Personal Planning
We’ve reached planning season.
Businesses are thinking ahead about budgets and plans for the new year. Individually, we may be thinking about performance reviews. How this year has gone. And possibly what we hope the new year will hold.
However, much of the work is centered around… work.
My Story
Over the last 10 years, I’ve been working on a process to plan my overall life more intentionally. My career is a central part of that plan, but it’s not the whole plan.
The structure focuses on all 8 dimensions of our wellbeing.
The process helps put focus the goals that often sit on the back burner and never move to completion. The ones that are our goals… not driven by work deadlines or needs of family & friends.
In my coaching work, I hear from many people how they feel like they are moving through life in defense mode. Reacting to what the day/week/year puts in front of them. My goal is to help them shift to offense. Creating stability and control.
The Plan Your Year Program
If you are feeling a bit adrift or would like a more intentional plan for the year ahead, I have a program for you. The Plan Your Year Program is a guided experience to help you create a personal plan for 2027. Your career (occupation) will be included, but so will the other dimensions of wellbeing – physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, intellectual, social, and environmental.
You will dream, set goals, find patterns and create a roadmap for your year. Along the way, we talk about managing our time & energy, motivation, inspiration, setting routines, and keeping goals on track as the year progresses.
The structure of the program allows for personal flexibility. You can choose self-guided (workbook and video), collaborative (workbook + interactive sessions), or 1on1 (workbook + personalized sessions with me).
If you have a group of friends (minimum 5), I’m happy to do the schedule the four live sessions just for your group. This format works well when everyone is going through a similar stage of life or sharing similar personal goals.
To learn more, please reach out with a note and/or visit the registration page.
Posts This Week
The Final 45. As the year winds down, we have about 45 days until the holiday season is in full swing. This post encourages you to see how much you can accomplish over the next 45 days.
My Version of a Meaning Matrix. This post builds on work from Ben James. I take his meaning matrix and give it a bit of a spin of my own.
Strategy as an Anti-Overwhelm Tool. We all get overwhelmed. While it might be counter-intuitive to step back and work on strategy, that could be just the thing to cure the overwhelm.
Strategy as Scaffold. A strategy for our work, our careers, and our life provides the structure to build upon. Just like good scaffolding, strategy creates the structure.
Designing “Ma” in a Cluttered World. In Japanese, Ma represents the magic in an opening. This post explores Ma further and connects the concepts to our busy, overscheduled lives.
Podcasts and Articles That Caught My Attention
Stop Trying Harder. Build a Better System. 28 minutes. The Next Big Idea Daily. This episode highlights two books. First, How to Be Good at Life: Simple Systems to Achieve More and Stress Less by Ben Meer Then, Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation by Ayelet Fishbach.
What It Means to Follow Through. 3 minutes. Self-Improvement Daily. The message is simple – following through means doing what you say you will do.
Debunking the Laundry List Fallacy: Why Doing Less is More Impressive. 11 minutes. Optimal Work Daily. In this episode, Cal Newport argues that a long list of accomplishments makes you look less impressive, not more, and backs it with research. Next time you are updating a resume or your LinkedIn profile, this would be a great time to listen.
Map Out Your Timeline. 7 minutes. Before Breakfast. This podcasts highlights how a good plan can make a daunting project more doable. I see a direct tie to my 2027 planning workshop. Breaking down what you want out of the year and making it doable.
What Do You Think?
Do you create a personal plan each year? Could you use the process & accountability?
Have you tried intentionally creating space in your schedule and spaces?
What ideas did the posts & podcasts spark that you could implement in the week ahead?
Marketing Newsletter
This week, the Fingerprints Marketing newsletter provides my thoughts on how the funnel is working (or not) and ladder off a podcast I heard to provide some thoughts on logos. The issue wraps up with links to marketing articles and podcasts that caught my attention.