 drivers in one of the early blogs and we discussed how dominance was going to affect Max Verstappen. Would he seek a challenge elsewhere like Vettel or would he remain focussed on winning like Schumacher or Hamilton. The answer, at the moment, is neither. He's just become stroppier...

For both candidates and clients, now is the best time to start thinking about your next challenge. As the country can progress in a certainty of direction (I promised you all a few weeks that I wouldn't mention the "P" word for a while), we will see an upturn in the market in the next couple of weeks as these plans are put into action.

So, enjoy your holiday, take stock of where you are and where you want to be. Look at the next challenge and be confident that there are many others in exactly the same position as you.

That's enough life coaching from me. I'm now off to the sun lounger...