In Episode 033 of The Naked Party Time Podcast, Sabrina and I talk about how you can be intentional with a plan to get the most out of the coming year.
If you aren’t intentional about where you’re going in life, then you’ll just end up going wherever life takes you.
Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.” And sadly, that’s how many people approach each new year. We fail to plan. And having a plan is what this podcast is all about. Being intentional as we go into the new year of how we’re going to make progress in some specific areas of our life.
The process we walk through on this podcast is the exact thing we do as we end each year and as we approach a new one.
Annual Planning Process:
1. Schedule a Rendezvous
Literally, schedule the time where you’re going to do this. Put it on the calendar. Don’t say you’re too busy to do this. You might be too busy BECAUSE you don’t do this. This helps get your priorities in order.
2. Review the previous year
A. What were the wins?
If you had goals for the year, which ones did you accomplish? How did you do? Even outside of your goals, what were things that went well? What did you enjoy? What were you thankful for? Start with the wins because it’s encouraging.
B. What do we wish would have been different?
Again, if you had goals that you didn’t accomplish, talk about why. What happened? What could we have done differently? Were they in our control or out of our control? You talked about the wins but talk through the losses too. They are real. How will we move forward from those losses?
3. Refocus your priorities
Based on your wins and wishes, what do you need to work on? What areas of life rose to the top that you recognize need to change, be improved, cut out, let go of, or whatever?
If you’re married, use a shared note on your phone to do this. We share four main goals as a couple: Financial, Relational, Family, and Bucket List goals.
In our personal lives, we also have spiritual, physical, and professional goals.
4. Reorder your life
Make the adjustments that need to happen to accomplish the goals you set.
If you don’t do this step of re-ordering your life then you don’t have goals you have wishes.
5. Return to your plan regularly
Set specific times throughout the year that you are doing this plan on a mini-scale.
If you don’t go back and look at your goals and review them then you’ll never accomplish them.
You have to do the things you don’t want to do in order to make progress.
Schedule a rendezvous, review the previous year, refocus your priorities (set new goals), re-order your life around them, return to your plan regularly.
Other Episode’s Mentioned:
Episodes 012, 013, 014, 015