Planning Your Journey

SUMMARY

Are you really looking forward to the end of 2019? So that you can get into a new year, a new decade, and leave this one behind?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around Intentionality by talking about finishing strong and planning well.

See, you can achieve more in the first 90 days of next year than most people will do in the whole year by learning from the past and strategically planning for the future. The problem is most people are anchored to the past. But we have a personal plan around how we're going to do things differently next year and those things help us to create massive momentum.

So we look at our wins and we go, "What did I do well? What worked?" And then we look into the things that didn't go so well and the only reason we look at them is to go, "What could I do differently moving forward?" So we want to reflect, we want to realign, we want to refresh, and then relaunch with full of energy knowing exactly what we need to do.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Are you really looking forward to the end of 2019? So that you can get into a new year, a new decade, and leave this one behind?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around Intentionality by talking about finishing strong and planning well.

Every year, I go through a process at this time of the year with my clients to help them to be able to move forward and have an even better year next year than the one that they had this year.

See, you can achieve more in the first 90 days of next year than most people will do in the whole year by learning from the past and strategically planning for the future.

The problem is most people are anchored to the past. You know, they look at where they were at the end of 2018 and then look at where they are now and then look at everything that didn't go well and everything becomes a problem and I understand. I used to be there.

And the other problem that I see is people reacting to chaos all the time. So instead of having things planned, they are just seat of your pants, let's just do it from day to day, and let's react to the chaos that are surround us. And one of the really big things I see at this time of year in particular is this debilitating behaviour of comparison.

Comparing yourself to where you were last year and have I been good enough this year? Have I done enough this year? Comparing yourself to others and your perceived view of their success. And that can be a major downer for you as you go into the holiday period and all these things end up that you go into the New Year missing opportunities. It locks you up in the current year and doesn't release you to go and do greater things in 2020 and beyond.

So I want to help you with that. I want to change your results by changing the way that you finish the year and move into the next year.

Now, I'll tell you straight upfront, I do not subscribe to New Year’s resolutions. This is a process that I do not only at the end of the year, but I do it every quarter and so to my clients. So instead of being anchored in the past, what we want to do is learn from the experiences we've been through and then move on.

So we learn to move on from things. We take the time to realign where we are, realign where we're going, realign with our values. So we look at what we did and we make sure that it's realigned and on purpose where we're going.

And we set up a personal flight plan. You know, like an airplane, and I go on a lot of them, airplanes are only ever on track twice. Once before it pulls back from the gate and then again once it's reached the gate at the other end and it stopped. In between the first and the second, the A and the B, we've got a series of tweaks and adjustments and the flight plan changes based on atmospheric conditions, the weather, and that amazing thing called air traffic control.

But we have a personal plan around how we're going to do things differently next year and those things help us to create massive momentum. So instead of being locked up from opportunity, we get started quickly. And as I said, you can get more done in the first 90 days than most people will do in the entire year.

So the whole process starts with getting clear on where you want to go. I use a system. I call it the R4 Method, where we look at the results that you want at the end of 2020. And then we come back to now and go, "Well, how is it different now? What's my current reality?" And then we've got a gap and then we look at what are the roadblocks that are going to stop you from going from where you are now to where you want to go. Then we go, " Okay, so what are the resources that we need to add there so that I can go from where I am now to where I want to be and overcome those roadblocks to get there?"

Once we've done that, we then can focus on the first 90 days. So let me take you through the process now, once we know where we want to go, that we go through at this time of year so that we can get into 2020, hit the ground running, and build that momentum.

The first thing we need to do is we need to reflect on the year that's passed. We look at 2019 and we look at two things: 1. The things that worked well and 2. The things that didn't quite go as we wanted them to.

Now the difference here is the way that we do it. So we do it with what's called forward focused reflection.

See, what a lot of people do at this time of year is they get back into the year and they look at everything that didn't work and they get down on themselves and they allow that small voice to pull them back. Those limiting beliefs come up again and it deflates them and disempowers them and they start the year flat. But if we imagine we're in a car and we're going on a journey, we have the windscreen or the windshield. This large piece of glass so that we can see where we're going. And then we have the rear-vision mirror, which is that small piece of glass up in front of us so that we can, every now and then, have a look up and see where we've been.

That metaphor tells us how we need to reflect on our year. We quickly go back into our past and look at our wins and look at the things that didn't go so well. The only purpose that we go there is to be able to extract the information that's going to help us as we move forward. So we look at our wins and we go, "What did I do well? What worked?" And we take that and we use it again. And then we look into the things that didn't go so well and the only reason we look at them is to go, "What could I do differently moving forward?" So we reflect in a forward focused way to gather that information for moving forward.

The second thing that we do is we realign. We've probably gone off on a few different paths over the year and done many things that took us off on a tangent. So we look at what's ahead and we realign based on what we're doing and where we're going and make sure that that fits in with our priorities and our values.

Once we've realigned, what we need to do going into Christmas, going into the holiday break, is work out how am I going to refresh. What have I got in place, what am I going to do, and more importantly not do so that I can refresh my energy and be ready to get into the first week of 2020 and get things done?

Then the last thing we want to do is make sure that we know exactly what needs to get done in the first week of 2020. But we want to relaunch into the year knowing what we're going to get done.

See, those who get more done in the first 90 days will invest time now, invest energy now to go through this reflect process, through the realign and refresh process, and have a plan ready. So we want to reflect, we want to realign, we want to refresh, and then relaunch with full of energy knowing exactly what we need to do.

So next week we're going to continue on this journey of intention by looking at other areas in our plan. I'll see you then.