Planning for a new year? Here’s my process
Greetings to you! Thanks for stopping our blog, Carnivalista Lifestyle, where we help busy, professional women discover new cultures, attract what they want, love themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. And if you’re planning for a new year, then this blog is for you!
It’s your girl Esha here. As an event planner for over 20 years, I have a lot of planning experience! My wish is by taking you on a journey with me through my end of year planning process, you can get some tips to help you stick to your plan and make 2021 your best year ever!
Before I get into the nitty gritty
I must say this: handwriting is a must for everything I’m going through with you here. This is essential for me and I suggest that you do the same. You’ve heard it before and I’ll say it again. There’s something magical that happens when you put pen to paper. Just stop making excuses and do it!
In regard to my annual planning process, I break down my end of year process into 3 parts: reflect, resolve and reinforce.
Reflection is key as you begin to plan for a new year
Reflect
Since starting to use Passion Planner a few years ago, reflection has become an integral part of my planning process. When starting to plan for a new year, I take some time to reflect on the past year.
I encourage you to not skip this step! However, I do get it. With the year we’ve all had, your automatic response might be to say “next” and move on! Here are a couple of resaons why reflection is important, especially this year:
- You don’t want to miss the juicy lessons you’ve learned. We’ve all learned some interesting, painful and important lessons this year. For me, resilience is one of the things I’ve been reminded of this year and I’ve rediscovered a strength I forgot that I had. Please take some time to reflect what you’ve learned and write these things down.
- Reflect about what you achieved. You did that! Think back on what you accomplished, wukked up, conjured up and made happen! Write all of that down too.
Resolve
Now that you’ve reflected and written down everything that you did, now’s the time to look at the present. Look around you. What do you really want?
Most of us go through life not knowing the exact answer to this question. The fact is, if you don’t know what you want or you’re unclear about what you want, the Universe will send you random stuff.
In thinking about planning for a new year, during the resolve step, I’ll choose a word that sets the vibe that I want. After choosing my word, I think about what I really want, set the intention to get it and write it down.
As a side note regarding getting clear about what you want: I encourage you to be specific! If you want more money, how much money do you want? If you want to lose weight, how much weight do you want to lose? Do you want your house/closet/office space to look different, then what do you want around you to make that happen? Quantify and be specific so you can manifest your intention.
Reinforce
Now that you have set the tone for the upcoming year and you know what you want, it’s time to reinforce this vision that you’ve created. That’s right, you’ve just created a vision for yourself! Wasn’t that easy?
In reinforcing my vision of the upcoming year, I personally do a few things:
- Refresh my vision board. I remove pictures of what I’ve completed or anything that’s different. Then, I add photos of what I do want in the upcoming year. For example, when I wanted to become a published author in 2017, I added words and pictures that supported that vision of myself. This manifested when I became a published author that year and then again in 2018!
- Change my passwords. I got this one from Lucky Bitch, a book that I read some time ago. If your goal is something you can break down into words, you might want to change your password (or 2 or more) to a system that you logon to frequently. I don’t recommend changing all of your passwords to the same words, however changing a few of your most frequently used ones can help with reinforcing your vision to yourself daily.
- Break your vision down into smaller steps. As I mentioned before, I use Passion Planner to write my vision, my word of the year and then the planner helps me to write down the smaller steps that I need to achieve my vision. I especially like their mind map spaces, where I write the larger vision in the middle and then branch out the smaller things that need to happen to achieve my vision.
- Revisit throughout the year. My planning process isn’t “one and done” and I don’t suggest it be the same for you. I use my Passion Planner everyday to keep myself on track. With the daily, weekly and monthly spaces, I’m able to follow all 3 steps – reflect, resolve and reinforce – throughout the year routinely.
Thanks for reading!
If you’d like more, feel free to join my good friend, Business Coach Nefateria Fonda and I in December for our Vision Board Experience. At the end of this fun and interactive workshop, you’ll have a completed physical or virtual vision board, ready to manifest your best year yet! The cost is just $50, which is small price to pay for clarity, direction and a mapped out vision for the next year. Click here to register.
Now over to you: how did you like these steps? What’s your planning for the new year like? Leave me a comment below!
Til de next lime,
Esha
About Esha: As an event planner and travel curator with over 20 years of experience (whose been to 5 out of the 7 continents), Esha’s helped professional women who don’t have the time, energy, or resources to plan their own vacations so they can travel and enjoy unique, life-changing Caribbean experiences. Click the links below to learn more!