[Transcript starts at 1:13]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people. for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. If you're listening to this, watching this, tuning in on a day that it drops, it is Monday, December 16th. The days go by quickly. Hopefully you are enjoying them. No updates because 2025 planning. So. If we look at planning from a life and business perspective, uh, to quote one of my mentors, work life balance doesn't exist.
This is your life's work. So I'm not prioritizing one more than the other. I look to have them both co exist. The thing that I think is most helpful when we're looking at planning the next year is looking at, I stay talking about this, but I do believe it's the easiest way to do this is to have all the things about this year already written down.
And this way you can just reflect. You have a record of this year so that you can just reflect on that record. I stay talking about how I write, you know, the wet, largely the weather, because I'm so grossly impacted and, you know, influenced, uh, by the weather. the weather. So I do these weather, weather recaps just every few days.
Um, I have spoken in past episodes about how Rachel Strickland, she does her daily morning pages. I did that for a little bit. I tried for a little bit daily walk and talks and I was like, I don't really like doing this. Um, every now and then I go back to it, but I definitely fell off with that. But what has stuck for the past three, four years, uh, is my Writing about the weather, the weather recaps and you know, how a volleyball is, what clothes I'm wearing, how it feels when I walk moose, when the sun is coming up, I stay writing about that and how I feel largely because of the weather, but also even with the time change, like when it gets darker early, I don't like working outside of those when, when the sun is down and like, I have, I know this because I wrote it down.
I'm like every year this happens. So it's not a surprise to me. So let this be another gentle nudge to get on that recording practice. Uh, it really does make the next year more predictable, which doesn't have to mean boring, right? Pretty cool. It doesn't have to be boring. Um, and it just gives you energy and space.
So, I do believe that now, um, is especially a good time to start this writing practice, if you will, this recording practice. Um, especially for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere because we're entering winter, um, which seasonally is a chill the fuck out time. It's not that I don't like winter, it's that just as humans, Winter time is a time for like hibernating and resting up and then, you know, getting ready for, you know, resting so that you can then go into spring and summer and like actually do stuff.
So the question there being, have you scheduled things accordingly? What are you feeling right now? Are you feeling that you want to be, maybe you would want to be just going and skiing? All right, but that still rests from your actual day to day work. Have you scheduled things accordingly? Do you have the ability to do that?
Do you need to block off days for next year? One of the things that comes up so often is that time between Christmas and New Year's, you know, blocking that off because it's a stressful time and it's like, no one wants to be doing anything anyway. And like, if you're a mom, maybe you've had a lot of stuff because moms are the magic of Christmas, right?
Maybe you did a lot of stuff and you're like, I just want to relax now and not work on my business. Did you block it off? Do you need to block it off? I should say, maybe you can't block it off for this year. Can you block it off for next year? Maybe it's a few weeks that you need to block off for next week, for next week, Bob, for next year, do that now.
Go to pause this episode, hopefully not driving. Go to your calendar and block it off for next year future self will thank you I actually need to change my schedule a little bit for next year because I change things this year So typically I take the last two weeks. I try to take most of December off in general I had to change it because we started legacy early But that also it means now that I do need to change things for next year Um, I'm fine with taking the last two weeks of December off, but I probably need to close off my schedule for Maestro meetings because it just needs to be for Legacy and Lectro Mind people.
Last year it only needed to, or this year I should say, it only needed to be for Coming into this year based on last year, it theoretically was only supposed to be for lecture mind people, but we changed legacy, the start date of it. So now it needed to be for both legacy and lecture mind people, which is, there's more people in legacy, but the program I'm on with Jill, so I need to change my schedule for next year and I can keep the same number of days off in like the last two weeks off, but I need to get rid of the openings for Maestro meetings.
And then that means next year, I also need to let people know like, Hey, if you're looking for a Maestro meeting, you can't have it in December. Right. So these are things that I can look at from now, reflect on from this year and be like, moving forward, I need to change this for next year. If that's you, go to your calendar, block that shit off.
Now, give yourself an early present, a year early present. It is a fun surprise. As long as you'll forget you did it. And you're like, why is there no one scheduled? Oh, cause I blocked it off. And then make sure you uphold that. All right. Don't take away the block next year. And you're like, Oh, I should open it.
No, leave it. Trust how you felt. Trust the reasoning, the rationale that you used to block it because you wrote it down. You wrote down in your little journal or in your Instagram, not Instagram. Wow. Wow. iPhone notes, like. I need to block off time because it's stressful. I just want to rest. I don't want to be doing these things.
Something else to look at from this year as you go into next year is your word of the year, if you picked a word of the year. So I pick a word of the year every year. This year it was, the word was right. W R I T E, uh, which was really more about, uh, establishing a writing practice for the business and writing a weekly newsletter for my people.
Um, and this way when, you know, when in doubt, when fatigued, when given the option. I would choose to write and not let that fall to the wayside, which is exactly what I did. I chose to write, um, I have slacked on social and just like haven't been posting as much, but I'm still writing every week. Actually, after I'm done recording this, I'm going to go and write that email for tomorrow.
Uh, if you're not part of the Maestro male family already, would love to have you. We'll, we'll link that in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney, Jojo. Uh, for those of you listening, the link for that is themovementmaestro. com forward slash email dash list. That'll take you to where you can, can opt in. Um, but.
As I reflect on my word for the year, I'm very happy. I think that I chose well. Uh, I'm confident moving forward in my word for 2025, which I'm not going to share yet, uh, because I need more, I need time to get more action items around it or examples of action items. Um, so I can truly live into that word.
So to me, the reason that I pick a word is that when faced with decisions, there is no decision to be made. It's just like, here's the thing, right? So, uh, when it came to writing this way, One faced with like, should I do an Instagram post or should I write this email? Should I go to volleyball or write this email?
Should I do this part of work or should I write? I made a decision going in, the answer is writing. There's no decision to be made. There's no mental fatigue. There's no decision fatigue. This is what I'm doing. So this is a good way, a good, wow, a good segue, uh, into the actual planning for 2025. So we said that, I said that largely when it comes to planning, it starts with the reflection.
How was this year? Did I like this year? Uh, what was the weather like this year? Did I write it down? How, what do I want based on this year? How I felt this year. For next year to look like, right? How do I want to plan for that? So, the actual planning now that's not just reflecting, uh, We'll start off with picking a word for the year.
So, for me, Picking a word, I pick a word that is to serve as a North star and again, to reduce my decision fatigue, right? Anytime there's a question about something, I will just think about the word of the year and be like, I'm leaning into it. Uh, I think we will, Courtney, I think I have a picture. I have an episode about that, but choosing a word of the year.
Um, so we can link that in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. To me, this means that that word. Needs to be something that is related to a desired way of being or living or acting the next year. All right. I personally, folks, if you listen for, if you've been in the ecosystem for a bit, you know, I don't really, I'm not really big on goal setting.
It's just not something I do. Um, I am super process oriented though, and I can absolutely lean into the process of something. So to me, the word speaks more to the process I wish to focus on. That's why I wasn't like, I wanna write once a once a week. It was right. That was, that was the word, right? So I don't have a goal of, I'm writing once a week, so I choose a word based on the process I wanna focus on for that year with the belief that if I follow that process, choose, choose that process, lean into that process, adopt that process, really go on on that process.
It'll lead to me accomplishing whatever goals it is that I'm meant to achieve. So I will, with that in mind, also encourage you pick one word. People fight me on this and it's like, fine, autonomy is sexy. Do whatever you want. But the goal to me is to reduce decision fatigue. And if I have two words, then it's kind of like, well, I could pick either word in this situation and I got to pick which word it is that I want to lean in more into.
So as I approach the word and why I use it and how I want it to, you know, what I want it to serve as, this is why one To me, it's better. If I'm going to use it as a North Star, I can't have one that's like North and one that's in the South, and I'm like, well, where am I going? So, I would encourage one word, uh, but, and I like for it to be a verb as well, but, Autonomy is sexy, right?
As it relates to actually planning the year. Y'all already know I love me a big calendar. I actually got a different one for 2025 than I usually get because I wanted it to have a fun background. Like I usually get the at a glimpse calendar and it's usually just like typical colors on the outside.
They're three, it was like two feet by three feet. I don't know, some dimensions like that. Um, so it was big. Um, and there's a dry erase and you can write things on there and I use different markers and such. Um, but this year I got one that's like a beach background. And I was like, I like that. So that actually came today.
Uh, I'll probably spend maybe next week or something like that. Actually writing the things out on it. Um, things to note here. I hate a full calendar. Mine is not full. I'm looking at it over here, the one from this year. Like, I think that when I, I want to say this because I think that when, when I talk about having this big calendar, people are automatically like, I got to fill it out, I got to have every day.
And I'm like, that is incredibly stressful to me. That sounds incredibly stressful. Have every day filled with some, I hate having things on my calendar, but I need to know when things are happening. Right. So that is what I'm going to use the. The calendar. Second part here is the both end of being present and also being prepared.
Uh, this episode is coming out December 16th, right? There's no right or wrong for planning, but like, you don't need to do it in August, like if that's you and you're like, I want to be so prepared and like looking to the future, okay. For me, I'm just like, I'm living these days and it's fine. And like, I will, at the end of the year plan for the next year.
I have, I'm a big person, you know, big on routine. So I already know largely what next year is going to look like, which is why I can, I have no pressure to do it earlier. Um, I just want to put it out there. It's okay to plan in December 16th for next year. You're not like, Oh my God, I'm so far behind. Like, it's fine.
I will also say, I know that there's like power and comfort in being part of a crowd and most people are way more last minute with things than you think. You're not the only one. Okay. And that's fine because it's honestly really not last minute. It's that other shit was more important and needs to be done.
And now you've come to the time where this thing is important. You have the time and the capacity for it. And so you're going to do that, right? Which is oftentimes December. I had a bunch of people scheduling my stream meetings with me in December and I get it. Cause like I told them in August to do this.
Cause I was like, it's going to get full and people didn't do it. Cause it wasn't as much of a priority. I get that. So as I plan for next year, I We'll, we'll do the same thing and be like, Hey, these dates are actually closed. And then people will just have to wait. And that's totally fine. Cause what's more important to me is that I have the capacity to show up for my people.
I don't feel stressed out with things and you know, people's, their timing will work out for them and we'll work together in January and everything will be fine. So. This is something again that I'm like noting and I'm like, I'm going to adjust my schedule for next year. If, as I'm saying this, this is resonating with you, do the same thing for your schedule.
So when it comes to planning out the next year and managing your, your time and scheduling your time, to me, one of the most important things is actually looking at your week. Right? I batch my week via energy and I haven't changed my days in a long time and I probably won't change them ever. Right? So for those of you who don't know, um, I believe I have an episode about this as well.
Thank you, Courtney. It's called How I Schedule My Day. Something like that. Um, thank you, Courtney. You can link that. But the summary of that is that on Mondays, I do these podcast episodes. I write my email for, And that's it on Tuesday. I do my coaching calls and I do my group coaching calls on Wednesday.
I have my financial meeting with myself. I do my mafia call. One of the Wednesdays of the month, I do my lecture mind calls one of the month, and I use that day to usually make the content for that call. Thursdays I'm doing calls. If I'm going to do a podcast or be on a podcast or invite someone on, then I typically do it on Thursday as well.
Fridays is typically a kind of chill day for me. Saturday, another chill day for me. Sunday, I do my mafia work, which is another email, um, for that crew. And that goes out every Monday. And so the work that, you know, any, any work around, um, Uh, the mafia has done on that day. Each day, every day I'm doing content creation, uh, your Instagram stuff.
Every day during the week, I'm answering Voxers for my clients. Um, and then on the weekends as needed, I can, can do my presentations. If I, if I need a little more time to like put a new presentation together. Right. But that's what my week looks like. And it's based on. My energy and doing the same doing tasks that have the same energy or energetic requirement.
Where if I wanted to be creative, then it's only creative. So Monday is only creative. It's podcast and email. Whereas Tuesday is like, I am teaching. I am coaching. So whether I have a group call or I have one, I'm on my one on one calls. My brain's in the same space. Wednesday, I'm doing my financial meeting and not every Wednesday do I have a group coaching call, but a lot of those coaching calls are, uh, excuse me, those group calls.
I'm not necessarily pulling a brand new, um, teaching, so a little bit easy. It's not like some super creative thing, right? But you see, I'm batching things based on energy, right? So if you haven't done that with your week yet, I would suggest starting off with that. And then we can zoom out and look at the full entire year.
So when, as it relates to the actual full year and looking at that big calendar, I am looking at two things, right? Business and life. I'm not separating. Like I said, this is your life's work, but that's what I'm looking at and what's going on in that calendar. I have talked about in the past, something called profit first for life.
And I think I might make Wednesdays, excuse me, this Thursday's episode that instead of linking it here, I think I'll probably just put that as a, as the throwback episode, uh, because of the kind of the messaging around that, so you can kind of go deeper with that, but profit versus as a financial model that you can use for your own business.
And the whole concept is that instead of paying all your bills and expenses and then whatever's left is your profit, you take a profit out first and then whatever's left is what you use to run your business, right? So just puts the. The fun stuff, if you will, first, the concept that we're looking to do, you're looking to utilize this for your, for your life is to put the fun stuff, the good stuff, the recharging stuff on the calendar first, and then the work fills in around it, right?
There's definitely an asterisk here, which is that if we really profit first for business, Like when you think about profit versus business, when you're first starting out, that percentage that's getting allocated to the profit account is probably very, very, very, very, very small. Right? The same for the fun stuff, recharging stuff in life when you're first starting, like no, you probably cannot start your day at 3 PM because you need some long ass morning routine and a morning ritual and things like that.
If you're trying to start a business. Should you have your morning routine and those things first? Yes, still have it, but it's probably not going to be, you know, eight hours long or whatever, five hours long, it might have to be shorter. And then we can look to expand with that. It's just, that is how we'll Work, you know, easy as earned.
All right. So the, the concept still remains the same of putting the recharging, the fun stuff on the calendar first, both from an annual and a daily perspective. So if you have, uh, you know, vacation times, like memory talked about having between Christmas and New Year's, you want to block that off, do that first.
If you want to have less work in the summer, or you want to do less work in December, then just note that on your calendar and do that first. If you know that you're like, I'm not trying to have a fucking call before 10 o'clock. I don't have coaching calls or anything before 10 o'clock. I can't do it.
Then block off your schedule such that you don't start until that time. From here, we can look to actually fill in the work, quote unquote work days. So as it relates to your, actually your online business, what I coach, Jill and I both coach this is the first thing that you're going to put on your calendar is what we call your signature offer, right?
Your signature offer is the thing that if, If people don't do anything else with you, they come into your ecosystem, they don't do anything else, they don't buy anything else. This is the thing you want them going into, right? It leads to all the other things that they could go and buy. Like this is your signature thing.
You are known for this thing. You can get the most number of people through it. It makes the most sense for them. For me, that's my Instagram intensive, right? So however many times a year you're going to launch that. Typically, I don't really Suggest launching it more than twice a year, but up to you. So I'm going to put that on my calendar.
I do one in the kind of spring ish. And then I have one time in the fall. Of note, this is not just like one date. It's going on a calendar. It's a full ass launch. So that's usually more like one to two months. That's going to be. On the calendar because I'm gonna write the end date. I'm going to write each of the call dates.
I'm going to write the start date. I'm going to write the public launch dates. That's usually a week for me, five days. I'm going to write the wait list launch, which is gonna be another week. And then I'm going to indicate when I, the anticipation phase needs to start for this thing. When do I need to start hyping up my audience?
And so that's not just one day on the calendar from there. The next thing I would write on there is any live events. Those are already scheduled for me. So like, uh, ones that I'm hosting, which would be for my lecture mine and going to be for legacy. Um, if I'm going to be speaking at anything, typically 20, 25 speaking events, you would plan them in 2024 and get invited to them.
So those will go on the calendar. Perhaps you've made a decision like me, where I'm like, I'm not doing any. Jill has talked about this before. She's not doing any this year. And it's like, yeah, I'm good. I don't want to be traveling for things. So nothing, I don't have any of those to put on mine, but if I did, that would be the next thing that I'd put on.
The next thing after that would be any kind of flash sales that you're going to be doing.
Having, usually this is like holiday sales or birthday sales. Like these are these, you know, kind of shorter three, four days that you're going to be doing this thing that goes on the calendar from there, you now have space for what I call excitement launches, things that don't require a full launch.
You're just gonna be talking about them it's, it's a flash sale. But typically when I think about flash sales, it's for things that are, we've already made. Right. Whereas an excitement launch is like, this is new, right? So flash sale, things have already been made. I'm, I'm promoting it for just for, you know, three, four days, something like that.
Excitement launch. This is going to be a new thing that I don't have a waitlist or anything going for. I'm just like, Hey, I'm gonna try this thing out. I'm going to sell this thing. And now I see that I have space on my calendar to fit, you know, where the other things are not. All right. So again, first it's your, uh, signature offer goes on there.
And all the parts around that, then it's going to be your live events. Then it would be a flash sales. And then it would be anything like an excitement, excitement launch. For those of you that are thinking about, um, what we call a pocket launch or next step offers, I typically don't really put them on the calendar that much, uh, cause there I call them a pocket launch or a backdoor launch.
Those are things that. You're going to offer on the back end of a program that you're already running. So if I was going to offer next steps for, uh, my Instagram intensive or next steps for legacy or lecture mind, I don't really put that on the calendar because it's not some forward facing launch. It's just the people that are already in that container.
I'm offering them next steps and they can just continue on. And it's, it's a very simple thing for me to promote. If you were going to expand that and have a public aspect to it, then yes, that would have to go on the calendar. As well, right? But that's, that's it. Those are all the things that are going to go on the calendar.
A bigger business could have more things on it or not. A bigger business and someone that's generating more revenue doesn't need to be more complex. Oftentimes they're not more complex. It's just that they're getting more out of that big launch or those big launches. So what's done during that launch time is.
That is more complex. There's more steps there, but it doesn't mean it's a longer launch runway or anything like launch period or anything like that. Sometimes it's a shorter launch period where they're actually only selling for like four days, but you know, things going into it, maybe they're in a lead magnet going into, maybe they're running ads, but it's not some super, you know, longer thing.
By any means, it's just gonna be more moving parts. Uh, I will say that time absolutely helps when it comes to planning this out, because you already know what's coming. You've already done it a million times. I think back to my rock tape days where by the end of, you know, I did it for five years and by the end, by the third, fourth, especially the fifth year, I was able to plan out the entire year for travel.
Because I knew what I did this year, right, and my, my mentor, I talk about it all the time, Allison, uh, she instructed me on this, guided me on this, based on what my other mentor, Perry Nicholson, was doing. And she was like, this is what Perry does, this is how he set up, this is how he sets up his whole year, and I'm like, alright.
Cool. Then I will do that. But that's based on what this year looked like. As you can see, the best way to plan for next year is by looking at this year and deciding what you want moving forward. Something to consider and that I would love, love, love to hear from you. I know I ask, I have a call to action or a call to interaction, you know, a decent amount of the time, but I would really love to hear it from you is what do you want to get rid of?
All right. We, We talk about, you know, adding things and doing more, but we know like, we can only do with so much. Can't only add with so much and addition by subtraction is a very real thing. You know, this is why I led off this discussion, this episode about, with blocking off your schedule this time of year, right?
Taking something away and taking away days next year. As a reminder. Next year, I am getting rid of the second episode a week, right? I do two episodes a week right now. One of them is a, uh, throwback episode. So Thursdays are repeats. I'm going to get rid of that. And we're just going to do new episodes on Mondays.
In terms of deciding what to get rid of, it's up to you. As per always, I think, you know, you could get in the weeds and talk about KPIs and be like, what's actually moving the needle the most and get rid of the things that are not. I'm thinking about um, Annie Miller, like she's really into numbers and being like, this is getting us this many leads, this one isn't, this is not worth it.
You can also have a feeling from that and be like, is the juice worth the squeeze on this? But you have to put in, put in enough time to like get that data. So I would say at least give things a year. I love 18 months, but at least give them a full calendar year of trying it and being like, ah. You know, we've done all these things.
This is where we're getting the leads from. This is what makes the most sense. This is what I enjoy the most. Okay, I'm going to double down, triple down, quadruple down on that thing and give her the other things, right? But just make sure you give it the time. I've had this podcast since 2018. We're on episode 630, no, 641.
Like, I can pull back on that second episode. So I, again, I would love to hear from you as to What are you getting rid of? I posed this question to the Legacy folks and no one really knew and I think it's because we just don't think about this. Um, I posed it to my mafia. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask them again on our, our next dinner, but what are you getting rid of?
It's okay to take things out, right? Make space for other things. And I know that can be scary and maybe it's something that you don't expect me to say because I'm such a person of like, Consistency, consistency and taking things away can help you be consistent with other things. So, you know, it ties in with that, but would love to hear from you about that.
So to summarize this episode, summarize planning for 2025, which I don't think needs to be some like big monster. So scary. Like, Oh, I'm overwhelmed. Like let's start it up by reflecting on this year. If you don't have a record of this year. Start now. So you have a record for next year and you can plan, right?
A record of next year, a record of 2025, and then you can use it to plan for 2026. Next part, consider choosing a word for the year that will guide you and will guide your effort, will serve as a north star. I'll share my word once I have more action items around it. Next thing, get a big ass calendar.
We'll link it. What would I have from there? Consider batching your days based on energy, energy expenditure, similar tasks, if you haven't already, and then look to start filling in that calendar via that profit first for life model. I put the breaks in first, put the vacation maybe that you have in there, uh, put the days off between Christmas and New Year's, whatever.
And then from the actual business events, if you will, we look to fill in your signature offer, all the things around that, live events, flash sales, and then any excitement launches or just space, knowing that the space is on there for excitement launches. Remember the calendar doesn't have to be full. The thought of a full calendar, like literally I'm just like, I want to throw up, that sounds terrible to me.
So don't think because you have this thing, it has to be completely, you All right, and that my friends is planning for 2025 again, I'm going to say three times. I would love to hear from you as it relates to what you're planning on getting rid of for next year. I would love that. Let me hold you accountable.
Let me hear it. All right. It's all I got for you as always, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you until next time, friends, maestro.
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