EP 209 New Year Planning
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Happy New Year, everyone. New Year's is coming soon. I am super excited about this week. And I hope you all had a great holiday season, and we have entered the week where nobody knows what day it is. And I think that is a cool part of this week, where many people start to decompress. Some people start to think about the new year.
Sara Mayer: And before we jump into thinking about the new year, If you're new here, you know that [00:01:00] we love to reflect on our previous year and really think about our successes, what's gone well, and come at it from a place of positivity rather than what we haven't done. But you may be thinking about 2023 still. And you may be thinking about all the things that you really wanted to accomplish this year.
Sara Mayer: And if you also are new here, you may not know that we don't bring. This week into next week. We don't bring this month into next month, and we certainly don't bring this year into next year. So this is a great week. If you are not taking it completely off to decompress if that wasn't part of your plan to catch up and ensure that you are setting yourself up for success next year.
Sara Mayer: Many times people will talk about finishing strong or hustling to the end and I'm not a real big [00:02:00] proponent of hustling to the end, but I think it's important this week to take stock in what truly is on your plate. What are the things that maybe are hanging out that maybe you don't want to continue to hang out that you can either easily or maybe not so easily cross off your list this week.
Sara Mayer: It's also a great time when you make that master list of all the things that you have on your plates or many plates to think about. Why is this continuing to be on your plate? Do you no longer have passion for that anymore? Do you really need to finish it? But you don't know how? Do you just put it off because you know that it's going to take some mental brain power to do it, do that.
Sara Mayer: And so what I like to do at the end of the year, before I start to think about the future year. After I've done some of my reflection on how the year went, I take [00:03:00] stock in all the things that are on my list. I make a master list. I just jot them all down. It doesn't need to be perfect. You don't need all the details.
Sara Mayer: Just all those things that are in your head on your to do list. Maybe you have post its all around. Whatever you have, take stock in it. Jot it all down. What are the things that are clogging up you from stepping into the new year with a clean slate? Now, I'm not saying to go forward and tackle all those things this year, because truly, They're still on your to do list.
Sara Mayer: For a reason, but it's time to think about those things. Why are those things started or maybe not even started? Why are they on your list and not finished? What? What is it about those items? And that is the key to being able to set New Year's resolutions. Or [00:04:00] to plan for the new year is to really think about what's on your list this year.
Sara Mayer: And why didn't those things get finished? So take some time today and start the process of planning for the new year. Start with your reflection. There's a great reflection worksheet. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go to sarahmayer. com and then look under my free tools and resources. There's a yearly reflection there.
Sara Mayer: Check it out. Definitely grab that resource. Start there. Then make a master list of all the things that you have. Once you have that master list, go down the list and right next to it, one word, just one word. The reason, not the excuse, the reason why you haven't finished that. Are you scared? Are you overwhelmed with it?
Sara Mayer: Do you just not care about it anymore? Is it something that requires somebody else and you [00:05:00] haven't received that just one word. And once you have that master list, you will truly understand what is stopping you from stepping into. actually finishing some of your goals. And it may be that those goals don't inspire you anymore.
Sara Mayer: It may be that those goals never truly were what you wanted. They're maybe what society wanted or somebody else wanted for you. And so I think it's really important to identify those things. And then after you've identified them, The next step in yearly planning is to set up your year. For success so that next week when we step into the new year, you can be successful.
Sara Mayer: Once you identified the reason that you haven't stepped into those now it's time to identify what you are going to do with those things. [00:06:00] Some of them you may just simply let go. Some of them you may delegate. So for example, if you have a whole bunch of laundry or things laying around your house and one of your goals was to be more neat and organized for the year, maybe there's some other people in your household that can help you with those things.
Sara Mayer: Or maybe you are fortunate enough that you can hire somebody to help you. I think it's really important to know. That you can remove things from your list, and then it's time to set a time to actually complete these things. So for some people like me, I do two full days the last week of December, right?
Sara Mayer: Don't do any communication. Via email, phone, or anything like that. And I knock things off my list. It's my crossing it off days. And those days, really, I power through some of the tasks that have been hanging out for a [00:07:00] long time. So once you decide what you're going to do with those items, maybe you're going to breathe new life into them.
Sara Mayer: Maybe you're going to just simply take Frozen's advice, Elsa's advice, and let them go. Or you may carry them over if you're not able to finish them by the end of the year. And it's important to really decide what you're doing with these things. These are your to do baggage items. And if you carry them into the new year, and you add on new year items that you want to accomplish, It can get really heavy.
Sara Mayer: And so that's why it's critical to think about these things in a way that allows you to have a plan for them. Because when you have a plan for the items that are on your to do list, you will be able to execute that. When you don't have a plan, you're going to keep carrying these items and not only carrying the items the [00:08:00] guilt that goes along with not having finished those items.
Sara Mayer: So take some time, take some stock on what you have on your plate. And once you do that, now it's really time to dream. And when you're thinking about your year, I encourage you to think about it in quarters, so 12 weeks, and think about what you want to accomplish in those different chunks of time. Do you want to accomplish X?
Sara Mayer: Do you want to accomplish a revenue goal? Do you want to accomplish a health goal? And I encourage you to pick three to five really big, bold goals. Because we know that when we have 10 to 15 to 20, 30, 5, 40 goals, we just simply can't accomplish them. But if you're breaking your year up into quarters, You can accomplish more.
Sara Mayer: You can pick 3, 2 to 3 things to focus on in the [00:09:00] 1st quarter and then that will be accomplished or you will have made progress towards that bigger goal. I encourage you to once you really dream big about what you want. Then break those up into your seasons, your quarters. What quarter am I going to accomplish this in?
Sara Mayer: And once you have that quarter, then you know that is your focus. Your 12 week sprint of a marathon to the end of that. Now, you might not necessarily achieve your big, bold goal, but that's your focus for that quarter. And that is how you will be able to critically change your ability to set goals.
Sara Mayer: If you haven't checked out the book, the 12 week year, I highly encourage you to check out that book. It's a fantastic book for how to accomplish more in a year. And one of the things they talk about is that we as humans. Severely underestimate what we can accomplish in five [00:10:00] years, but we overestimate what we can accomplish in one year.
Sara Mayer: So many of your goals are going to take multiple years and that's okay. So once you truly know what you want to focus on for the year, you now have your bold goals. And I think it's really important to set a framework around that so you have some options here, you can set a word of the year, you can set a theme for the year, something that brings you back to that common thing that you're working on for the year or the quarter.
Sara Mayer: and allows you to really reset your mind when you start to get bogged down. Some people will do a vision board. I highly encourage you to do vision boards. I always love vision board experiences, but I encourage you to think about vision boards differently. Many times people start with the magazine. I usually have a magazine here.
Sara Mayer: Don't. But many times people will start with the magazine and they'll flip through the pages [00:11:00] and they'll say, these shoes look great. Maybe I should get more healthy this year. This tropical beach looks awesome. Maybe I should set a goal to take a vacation and you really should not start with the vision with the magazine as inspiration in a vision board party.
Sara Mayer: You should actually start with your brainstorm activity. If you want inspiration, maybe look at different things that other people have done, but I encourage you not to look at the magazines 1st for inspiration. And then what you should do is then go find magazines or images online. And put them onto your vision board to represent what you already are clear upon that you want to accomplish.
Sara Mayer: That's the key to good vision boarding. So I'm not a big proponent of you must do a word. You must do a theme. You must do a vision board. You can even set resolutions. But you need a [00:12:00] way to remind yourself about the goals and you all know that I'm not a proponent of smart goals because I want your goals to be dreamy and big and bold.
Sara Mayer: So don't worry about putting them in a certain format, just describe them in a way that inspires. You and when you are inspired by your goal, even it's going to help you get there. We're going to talk about the action items and how you get into the action of doing those goals. But when it's in some boring format, that's I will do this by this day by that.
Sara Mayer: That's not inspiring. That doesn't make you get excited. That's more like your to do list, dragging you down with that baggage. So make your goals big, bold, and in a language that is inspiring to you. After you get these things accomplished, it's time to truly break down into those quarters what [00:13:00] you are going to accomplish.
Sara Mayer: So you have your goals, you loosely know what you want to do for the quarters, and now it's time to plug them in the spot. What is the 12 week focus for quarter one, two, three, and four? And this is where you get granular. I will do this. These are the steps that it takes to accomplish my goals, and I will do them, and then This is the date that it'll get done.
Sara Mayer: This is where you breathe life into that plan and going back to your to do list. When we put things on our to do list, and we don't have a start and end date, or we haven't thought about how long it's going to take us to accomplish them. What happens is we drag them along like an anchor like that baggage and so when we get into goal planning when we're talking about your goals, and you actually get into the quarters that you're going to do these things, and that's when you're going to road map out.
Sara Mayer: From a to Z, the entire plan for that [00:14:00] goal, and that's critical to ensure that you make the progress needed to keep going. Now, that's a lot. I threw a lot at you a lot of things that you need to do this week so that you will be ready. For the new year, and that's what the most important part is this week is to set yourself up for success.
Sara Mayer: It's not about trying to finish all your goals or all your tasks by the end of the year. Now, some of you may not want to carry those things into the next year. And that's great. Some of you may need to because. Quite simply, this week is a week that you're spending with family and that's your goal. And so you want to accomplish that goal as well as all the other goals you have.
Sara Mayer: So it's critical to think about how you're going to finish the year. but also how are you going to springboard yourself up so that in the new year you truly are ready for the new year now you may be wondering if you're watching on youtube [00:15:00] you can see i have set up for the new year so i have my happy new year sign I have my champagne bottle.
Sara Mayer: I have my horn and I am ready to go for our new year party. So if you haven't grabbed the free tool and resource, please do that. That's your new year reflection. Our new year party runs the beginning of January. You can complete it at any time during the year. And I encourage you to sign up at sarahmayor.
Sara Mayer: com slash new year party, 2024. We'd love to have you. Okay, Bold Goal Crushers, you have received your assignment. It's time to set yourself up for success in the new year. Get to work so that you can accomplish your goals and crush everything that gets in the way. Let's get to it!
Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my [00:16:00] community.
I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
