Planning For the Year Ahead - An Act of Self Care

I have a love/hate relationship with New Year’s. I love a clean slate, a fresh start, a beginning. But I hate that there’s a mentality that you have to wait for some arbitrary point in the future to make that happen. For this year, I already have larger 2024 events planned. I didn't wait til Jan 1 of 2024 to set these plans in motion, I did so in Q4 of 2023. This is obvious but, planning what you want to see happen is the action that comes before the event. So, waiting til the New Year to plan out the New Year just doesn’t click in my brain.

This video I am going to walking you through how I set up my calendar and goals so that I successfully prioritize them in the New Year. And how I establish checking in on my goals to make sure that I keep prioritizing what is important to me.

I’m married, I have kids, upon making this video I have a 9-5 job and I coach – so needless to say, I have commitments that do take priority in my life. But, I also want to have fun, do trips with my family, carve out intentional time with my husband and maximize my PTO. And I’m guessing you want all those things too. But, these are a lot of balls floating and if I’m not intentional in how this time rolls out, I get to the end of the year and I just moved through our life reacting to what came my way.

But that approach doesn’t get me closer to what is actually important to me. Taking the few hours to sit down and go through this exercise, actually 1) clarifies what is important to me 2) how to block out my time so that I’m making those priorities happen in real life 3) Gives me things to look forward to and as more of an anecdotal observation 4) When you’re ahead of the curve of everyone else around you – the complications that can arise in juggling various schedules doesn’t factor in as heavily. Most people have no idea what is going on in their lives 3, 6, 9 months down. But if you have that locked in in advance, by default you’re getting first pick. This is absolutely a case of the early bird gets the worm.

Step 1 – Pull together your tools

-   Your calendar of choice (I buy a year-long one)

-   Pens, pencils, highlighters, sticky notes

-   Your work calendar

-   If you have kids; their school schedules

-   If you or anyone if your family participates in any extra curricular's; get those calendars

-   If you have any other commitments that you know you need to be considerate of – have those details available.

-   Blank Paper or Open Word Doc.

I like to purchase a giant year long calendar in advance and have colored pens/highlighters etc. I want to see the whole picture as I work through this higher level planning and this allows me to do that.

Step 2 – Pull Out Your Calendar

Now that you have all your info and tools pulled together – I prefer to put on paper what I absolutely know I have to do. This can be anything from a conference you know you have to attend to all the days off your kids are going to have, to any family commitments, etc. Put on paper anything you have already said yes to and know is going to happen.

Step 3 - Brain dump

Now that you’ve laid out all things that you know are happening, it’s time to start daydreaming about the rest of your time.

I create the following categories:
1) Personal (for yourself and for others in your family)

2) Finances

3) Family 

4) Relationships 

5) Career/Business

6) House 

7) Miscellaneous 

8) Spiritual 

Please feel free to add or trash any categories that are or are not relevant to you, but I’ve found that these categories cover most areas of life. Now, jog down everything you would love to see happen in these various categories – now is your time to dream. Just write it all down and don’t worry about editing yourself, that comes later.

As a side note; this step is when I typically snag my husband for an at home date - we drink wine, have a nice dinner, and in general make this a relaxing time to daydream about all the fun we’re going to have in the year ahead. If you have people in your life that you feel will benefit in their participation (a partner, older kids), I advocate that you make this a team effort with all relevant parties engaged in the process.

Step 4 – Trim

In this step we’re going to trim down all the things we wrote down and prioritize. The way I figure out how to gain clarity on what my priorities are is I go back to the guiding principles that my husband and I have established to steer our family and our relationship (think of it as like a mission statement) in the ultimate direction we want to go. We use these to make sure that when we say yes or no to invitations, opportunities, etc. it is something that is ultimately in alignment with our values and family goals.

This doesn’t need to be a big to-do, but with the end in mind, think about where you want to be, who that person is, what does that life look like, what are the aspects of your life that will support you getting there?

In my instance; my husband and I’s relationship is – Assume best intentions, listen before responding, we’re on the same team – so treat each other accordingly, our relationship is not 50/50, we each give the most that we can each day, we prioritize each other over anyone or anything else and we strive to grow and support each other’s own interests as well as grow and support each other into old age, together. 

In the instance of my family’s guiding principles (and there are many overlaps) – Assume best intentions, listen before responding, we’re on the same team – so treat each accordingly, we each give the most that we can each day, we support each other in our independent path’s, and we prioritize the family unit over anything else.

To drill down a bit deeper - Our ultimate goal for our boys is to raise resourceful, independent men who pursue their lives with confidence, diligence, resilience, kindness and gratitude. And at the end of their lives; they know they are leaving this earth better for their part in it.

So, with your own guiding principles, start trimming what doesn’t align with your ultimate goals or things that aren’t actively getting you to closer to that version of yourself.

For example; maybe you know that there is an unhealthy family dynamic with your in-laws and instead of just defaulting to Christmas at their house (because that is what is always done), you decide to make plans for you and your own family unit to do something you all enjoy and set aside a different time to see the in-laws.

Another example is maybe you want to have more 1:1 time with our partner. So, you figure out the time and cost requirements to make that happen.

Let’s say you have a big goal – you want to own a home by the end of the year, but it’s not currently realistic on the income you make right now. How do you prioritize finding a higher paying position? Starting a side gig? Establish a more robust savings plan? Cut out superfluous costs?

What I’m trying to illustrate is that all these choices take time and concerted effort, so you have to prioritize ultimately how your time gets spent first. Once you have the core of what is important to you laid out – you can more freely pursue them and you also have a clearer idea of how your other resources (primarily finances) are going to be channeled.

Step 5 – Work it Backwards

So for me this year, it’s important that I set aside time for getting my coaching business to the next level. I want more alone time, I want more 1:1 time with my husband, I want to see more of our friends this year, I have goals for my daily motion and weight loss, I want to create more meaningful connections with other families in our community, etc. Well, now we figure out the steps to make these things happen.

Let’s use a common one I hear – General Goal: I want to more regular time for me. In my case, there are a few ways I want more ‘me time.’
- I want weekly slots of time where I get to do something that is fun just for me.

- I want time away from my husband and kids. I’ve found that giving my brain breaks of constantly having to anticipate other peoples needs is critical to helping me reset.

- I want weekly time slots where I am working on leveling up my coaching business.

Let’s work the first point backwards:

Specific Goal:
I want weekly slots of time where I get to do something that is fun for just me.

I’ve determined that the weekly fun things I want to focus on for the next 90 days are:
1) Go to Yoga Classes Downtown
2) Read
3) Garden in my courtyard and raised beds

Focusing on the yoga piece - Yoga Classes are $10 each and based upon my current budget and work/kids school schedule the best time to go is at noon on Wednesday’s and Friday’s.

So to Work that Backwards; What Do I need to do/get/achieve to get to these classes weekly?

- I need to allocate $20 weekly to yoga in my budget

- I need to make sure that I have a yoga mat, water bottle, yoga clothes, exercise towel

- I need to sign myself up on the app to all pertaining classes I am currently available to attend for the next 90 days. AKA I am pre-booking myself.

- I need to put a calendar reminder on my google calendar and make a note on my big calendar. I share this with my husband and block this out on my work calendar so that all relevant parties know that I will not be on any sort of kid or work duty on these days during that time.

- When I achieve getting to these classes I am going to make a note on my big calendar so that I know I’m achieving my personal goal of incorporating more fun things for myself during the week.

Step 6 – Block Your Time

Based upon my categorical priorities and goals, I now put pencil (not pen just yet!) to paper. This is where I jot down everything onto my actual calendar.

And for bigger things, I don’t have it in pen, just in case it needs to get moved or I don’t have all the details 100% confirmed.

Step 7 – Assess
Now that you have ALL THE THINGS laid out – look at it from a wholistic year perspective? Are you overloading yourself? Are you looking lite and you want more to do? Are some things planned too closely together? Do you have things planned too far apart? Are you maxing out your PTO? Do you have more PTO you want to allocate?

Do a final review of everything you put down to make sure it’s shaking out to exactly what you want it to be.

Step 8 – Put This All In A Visible Spot

There’s nothing worse than writing down and planning your goals than shoving it all in a desk drawer and coming across it 6 months later. Brendon Burchard calls it a battle board – you need to see what your battle plans are everyday so that every single day you keep your priorities top of mind. So, whatever that looks like for you – put this in a place you will actually look at it daily.

Optional Step 9 – Check-In

This is certainly optional, but life can change rapidly and along with those changes – priorities and goals shift.

I do a quarterly check-in, because 90 days is usually enough time to know if what I’m focusing on needs adjusting, canceling or if I’ve achieved my goal(s) sooner than I anticipated.

Now, if you need help gaining more hours in your day to achieve all the things you have planned for yourself – be sure to watch my series on how to wake up at 5 AM to boost productivity and get on your goals before life finds you during normal waking hours!

Until next time, bye mama!