e185 Planning On Purpose - Part 1, Are you ready to do what it takes to make next year YOUR year
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[00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to the ReWild Your Business podcast. So good to have you here, and actually, I'm incredibly glad you're here this week because it's that time of year for us to dive into planning. It's like everyone and their dog is talking about planning, but here's the thing. How many of us actually do this?
Well. How many of us do this well and then use it? To inform what we're really gonna achieve the following year. I feel like so many people just pay lip service to planning their year with intention, and I feel like it can make such a big difference for our businesses if we start that beautiful, fresh, new sheet of a new year with real intention that put thought behind.[00:01:00]
So this.
Planning on purpose. So we're gonna do two episodes. So in this first episode, we're gonna look at the planning process and what I believe goes into planning for the following year. In next week's episode, we're going to dive into more of the mindset around who you need to be to bring that vision and to life next year.
Between those two episodes. So this episode will be going live on, I think the 17th of November, and then on the 20th of November, I'm actually hosting a free masterclass for the Institute of Coaching Studies, and it's called Planning on Purpose. So that's where we're gonna roll up our sleeves and do the actual work that I'm talking about in this podcast episode.
Okay. Hope it's all making sense. So where the [00:02:00] hell did this year go? Oh my God. I feel like if we're not careful, this year is just gonna race past us and we're all gonna be sleep walking into 2026. It's gonna hit us like a freight train. And we don't do our best work when we haven't planned and prepared properly.
You know, January the first hits and suddenly we're all making these grand gestures about New year, new me and all of that kind of thing. And, and then we end up setting goals in January. That, to be honest, by February of kind of evaporated into the E and I'm really not interested in that kind of planning.
I want to help you. With the process. I take my private coaching clients through my legacy clients. This is the exact process I take those clients through at the end of each year. There's a process in this. I've been doing this for a lot of years now, and I've really refined this process into something that works incredibly well.
And [00:03:00] actually in the workshop on the 20th, I will be sharing that whole process with you. So you will get the full rollout of how I take clients through a planning process for the next year. But you're also gonna get a ton of value from this episode and next week's episode of the podcast because we're gonna go through some really valuable foundational stuff.
Whether you come to the workshop or not, and I hope you, I'm the link in the sign up. It's free the, but even if you don't come to the, what I'm gonna share with you today is gonna help you approach your differently, right? Because I think that there's a ton of crap advice out there actually around business planning.
And it's definitely made much more complex than it ever needs to be. There are a few things, a handful of things that are very important to do when it [00:04:00] comes to planning your year, but it isn't all about that hustle culture of doing more and pushing harder, and you know, how big and stretching can you set your goals to be.
It's not necessarily about that. It's about what do you really want? And the big question is, are you ready to do what it takes to make next year your year? And I'm emphasizing your year, not someone else's version of your year, not what Instagram is telling you your year should look like. Right. Not even what I tell you, your year should look like As a business coach, this needs to be your year built from your values, built with a rhythm in mind that you wanna embody as you move through next year.
A pace, a feeling, a vision for your business that completely fulfills you. One thing I've learned. From years of coaching, [00:05:00] really ambitious women. Most of us don't ever fail because we lack strategy, right? We tend to struggle because we're following strategies that were not created by us for us. Right. And so it's really important that when you are planning your year and you are thinking about everything you wanna bring to life, the things you wanna achieve, the goals you wanna hit next year, you need to be doing that through the lens of, this needs to be me doing it my way.
Okay. So let's dive into this episode. Welcome to Rewild Your Business, the podcast for women doing the work, their soul intended. I'm Gill Moakes. I'm an international business coach, and I'm a guide for women doing the work that matters. Rewilding your business means cutting away what doesn't belong to allow, what does to thrive.
Finding simplicity in your [00:06:00] work, and it's about bringing the whole of who you are to the table. Whether you are building something new or finding your way back to what really matters to you. I'm so glad you're here. Let's. Just go into a moment about why planning actually matters. And honestly, I, I'm not gonna turn into some sort of productivity guru.
I'm know Michael Hyatt. Actually, if you haven't read his book, Free to Focus, oh my God, buy that book and do your yearly planning with that book and this podcast, you, you could really do worse than learning a trick or two from Michael Hyatt. He's fabulous at this stuff. So highly recommend that book free to focus.
I'll pop the link to that in the show notes as well. So, why does planning matter? It matters because without it, you are constantly in reactive mode. Without planning, you are just gonna be responding to whatever is loudest, [00:07:00] whatever's the most urgent, whatever's popping up in your inbox that day. To decide where your energy and attention are going.
Don't get me wrong, I get it. When you are building a coaching business, there is always something that feels urgent. You know, a potential client has reached out, or there's a tech issue, or you know, you've got so much content to create. It can feel endless. But here's the truth, urgency is not the same as importance and without a plan.
An actual proper plan, not just a vague hope that things are gonna work out. You will end up spending all your energy on the urgent things that don't actually move you towards what you want. So this is the difference between someone who's stuck in almost like a management role versus someone who is embodying a visionary CEO role.
I see this a lot with the coaches who come to work with me in my [00:08:00] program, which is called Mastery. Because clients come to me, coaches come to me, and they are kind of exhausted. They're really overwhelmed, and they feel like they're working constantly and working really hard, but they're not actually building the business that they have in their mind, the vision that they have for their business.
And when we start unpicking what's going on, it's almost always the same thing. They've been so busy reacting that they simply haven't given themselves that permission to pause and to plan with intention and to actually spend their time and place their energy where it's gonna make the most difference.
I was about to say that planning isn't about control, but you know what? It's a little bit about control. It's about creating enough structure and clarity that you can actually be present in your business, that you can show up as the [00:09:00] coach you want to be, rather than this like stressed out version of yourself that's trying to keep a hundred plates spinning.
So when it comes to planning with intention, planning on purpose, as I'm calling it. We actually start not by looking forward to next year. We start by looking back. And honestly, this is the bit everyone wants to skip because by this time of year everyone's a little bit over the year, all a bit over 20, 25 now, kind of ready for that beautiful clean sheet of paper for January, 2026.
But I think it's so important that we don't do that, that we don't skip this. Piece of the planning process, which is reflecting on the year that's been, and that means facing what worked and what didn't work. It means being really honest about the goals that you set for yourself that you didn't hit.
[00:10:00] It's looking in the eye of the offers that flopped the clients. Maybe that slipped through the net that you didn't land. You know, maybe it's about promises that you made to yourself in January that you just didn't keep. The reason that it's so important not to skip this part is that what happened this year is full of data, and data forms the foundation of the way we plan for the next year.
So if you can be honest, get this unfiltered data about what actually works for you and your business, and if you don't, then take the time to review that. To review what happened and what went well and what didn't go well. You are running the risk of just repeating mistakes year on year. So in my Planning on Purpose workshop.
We're gonna spend proper time on this because it really is foundational. In the meantime, I wanna give you a few reflection prompts that you can start [00:11:00] looking at right now. Simple things to start thinking about. The first one, what actually worked well in 2025? By that, I mean what really worked, not like what looked good on the outside, what actually felt aligned for you?
What brought in revenue, money in the bank? What things did you do or try or experiment with that served your clients really brilliantly and gave you energy? Maybe it was a particular offer, a particular package that you sold this year. Maybe it was a new approach. Maybe it was a new coaching approach that you tried that really worked well with clients.
Maybe it was finally setting some boundaries around your working hours, things like that. Think about all of the things that worked well this year and write them down. The second thing I want you to think about is what challenges did you face? And again, you know, this isn't about failures. This is about information, it's data.
Were you hoping [00:12:00] to fill a group program, for example, and maybe you really struggled to fill that group coaching program, or maybe you finished qualifying as a coach and had all these high hopes of the number of clients you were gonna work with this year, and it just didn't pan out that way. Maybe you hit the ground running so hard in January that by March you felt absolutely burnt out and needed a couple of months to recover.
But don't judge yourself while you're doing this. Just notice it. Just notice it and write it down and be honest. And then the third question, which is the really juicy one, is what did you learn about yourself this year? What has this year taught you about how you work best about what you actually enjoy doing, and what has it taught you about where your strengths really lie?
So maybe this year you discovered that you are just [00:13:00] brilliant at intimate one-to-one coaching, but group programs just drain you and you don't wanna do that. Or maybe you realize that you need a hell of a lot more downtime than you've been giving yourself. All of this is gold. You need this information to be able to plan effectively for next year, for a different year.
That brings a different result at the end of it. And another really important question that we cover as well in the workshop is what do you wish you hadn't started? We all have these things. Again, no judgment here. Don't look at these things and feel like you're on your own and the only person who's maybe wasted some time on something that really has drained your energy and it would've been better spent somewhere else, right?
We all say yes to things. That potentially we already knew in our gut weren't right. We all do it. So think about what do you wish you hadn't started? Is there an offer that you labored away on and created just [00:14:00] because everyone else was doing it? You know, have you been showing up religiously to a networking group that actually, you know, you're just not really enjoying it and you've never really liked breakfast meetings and you're not really sure why you've been doing it right?
Whatcha are gonna leave behind in 2025? And this actually is a really key to rewilding your business. Remember? It's about cutting away what doesn't belong so that what does can really thrive? What are the things that have drained your energy in 2025 that if you stopped doing them, you would have space and time and more energy for what really moves the needle in 2026?
Okay, so that's the first part of our process. It's the reflection piece. The next part is creating your 2026 vision. So once you've got really clear on what's staying and what's going, whatcha bringing with you into 2026, whatcha leaving behind in 2025? [00:15:00] We get to do the really exciting bit, creating your vision for next year.
And you know, your vision isn't necessarily about setting massive goals that look really impressive. You know, God forbid anyone thinks you're playing small. So you feel you've gotta set these humongous goals and then in the truth underneath it. You don't actually care about those goals. You kind of did it to tick a box.
It's not about that. It's about what genuinely lights you up in your business. Your vision should be about how you want to feel. It should be about how you wanna feel, how you wanna live, and what kind of impact you wanna have. And once you know what those things are, then you can look at what does your business need to look like to support those things.
So that's the big question for your vision is what do you want your coaching business and your life to look like by the end of [00:16:00] 2026 and not what it should look like or what would impress other people? What do you want? And the way we break this down is we think about it under three headings. The first one is.
How do you wanna live your life in 2026? So what are your lifestyle goals? How much time do you wanna spend with your family on hobbies, traveling? You know, what does good? Because your business should exist to support your life, not the other way around. That's something I've struggled with in the past and still do from time to time because I love what I do so much.
I actually do struggle to find a good balance between making sure I'm not spending every waking moment on the business and neglecting other parts of my life. So think about what do you actually want your life to look like next year? And then financially, what are your financial goals for next year?
What is the income that you actually need to feel secure and supported? What would genuinely [00:17:00] be enough for you? Not what some money mindset guru is trying to tell you you must desire, because I see a lot of that out there. It's almost making people feel guilty for not desiring. Oodles oodles of money. I really believe that if you crave being incredibly wealthy.
You are allowed that vision, absolutely write that big number down as long as it's what you truly want for the right reasons. And so that's why I like to approach this through a, what do you need for next year for your life to feel a certain way? What do you need to feel abundant in every way? You know?
'cause it's probably not 10 million pounds. So think about what do I really need? What are my financial goals? And let them be yours. Own them. Don't [00:18:00] listen to what someone else tells you. You must desire, but equally don't allow any kind of naysayers to tell you you're not being realistic either. This is hard for people.
Pleased as it's hard for people who constantly need validation because what I'm asking you to do is to really tune into your own intuition. I'm asking you to listen to the voice inside you that tells you what's right for you. It's not always easy, and I get that. The third category is your reputational goals.
So what do you wanna be known for by the end of 2026? What's the work that matters most to you? What's your unique contribution and what do you want people to say about the impact you've had? That's a really good way to think about your reputational goals. How do you wanna be remembered? What do you want people to be saying about how you've touched this planet?
So when you are clear on those three categories, I want you [00:19:00] to have a go at writing yourself a one sentence vision statement for next year. So it might be something like, by the end of 2026, I'm running a thriving coaching business, working exclusively with clients I adore, making an incredible impact while also having proper time for my family and my own wellbeing.
Right? Beautiful. That makes me feel like my God, yeah. I wanna build the business that supports that vision. So make it yours, make it true for you, and make it something that when you read it out loud, ideally you feel that little spark of, yes, that is it. That is the vision. I wanna build the business for.
The next phase is where a lot of planning, if I'm honest, falls apart because people set these amazing visions, have wonderful goals, very inspiring goals, but they're nothing. That happens for one very, very simple reason. It's because you don't break it [00:20:00] down into the actual achievable. I know exactly what I need to do.
Next steps. So that's what we're gonna look at. Now, your yearly vision needs to be broken down, and you can do this in lots of different ways. In the workshop, I'm gonna really teach you my approach to doing this, which is very specific. It involves quarterly projects and. So. You know, it's, it's a very strategic way of looking at your vision for next year, categorizing the things that are gonna go towards making it a reality and then breaking it down into projects.
Steps and tasks, or you know, however you wanna call it, milestones. There's lots of different ways you can plan it out, but effectively there is a process to this that I take people through that works every time because it absolutely gets you crystal clear on what is the [00:21:00] pathway to that vision, what are the actual things you're going to need to do by the end of each week, month, quarter.
Come together to equal what you wanna achieve by the end of 2026. When we try and do everything at once without really this broken down plan, we end up not really seeing anything through to the end. Because we do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and we never quite managed to get the momentum to see any one project through to the end.
And that's why I like to look at these quarterly projects and it works really well. If this appeals to you, this theory around really breaking your year into. Four very distinct projects that you're gonna work on, then I really recommend you come along to the workshop because like I said, I'm gonna take everyone through it step by step with slides, with a workbook, and you're gonna be able to go away and do this for yourself, for your business.
We look at the different areas of focus, so you know, [00:22:00] what are the different projects that you wanna take on next year that are gonna contribute to that vision? Is there a project around your brand potentially? You know, maybe it's your mis positioning, your messaging, you know, that kind of thing. Is it your business model?
So is it actually what you're selling? Is it your packages, your signature framework? Is it your offers? Is it your pricing? Are those things that you wanna concentrate on looking at next year? Is it your thought leadership? Is there something next year that you want to achieve in terms of upleveling your visibility, your personal brand?
Is next year, the year that you build a cohesive marketing ecosystem with each little part, each moving part, working together to actually bring in clients into your world. Right. And then there are other things as well. There's client experiences. Your operations, what are the systems and processes that keep everything running in your business?
There's lots of [00:23:00] different projects that you can look at working on next year. So it's, it's really thinking, okay, which of these needs the most attention next year to bring me towards my vision? And then the thing that, to be honest, is the actual. Needle mover in terms of getting things done. And that's the art of prioritizing because once you've got your strategic plan mapped out for the year, you understand what projects you're addressing when.
What you're working on, when and how all of that comes together to bring the vision that you have to life. Once you've got the plan, you need to understand how you are going to prioritize each day, week, month, quarter. So in the workshop I'm gonna teach you a very simple framework for prioritization that works every time.
This is not reinventing the wheel, it's nothing new, but it's something that if you actually get [00:24:00] in the habit of using, you are gonna find it a hell of a lot easier to prioritize your day, week, month, quarter. Okay. Important. What is gonna move the needle is really the key because once you are clear on how you decide what's important and what's not important.
It gets a lot easier to say no to the stuff that is just that noise, the stuff that is busy work that isn't really moving the needle. And we all know that. That's often the reason that we don't hit our goals is because we've diverted our energy and attention to busy work that simply isn't really feeding what we're trying to achieve.
Okay, so here's the thing. I wanna. When you plan for your year, that plan is not rigidly set in stone. In [00:25:00] fact, I would go as far as to say that if you set your plan in November or this year, or even January next year, and you are still rigidly following that plan with no deviation whatsoever by December with no adjustments, something's probably gone wrong.
Let's be honest. Businesses evolve. You evolve. The world around you is evolving, right? So the way we combat that to make sure that there's enough flex in our plan, for our plan to make sense, for our plan to have some organic movement in it. Right. The way we do that is that we have quarterly reviews built in.
One action you could do today. Book these quarterly reviews for your business into your calendar right now. So book one in for the end of March, one for the end of June, one for the end of September, one for the end of December, and treat these like. Having a meeting with your business, this is an [00:26:00] idea that my dear, dear friend Deb Driscoll, who is the founder of the Be Her Academy and Collective, she's sitting down and having a meeting with your business.
I love that vision actually. I really like that vision and where your business gets to have a voice and say, here's what I need from you in the next quarter. So sit down, have this meeting with your business, but ask yourself, you know, what's working, what's not working, what needs to change? What next, and that's how you're gonna stay aligned.
That's how you're gonna build a business that is growing with you, not despite you, because that's what can happen if you become too rigid and too attached to your initial plan. Right? So this kind of sustainable approach is what I know.
Building a coaching business isn't about [00:27:00] one big push once a year. It's about showing up really consistently and making decision at the beginning of year for the next. Making smart decisions based on what's worked and what hasn't worked this year and on what you have in your vision for your business.
But then it's about making adjustments as you go and trusting yourself enough to change course if something's not working. Okay, so that is what I wanted to share with you today. That for me is the foundations of planning with purpose. So next week in part two of this little two-parter, we're gonna really talk about more of the mindset.
Around who you need to be in your business. What is your business asking from you in terms of how you show up to bring that vision to life? [00:28:00] Okay, so like I say, do join me for the Planning on Purpose Workshop on November the 20th. It is being facilitated by the amazing Institute of Coaching Studies. My absolute number one recommendation for any coach who is undergoing their coach training, wants to take the next step.
They also offer micro certifications in different, very niche areas of coaching. It's incredible. The institute is my absolute. I highly recommend, so I love being able to give these quarterly workshops for the institute. It's one of my favorite things to do, and this planning one, we actually ran this last year for the institute as well, and it got such good feedback.
So I really haven't made a ton of changes for this year because this process works that well. So the link is gonna be in the show notes to sign up for the workshop, and you'll also get a workbook to use as we go through it. Even if you can't make [00:29:00] the workshop live, you'll be sent a replay, so it's worth signing up even if you can't make it live on the 20th.
And as always, I would love you to share with me your reflections on this episode. In fact, I'm gonna be more specific than that. Thinking about that first part of this episode where I was talking about reflecting on 2025, on what worked, what didn't work, what you wish you made time for, what you wish you hadn't started, you know, I would love you to share with me [email protected]
Share with me. By email, what your reflections are, what's come up. And if you can join me for the workshop, I would love, love, love to have you there. It's gonna be a goodie. Alright, part two coming next week. In the meantime, have a fabulous week and I'll see you back here sometime next week. Bye for now.
