Welcome friends to Episode #145 of the Own Your Best Life Podcast. One of the core skills you will need to learn as a leader in your life whether it’s personally or professionally is planning. If it’s something that you used to do and stopped, you’re likely feeling the effects. A sense of not really knowing what’s in store for you this year. Especially, if you are making a transition in your career or considering one. Today’s podcast on planning your year will help you get the vision you need to feel confident that this coming year will be the best year yet.

I was at a dinner with some leaders this past week after a leadership training I was leading. We talked about career paths and I mentioned how my plans have led me to where I am today, and my lack of plans have also led to the times in my life where I felt the most confused and unsure of what was next. Oftentimes, we are asked to create a plan at work for our yearly plans and we create something that we’re really excited about or believe in. There’s a sense of confidence afterwards, when you have that plan. People know what you’re going after and why.

Yet, most of us don’t do this if we’re not asked to. Which means that if you happen to be in a less structured role where you’re not being asked to define the strategy of the organization or of how you’ll see growth in the coming year, you often don’t have this kind of plan in place.

Or, you’ve planned it very loosely but don’t actually feel the confidence that comes from a well-thought out plan because you’re either unsure of what’s going to happen for you this year or there’s a sense of uncertainty around the most important areas of your life or work.

Another reason you may not be doing this is because you have so much going on in your life and in your day-to-day work that you feel you don’t have enough time to do the more strategic work.

If any of that resonates, you’re in the right place. You don’t have to just keep going like this for the rest of your life or the next decade. You can come back to it even if you resonate with any of those reasons. It’s the work of a lifetime that you get to do – and you will recommit today to doing this no matter what is going on in your life.

Do you love planning?

I love planning. It has always been something that has been a part of my life since I was young. I was one of those people who would create the excel for a personal trip. I would create color-coded timelines and actually enjoyed the process of seeing it all come together. Yet, I remember there were also times where I resisted the work. I didn’t want to plan. I felt disengaged or overwhelmed and a plan just felt like it added more work. If you’re feeling that way too, this is normal and I’ll share with you what’s going on and the key unlock you’ll need to address it.

Specificity in your Goals

The one thing that will help you plan is specificity in your goals. Most of the time the areas where we feel stuck are the same places where we lack specificity. That lack of detail may be because we’re new to a role and we don’t know what we don’t know. It might also come from disengagement because you don’t care as much anymore about what you’re working on. The next reason you may have a lack of specificity is because you feel overwhelmed and you’re just barely making it through the week.

As a leader in your work or at home, you are tasked with creating the plan and creating the goals. Sometimes, the goals are given to you but often the goals are rather loose and outcome based. Grow this much. Have a happy life. Be present. Be financially independent. You have to create both outcome and process goals. Then, you have to create different kinds of plans and goals depending on whether it’s an outcome goal or a process goal. You have to think deeply about what really matters when you set your goal. You have to be able to say that this is aligned with your priorities, relevant, attainable, trackable and motivating.

All of this can feel like it’s too much, especially if you’re overwhelmed already by the demands of life or you’ve stopped caring about your work.

Yet, no matter where you are on the spectrum of overwhelm or engagement, planning is still the most important thing you will do.

It is the last thing you will want to do, but it is literally the first thing you need to do.

It takes too much time

We often resist it because of this first fallacy: It takes too much time. If you were rescuing someone out of a burning building, you still need a plan even if you act with a sense of urgency. Your plan doesn’t need to take you hours. It may be the work of seconds, but the thought that occurs before the action is still critical. What is the priority? Where do you need help? What are the risks? How will you get there? 

If you were ever an athlete, you know that you’re constantly making decisions about what to focus on and the next move you need to make. There is a strategy to your training plan and to the match, game or practice.

Whether or not you want to plan or have the time to plan is irrelevant. It’s that we must direct our mind and intentions towards something that will help us make the millions of decisions we make over the course of a day. We don’t get to our ideal by accident. We get there by design.

I’ve had some happy accidents occur, don’t get me wrong, but I’d rather get there by design. I’d rather let the unexpected overflow be a by-product of intentional living. It is without a doubt much more reliable than to hope that life hands you the partner you want and vast amounts of time and resources to accomplish the things you want most.

As a leader, you need to learn how to manage with scarce resources and not create from a place of scarcity.

This means that if you feel like you have no time and then you don’t plan your life or work – you will be creating from scarcity. Creating a feeling of never having enough and therefore you will never see enough. What if you always will be in a cycle of problem then solution, problem then solution? I don’t think you’ve ever not had problems come up if you’re a human at least.

If you’ll always have some kind of problems that exist and things that need your time, you’ll have to cultivate the skill of planning and problem solving even when you feel panicked or anxious.

Uncertainty

If you feel uncertain about what lays ahead, that’s also another reason people don’t plan. They think there’s nothing they can do right now so they’ll just lay low. What if there were things to do?

I remember I was hosting a lot of live training before the pandemic and during the pandemic it wasn’t possible anymore. Should I wait it out and hope we go back? I didn’t. I pivoted and took everything online. Everything. I spent hardly any time lamenting or complaining about why this wasn’t ideal. I just made the changes and moved forward.

You will always have uncertainty. What if you have a big transition that’s happening in terms of an addition to the family or a new job? Should you not plan? I would definitely be planning even more. I remember that when I was in the transition to motherhood and shifting identities of what I wanted and who I was – I was dying to have an experience like the one I take people through. I wanted a process where I could clearly articulate my thoughts and my deepest desires. Where I could voice the uncertainty and not just have it linger there forever, but actually process the emotion and the resulting changes that would come from working through change in a healthy way.

When you plan your year, you’re not taking out uncertainty or eliminating it, but you do cultivate more certainty. You know how you want to spend your time and resources. I made the biggest investments into myself when I was in transition. I made the biggest investments into my work when I had big goals. I made choices that felt bold when I knew what it was that I desired. I wanted something more than the fear of failure or the fear of uncertainty – and that comes with having a plan. Even if the plan didn’t work out exactly like I expected, it was closer than I could have imagined.

Unseen forces will come up when you are truly in the energy of change. When you know that your year is important because your life is important, something dramatically changes in the way you approach your intentions. Intentional living is cultivated every single time you ask yourself, “what would I want my year to be like?” It expands our mind like nothing else. Our imagination starts to blossom. We feel more creative. We begin to think, “it’s possible.” This is the recipe for cultivating a life you love. Where you spend time on what’s most important to you. Never give up on that idea that you actually get to live a well-lived and meaningful life. It’s simpler to do than you think it is and it can change the moment you decide it will change.

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Take the first step to actually get the energy you want in all areas of your life and live into your potential as a unique individual. Sign up for Spiritual Achiever™ Coaching. Schedule a consultation here at www.mayempson.com/contact and we’ll get you started so that you see results, now. I just taught the energy audit and systems work that is so fundamental to embodying the way YOU do life so that you can live more authentically and sustainably. Making your own decisions and trusting yourself. 

Do not miss this opportunity to get your tank filled up so you have the capacity to do the work you were meant to do and not get burned out along the way.

If you’re ready to Own Your Best Life, I want to invite you to watch the free training on how to Stand Out and Lead, using spiritual, high-performance strategies. You can access the training at https://may-empson.mykajabi.com/stand-out-and-lead.

You can then apply to join my Spiritual Achiever® program, where you’re going to create your next chapter with spiritual and high-performance strategies to achieve time and financial freedom using my proven method. It’s risk-free. You either start seeing results within your first month or I give you your money back. Schedule your call HERE. We’ll see you inside.

That’s it for this week. Have an amazing one and I’ll talk to you next time.