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8. Past. Present. Future: How to Plan Your Best Year Ever

Standing on the edge of a new year can feel exciting and daunting at the same time. They key to your best year ever? Being intentional.

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Standing on the edge of a new year can feel exciting and daunting at the same time. They key to your best year ever? Being intentional. In this episode, I covered

• Why you should consider making a plan for your year

• My 3-part method for planning my year so you can step into 2020 with confidence, clarity and intention.

• Ideas for how to plan so you don’t get overwhelmed and give up

Three Reasons Why You Should Consider Making a Plan for Your Year

1. Sketching out what you want your year to look like makes your day-to-day a whole lot more manageable. It’s easier to prioritize how you’ll spend your time when you know exactly what you’re aiming for. When you don’t have anything to work toward – like a goal or good habit – everything will feel really open-ended and potentially overwhelming.

2. Planning your year helps you make progress on long-term goals. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and many of the best things in life take more than a week, month or quarter to complete.

3. Planning your year keeps you from overloading yourself in January, and setting yourself up for failure. The fastest way to fail is to take on too much at once. Spacing out your plans helps you divide your focus throughout the year.

My Three-Part Planning Process

Part I: Past

Part I is all about focusing on the past before stepping into the future. I think about the past year and ask myself:

• What worked?

• What didn’t?

• What did I learn?

• What were my biggest wins?

Part II: Present

Part II is all about focusing on the here and now. Who am I right now? What are the different areas of my life?

1. Roles: I take time to write down all of the roles I play right now in my life. The hats I wear, and the titles I have. This looks like “mother, wife, daughter, business owner….” and more

2. Responsibilities: This is when I’ll capture the different parts of my life right now. This looks like “spiritual, financial, parenting, marriage, business, health/fitness….” and more

Part III: Future

This is when I really dig into the planning.

1. I make a “List of 100 Dreams” and spend some time journaling 100 different things I’d like to do in my lifetime. This includes things like places I’d like to travel, books I’d like to read and more.

2. Then I review everything so far and begin jotting down ideas for goals.

3. The next step is to narrow those goals down to a list of about 3-5 to focus on in the coming year.

4. I choose a word of the year to represent the overall theme of the year.

5. I create a vision board as a visual representation of my big goals and dreams for the upcoming year.

How do you plan your year? Do you set goals or create a vision board? Let us know over in the It’s About Time Podcast Community on Facebook.

LISTENER SPOTLIGHT

Thanks so much Ross45786. I’m so honored that you tuned in, and that you found some valuable tips in my first few episodes. It’s true – a lot of the examples I share in It’s About Time are geared toward women. As a woman myself – a mom and a wife, we tend to have a lot on our plates, but I believe that my advice and the proven strategies I share on the podcast can be helpful to anyone – and I’m glad they’ve been helpful for you!

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LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• My favorite blue pens.

• My favorite highlighters. They’re erasable!

• Neon sticky page flags

• The giant wall calendar I’m using in 2020. I had it printed and laminated at Office Depot.

• My 2020 planner.

• Join the It’s About Time Academy!

• Looking for the Free Best Year Ever Mini-Course mentioned in Episode 8? Although it’s no longer available, be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter to be the first to know when the 2021 Edition of Best Year Ever is ready for you!