Plan Your Year Like A Pro

Welcome to 2023, this year, there will be absolutely no new year new me. This is an alternative to new years resolution because I am determined to build the life of my dreams and I cannot do that with just new years resolutions that ultimately end in disappointment. This year I am trying out a different system to get my best year yet. I have a plan and I’m going to share it with you, let’s go!

The Concept

Inspired by a TikTok (obviously), the concept is to have focus months, instead of resolutions. First, you create a list of goals for the year, then you make a to-do list of all goals, plot those goals into monthly targets then create actionable steps for each goal. By December you’ll have worked through your goals and be basking in the bliss of success and enjoyment, well that’s the plan anyway. Honestly, it’s about bite-sizing your dreams and creating a system to action them.  Nothing is too far out of reach, so think big and create actions to achieve them because a plan without action is wishing.

Step 1: Review the past year

Before you do anything, take time to review your 2022, what went well, what did not go well, and do you know why? If you need some more guidance, you can use the Year Compass to help guide you through this process of evaluation. You need to know where you’ve been to know where you are going, so do the work, no matter how hard or tedious.

Step 2: Life Pillars

To help you create the life you want, it helps to create pillars (reference points) in your life that you want to focus on. The pillars cover all areas of your life, from work to relationships to finance and spirituality. You are welcome to tweak these, but I have found them to be quite inclusive.

• Health
• Finance
• Relationships
• Self
• Career/Business
• Spirituality

Pro tip

If you don’t know what you want out of life, scripting is an excellent exercise to start with. Write a diary entry from the perspective of your perfect day or week or from within your perfect life. There are absolutely no rules, it’s your life after all so make it as big or small as your want.  What are you doing, what is your morning routine? How much do you earn, are you single, or married, do you have kids, pets? What do you wear? Where do you shop? What do you eat? Who are your friends? How many kids do you have, what are their ages, and genders? What’s your income? Do you work? What does your dream life look like?!

Once you have done this, look back at it and pick out the bits that connect most with you Use them to guide your pillars and create goals around them to start working towards that life.

Step 3: Assign a goal to each month

Create one to two goals for each pillar that you want to work on this year. 2023 for me is all about self-care, growth and releasing fear. For health, you can focus on things like fitness, mental health and diet. The same can be done for relationships, they can be things like romantic, family, platonic, or whatever you want. The exercise is about getting more precise about how you want your life to look by focusing on all the various areas of it.

Think BIG but also be practical. Look at your lifestyle and your past patterns, how likely are you to read 300 books this year with 4 kids, two full-time jobs and elderly parents? I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just saying be practical and set realistic goals for yourself.

Assign a goal to each month of the year, where you focus on it coming to fruition. For example, if you want to move in 2023 and have chosen March as your moving month, create a to-do list for all the things you need to do in order to move. Now, you can do one goal per month based on your pillars or you can include one goal per pillar per month.

Example 1:

Jan – MOVING

1. Get all your paperwork straight,
2. Contact agents to get numbers for rent/mortgage
3. Plan monthly savings towards your deposit,
4. work out long you need to save to get a home within your budget.
5. Think of side hustles that’ll increase your income, so things move faster.

Or you could do it like example 2:

• Health – more time outside
• Finance – save £20/week
• Relationships – bonding time with family
• Self – weekly self-care activity
• Career/Business – connect with audience
• Spirituality – meditate practice

No matter the route you choose, the goal is progress, not perfection, the more you do it, the more you’ll iron out the kinks and find a system that works for you.

Step 4: Actionable steps

Now you have your goals, go through each goal and create actionable steps making sure to analyse strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of each goal. Use this process to iron out any kinks in the plan and disarm any potential threats.  This process is time consuming so maybe use an excel sheet to keep everything together and easy to track.

Step 5: Celebrate your wins!

One major thing is to ensure to make a big deal of all your wins.  You worked hard/smart or both and you deserve to celebrate that. There is no shame in the game boost your confidence and scream your wins from a rooftop, after all, you are the main character of your story so be bold in your wins.

• Buy 12 mini champagne bottles and put them in a box, when your month challenge/focus is completed successfully, pop the bottle, and have a celebratory drink. (It can be non-alcoholic, it’s more about the symbolism than the actual drink).
• Make your favourite meal.
• Book a mini break to Europe.
• Buy a book.
• Take a long luxurious bath.
• Buy the good soap.
• Mani-pedi at home or at the salon.
• Hair treatment that you really want.
• Get your eyebrows done professionally.
• Get your back blown out by your favourite link.

Lessons Not Losses

If it all goes Pete Tong (wrong) DO NOT shame yourself! You will stumble, and not all goals will be met; when you encounter this, it is an opportunity for growth, to see what you have done wrong and remedy it. Remember to give yourself grace, use every opportunity to grow as a person, to overcome and be your best self. We are past shaming ourselves; we dust ourselves off, use the knowledge gained and MOVE ON.

We are motivating ourselves by reward, more the carrot and less the stick, so when we fail we have to still be kind to ourselves.

Step 6: Vision Board

Ok so you have reviewed last year, you have your pillars and their monthly goals, you have actionable steps to each goal, now you can start building your life in images. Take your monthly goals and plot them on your plain sheet of paper, and add images that correspond, being as specific as possible. If a car is what you want, find an image of that specific car, model, make, year reg, and colour. Your vision board is a representation of the life you want; not images you think are pretty. You have your goals, you have your action plan, now create your perfect life as a collage and place it somewhere you’ll encounter it daily to remind you of what you are working towards.

Pro tip: Take a picture of your vision board and print a few copies, place one on your fridge, place one in the car dashboard, so only you can see it, and place one in your manifestation diary. The more reminders you have of your dreams the more likely you are to stay focused and on track.

Pro tip: no vision board or manifesting for the year before 20^th March 2023, the Spring Equinox (Earth is waking up and being fruitful, making resolutions, or manifesting in winter is futile and the universe is still asleep and you are less likely to succeed. Use Jan and Feb to map out your year, plan and refine, take your time, and use this period to let go of things that no longer serve your life. This is the period of shedding (pun intended) paying attention to nature and going with the flow of the universe. I use Jan and Feb to declutter and cleanse myself and my space in preparation for the coming spring.

And that’s all folks! I would absolutely love to see your vision boards or monthly plans, so please tag us on socials and let me know how your year is going. This was a really fun blog for me, if you thought so too, please share, like and comment and more like this will be posted.

Ok guys that’s that for this week. Check out some other good reads in The Soapbox, chat later and…

Remember, be good to yourself.

Mazel

X