Hello My Charmed Ones!
Imagine this scenario: It’s the first week of the New Year and you are desperate to get your ish together so you can finally become that productive and organized woman with the amazing business or career- plus a perfectly balanced life where you remember everything important, achieve all of your goals, and even make time for your own self-care!
I don’t think this is a difficult scenario for any of us to imagine because this week is the first week of the New Year, and the woman I described is that ideal woman we all wish we could be. That includes ME! I know many of you may feel like I am that woman already, and perhaps I am in your standards, but a collective problem we all face is that the standard for that ideal woman we want to be is different for all of us, and no matter how much we have achieved, we all feel like we have much more work to go until we become her.
Realistically, I think as we continue to grow, expand and evolve, so does our vision of that ideal woman, which accounts for why most of us aspire to be her, but few of us ever feel like we embody her.
But guess what?
Whether or not we are setting a realistic expectation for the ideal woman we want to be, I know there are practical, action oriented steps we can all take right now to get and stay productive and organized this year, and at least intentionally move in the direction of what life as our ideal selves would be.
So, I have broken this work down into nine practical steps we can all take to organize our lives, get clear on what we are trying to accomplish this year, and put ourselves on the path to productively achieving the results we desire.
Are you ready to get started?
Awesome, let’s jump right in!
Step #1: Choose and Use a Planner
This first step should surprise precisely none of you, because you know I am all about organizing my life, time, and tasks with the help of an amazing, custom productivity tool, aka my planner! But, I have to mention this step because it is in fact the first step we need to take, and we know common knowledge isn’t always common practice- and this post is all about practicing what we know we need to do to become the organized and productive woman we want to be.
So, have you figured out your planner of choice for the year yet?
It doesn’t matter to me if you use a custom paper planner situation like I do, or if you decide you are going to use a digital system. I just want you to have a dedicated planner that can do the following for you:
- Act as an inbox where you store all your ideas, tasks, schedule, key information etc
- Organize information in a streamlined way so you can make the most of time, task, and energy management principles to literally work smarter, not harder
- Give you a clear line of sight to what you need to be working on each day, week, month, quarter of the year to remain on track with your goals and vision for the year
This needs to be one single planner or digital system because if you have multiple inboxes and schedules and task lists, you won’t be able to get that big picture view of everything you have going on.
Also, this really should be one single system you commit to using for the complete year because, again, all the information in all the places really becomes a disorganized mess. That mess translates into your productivity, organization level and success for the year, so you do you, but I say one planner for most people is all you need.
If you want to use the same system of inserts that I use, click here.
Your planner is a tool, not a toy, so choose wisely!
WATCH: How to Choose the Right Planner for 2022
Step #2: Plan and Schedule Your Year
Once you have your planner picked out and/or set up you now need to start populating it with information so you can start planning and scheduling your year. I know, I know, another revolutionary tip, but set your snakiness aside, because I know that many of you reading this right now have a planner and are not putting all the important and necessary information you have into it.
I know some of you have information for your schedule or appointments or kids school calendars someplace else. Another calendar, another app, someplace other than the one planner I said needed to act as your ultimate inbox!
And what is actually worse, I know some of you have that beautiful planner that you are really vibe-ing with at the moment but you have some tasks, ideas, meetings etc that you have decided you are just going to remember the details of… like remember in your brain as opposed to inside your planner. Recipe for disaster!
I don’t care how fresh in your mind some of that information is- I know you are going to forget some or all of it by the time you really need to have that information in front of you. But still, you continue to defy my practical advice. I promise you, things won’t change for you this year unless you start making changes. So, please, populate all the information you know about for the year into your planner so you have a line of sight to it.
Go ahead and write it in pencil if you are afraid plans will change, or write the information on a sticky note and put it in the right area of your planner to act on later. But, please populate what you know as soon as you can, and continue to add new information as you receive it.
If you aren’t sure what information to add to your planner, the video linked below will help provide more details and recommendations.
WATCH: Planning and Scheduling Your Year
Step #3: Set New Habits + Routines
You already know, the habits you have established by this point in your life are the make it or break it for your overall success. We are what we repeatedly do. The reality we see around us is the result of the actions we take on a habitual or routine basis.
And I’d venture to guess that you have some bad habits that you know are holding you back from achieving your goals and becoming that ideal woman you want to be!
So, we have to get our habits under control and to do that we need to get clear on two things:
- We need to know which habits are keeping us stuck with the results we currently have, and…
- We need to understand the process for replacing habits so we can make a meaningful change to adjust our results
If you need help with changing your habits to change your life, the video below will provide you a framework of practical steps and advice to guide you.
WATCH: Setting New Routines + Habits
Step #4: Decide what you want your life to look like
Now, before you can actually make any real meaningful change in your life, you are going to need to get clear on what it is that you want your life to look like. And the wonderful thing about this is that whatever you imagine or desire for your life is something you can create and bring to reality.
Many people hold themselves back from the life they want, simply because they can’t get clear on what it is they actually want. They think they are just indecisive, but let me tell you, indecision is a decision!
So, when you are looking around at the areas of your life thinking that things need to change, and you look at the opportunities and paths you have before you, if you don’t choose one and take action, that is a choice to stay exactly where you are.
I know making choices can seem intimidating.
What if I make the wrong choice?
What if I go down the wrong path and I end up further behind than I already feel?
What if make a change and things don’t work out?
Yea, that can happen! And if it does you can choose again and keep trying. BUT staying where you are can also be the wrong choice. Not changing paths and remaining where you are can also put you further behind. And keeping things the same means things that aren’t working out for you right now, will continue to not work out for you. You think making a decision and making a change is a risk, but you take the exact same risk when you choose to be indecisive and don’t make any change at all.
One of my favorite quotes from Einstein says “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.”
So, if you desire a change in your life, trust that this feeling will lead you to an opportunity and a path where your desires will be fulfilled. The path may not be a straight line to fulfillment, it may require time and patience and a period of uncertainty, but if you stick it out and keep choosing the new path everyday, you will absolutely make it to a better destination. Because I don’t believe following your desires and following the calling of your heart can ever lead you astray.
It just can’t! You can’t mess it up as long as you choose a direction and see it through. Because God/Spirit/The Universe uses our feelings and desires to guide us and God/Spirit/The Universe has a much better view of our life and all the possible paths we could take.
So there is a lot of power in deciding and doing and trusting, so if you are feeling indecisive the video linked below is going to walk you through a simple but powerful activity you can do to understand what you want to for your life right now.
WATCH: Understanding What You Want to Accomplish This Year
Step #5: Set your goals and get them mapped in your planner
Once you decide what it is that you want to accomplish this year you can go ahead and set actual goals for achieving those results and changes you desire. Now, I know that for many of you, you have tried to set goals in the past and failed to achieve them. So for some of you the idea of setting goals seems like a waste of time and not worth the effort.
If that sounds like you, I want you to know that this is the start of a new year, it’s a new day, a new week and a fresh opportunity for you to start over and achieve whatever you desire. But first, I’m going to need you to forgive yourself for messing up in the past because actually, that is the toughest part of the process of goals and achievement.
Like you, when I get off track with a goal or feel like I’ve messed it up entirely, I experience a lot of guilt and that guilt, more often than not, is the reason I can’t continue to take action.
It can make me feel like a failure, like I made the wrong choice of a goal or like I am not worthy to receive the outcome I was working towards…
BUT IT’S ALL LIES!
You can never really mess anything up until you give up on it entirely, and I don’t think you are ready to give up on that goal yet that is weighing heavily on your heart.
So, repeat after me:
Even though I have lost track and perhaps even lost faith on this goal, I still truly and deeply love and accept myself.
I forgive myself for believing I wasn’t capable of achieving my goal.
I am worthy to receive every goal I set and every outcome I desire.
Doesn’t that feel much better?
Now, it’s time to recommit to your goals!
The video below will talk you through what you need to do to set your goals for the new year if you’d like some additional guidance.
WATCH: Setting Your Goals + Mapping Them Across Your Year
Step #6: Create a vision board
If you have never created a vision board before, you are definitely in for a treat with this step because I love making a fresh vision board each year. It’s one part fun crafty activity, one part practical productivity tool, and one part mindset reprogramming tool.
A vision board is a collage of images that represent your goals brought into fruition. So, image what having each of your goals would look and feel like to you. Your vision board gives you the literal ability to see what those goals look like in your life and when you can actually see an outcome, it becomes much easier for you to achieve it.
Vision boards work based off real science too. There is a network of neurons in the human brain stem known as the reticular activating system (RAS), and this network governs multiple different bodily activities and reactions, but an interesting activity it is responsible for is the information that our brain filters to our conscious minds. The human brain actually receives and filters through a tremendous amount of data and information about our bodies and the world around us. Most of which, we are never consciously aware of because our brains don’t give us information it doesn’t think we need. Using a vision board begins to train your RAS to adjust that filter so that we become aware of specific data and information related to the images on our vision boards. It’s one of the limited ways, we as humans, can actually reprogram the processing and computing power of our brains to work for us in pursuit of our goals.
So I definitely recommend creating a vision board if you are going to set any sorts of goals for your life because it can be a powerful tool you use to help program yourself to achieve the precise success you desire.
If you need more specific direction on how to create your vision board, definitely check out the video linked below.
WATCH: Creating Your Vision Board
Step #7: Cultivate a positive and strong mindset
Like many who have accomplished any amount of success, I attribute much of my achievement over the course of my lifetime to my mindset. It’s pretty well accepted now that mindset, your beliefs and outlook on life, play a key role in what you are able to accomplish, also known as manifest. Mindset is often the “secret ingredient” that gives specific individuals an edge in their pursuits. Where many have failed, a positive mindset is often the deciding factor in why one prevails.
Of course, there are still plenty of people who label mindset work as a type of pseudoscience that isn’t real. This doesn’t surprise me, as mindset is often difficult to quantify, and therefore nearly impossible to test for or measure in any way that would allow us to understand its precise role in patterns of success or failure.
That doesn’t prevent or deter me from believing in and working on my mindset, in order to manifest the outcomes I desire for my life. If self-reporting counts for anything, I certainly can attest that working on my mindset with tangible strategies has, in fact, made me a more productive and successful person.
When I actively work on my mindset, I hit more of the goals I set for myself, and show up more fully and intentionally to my tasks for the day.
I certainly prescribe to the idea that “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right,” – Henry Ford
When I choose to “think I can” I am more focused and accountable to seeing my goals through to fruition.
So finding ways you can cultivate a positive and strong mindset, are essential to whether or not you will be successful this year at getting and staying productive and organized on your pursuit to become that ideal woman you want to be!
For more strategies on how to work on your mindset, check out the video linked below.
WATCH: Working On Your Mindset
Step #8: Continue focusing on personal development and educating yourself
Did you know that reading is considered to be one of the most universally acknowledged success habits?
Statistics are thrown around all the time about how many books millionaires and CEOs read in a year. It’s always something crazy like 4+ dozen! I know for some people, that number seems intimidating. They say the average American reads less than one book per year.
But personally, I don’t believe that it’s the exact number of books read that really makes someone successful. What I think is a more accurate predictor of success is that you are someone who values ongoing education and the way that is most commonly and easily practiced is by reading.
Look, if you are truly trying to have a wonderful, productive and successful year and you don’t feel like you are someone who normally achieves that, you are in fact requiring that you do some personal development work in order to upgrade or up level yourself into that ideal woman you want to be.
Personal development can take so many forms and be practiced in so many ways, but focusing on continuing to educate yourself through any means available or interesting to you is going to need to be an essential part of your daily life moving forward into the new year.
So find some ongoing education practice that works for you and find a routine way to follow through with it on a regular basis.
If you need more ideas, the video below can definitely help.
WATCH: Strategies for Ongoing Education
Step #9: Join an accountability group
Now we’ve made it to the ninth and final step in this productivity and organization process and if you took the time and put in the effort to review and act on steps one through eight, some you are going to be in excellent shape for the new year.
BUT- despite all that prep, many of you could still flub your best intentions and goals for the year because you are missing one very small, easily overlooked element of success.
That element is accountability, specifically, external accountability.
That’s right, having some form of external accountability is going to be crucial for many of you if you want to follow through with your plans and goals for the new year. That’s because for many people, their own internal accountability is not enough. And, let’s be honest with ourselves here… if you are reading this you most likely aren’t someone who does a good job at keeping themselves accountable to their goals.
And I know many of you right now are probably rolling your eyes and acting like you don’t need any external accountability, that you are sure you can do it alone, but if you have tried and failed in the past, that’s likely a pretty solid indication that you can’t do it alone. I think you know this on some level. But really, the negative reaction you are having comes down to one or both of the following very common issues.
- You don’t want to have to bother someone else for help
- You don’t feel comfortable sharing your goals with others because what happens if they don’t happen and you look foolish
I know asking for help is hard. I know asking for support and accountability feels vulnerable and feels like you are giving up control on some level. But for most people out there, external accountability is absolutely the deciding factor for whether or not you will follow through.
Look, it’s human nature. Change is hard, even when it’s a change that would bring us into alignment with a wonderful and ideal future for ourselves. Part of becoming a successful human is learning from your past mistakes and avoiding them at all costs so you aren’t doomed to repeat the past. So, if you tried to go it alone in the past and you weren’t able to keep yourself accountability- learn from that experience now and find some support or accountability.
So, if you need ideas for finding support and accountability, the video linked below will definitely help you generate some great ideas!
WATCH: Finding Support + Accountability
And, guess what?
That accountability you need can be me!
Members of my Productivity + Planning Mastermind get weekly accountability check-ins with me, as well as both group and direct coaching. Plus, members of the mastermind get a library of planning tools to help them get organized and manage their time and tasks better. They also get masterclasses that walk them through setting their goals, changing their habits, working on their mindset and other ongoing education topics.
Essentially, you could check off each and every step of this process right now, by enrolling in the Productivity + Planning Mastermind!
So, what are you waiting for?
xoxo,
This is jolly great article to get us back on track!!!!
Thanks much!