Steal My Planning Process: How To Set Yourself & Your Business Up For An Abundant 2024
Here we are – the final episode of the Feminine Fire Podcast for 2023.
To close out the year I’m sharing how to set yourself and your business up for an abundant 2024.
These past few weeks my main priority in the business (outside of wrapping things up with clients for the year) has been to really immerse myself in the visioning and planning for 2024.
I’ve had lots of ideas and thoughts percolating away in the background for a while and I’ve wanted to ground those ideas and bring them together into a vision and plan for the year ahead.
So I thought it’d be fun to take you into my planning process today.
I know holidays can often be a time when you’re allowing those ideas, dreams and visions to percolate. You’re more relaxed, you’re away from your desk – I find that’s the time when you’re most likely to have that intuitive inspiration drop in.
It’s also a time when you might get to sneak away and do some planning when it’s quieter online and you’ve got that extra spaciousness.
So I wanted to share this with you now prior to holidays so you’ve got this process for when you are ready to sit down and take those ideas and create a beautifully inspired, intuitive plan for yourself and your business in 2024.
I recommend listening to this now to start sparking that inspiration and then bookmarking it to come back to again when you are sitting down to do your planning.
Alright, let’s dive in.
My planning process brings together mindset, energetics and strategy…
It’s as much an energetic, spiritual practice, as it is a strategic, practical and grounded one.
And I want you to make this a beautiful ritual for yourself – make it lush, make it fun, imagine you’re taking yourself on a hot date.
Planning doesn’t have to be boring or dry, it can be a beautiful experience. In fact, it's better if we make it so. Not just because it's more enjoyable but because it's going to be more powerful energetically.
It can be as simple as lighting your favourite candle and playing some vibey music. Or it can be more elaborate if that’s more your style. You can do it in your office or your lounge room or you can take your laptop to your favourite cafe and do it there, whatever feels the most fun, the most luxurious for you. Just make it a whole vibe.
When we’re doing any kind of visioning, goal setting and planning, what we’re also doing is manifesting, and if we’re feeling bored or uncomfortable, rushed or uninspired, then we’re manifesting from that place which is not ideal.
We want to raise our vibration and elevate our energy and create a space that feels fun and beautiful and comfy – because that’s the energy we want to be in when manifesting for the year ahead.
So before you do anything, be intentional about how you’re creating a beautiful lush space for you to do your yearly planning. I want you to romanticise the whole experience, make it as delicious as it can be.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to roll…
Step 1: Reflect on 2023
We want to go into the new year with a clean energetic slate. So this first step is really about reflecting on the year, celebrating your wins and, most importantly, letting go of what is no longer serving you.
Sometimes everything goes to plan and you hit your goals. And other times things don’t work out the way you expect and you don’t quite achieve what you’d hoped you would. That’s not right or wrong, it just is.
So let’s take the time now to celebrate what worked in 2023 and reflect on what didn’t, so you can clear the decks and make space for the beautiful new opportunities to flow through in 2024.
This is about stepping into the new year without any attachments or stories that might be holding you back from bringing your big beautiful 2024 vision to life.
To do that, I’ve got some questions for you to consider.
1: What did you do and achieve this year?
What I recommend here is to go through your calendar and list out everything you did and achieved.
I love doing this because we often forget all the things we’ve done in a year, especially things from earlier in the year, and it’s really fun to go through and look at just how much you’ve accomplished in that time.
So, what did you do and achieve this year?
2: What worked really well this year?
Who did you love working with?
What did you love doing?
What has been your favourite part of your business this year?
What practices have felt really good?
What rituals have felt really good?
What things in your life and business have just really supported you and helped you to feel more abundant, more easeful, more expansive?
Take a moment to reflect on these questions and what worked really well for you this year. These are the things you’ll want to continue and amplify into 2024.
3: What didn’t work so well?
What didn’t you enjoy doing?
What relationships didn’t work out?
What was the least enjoyable part of your business?
What felt draining?
What habits haven’t been super supportive for you?
What would you do differently?
These questions are going to help you get clear on what changes you want and need to make in 2024.
And then knowing all of this – what you achieved, what worked well and what didn’t…
4: What are your biggest learnings from the year? And how are you taking these into 2024 with you?
5: What are you most proud of? And how are you celebrating?
6: What is no longer serving you? And how are you letting it go?
Essentially we want to take your reflections, celebrate the wins, integrate the lessons and leave the rest behind.
Step 2: Get clear on your vision for 2024
This is where you get to dream big – where you cast your vision for the year to come, feel into it, allow your intuition to guide you.
I see this as being a very feminine flowy part of the process, where you are being led by feeling and intuition first and foremost. Try not to think too much. Allow yourself to feel. Or if you’re a super visual person, see what it is you’re calling in.
What I find really helpful, particularly for this part of the process where you’re feeling more into that feminine flow, is to close down your eyes (if you can), breathe deeply, connect within and expand your energy out into the year ahead and hold that energy as you reflect on the following questions:
How do you want to feel in 2024?
What words come up for you?
What excites you about the year ahead?
What gives you the tingles from head to toe?
What is your intuition guiding you towards?
What are you calling in?
Let the answers to these questions flow freely. Journal on them.
And allow your vision for the year to slowly come into focus through this process. Getting clearer and clearer until you have this beautiful clear vision of exactly how you want 2024 to feel.
It’s at this point that I’d ask you…
Is there a word or a theme that’s coming through for you for 2024?
I love having a word of the year, something to really anchor into as the vision and vibe of the year ahead, to continue to check back in across the year and use as a filter through which all your decisions are made. Your guiding light, your north star.
It’s something I’ve done for at least the last 5 years and it’s one that I’ll continue to do because I find it really helps to bring intentionality to my year and my vision for my life and business. I know it does the same for so many of my clients and friends too.
So what is your word for 2024?
To give you an example, I’ll share my word for 2024.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling into what I want 2024 to be and, as I shared on the podcast last week in my yearly reflection episode – I know that 2024 is all about the uplevel, upgrade vibes for me.
There’s a brand refresh coming, there’s some new ways of showing up and getting visible coming, there’s some new ways I want to play with building and nurturing my community, so I’ve been sitting with these feelings and as I was going through this visioning and planning process, my word for the year finally landed.
My word for 2024 is POWER.
For me, this is about stepping more fully into my personal power in 2024 as a spiritual CEO, as a mama, as a podcaster, as a leader. Not hiding, not playing it small.
With this brand refresh, I really want to be embodying the full me in the business, claiming my power, claiming my leadership, claiming my space.
There’s a new level of this coming through from me this year and I’m really bloody excited about it, and also kind of a little terrified. So I’m really wanting to play at the edge of that in 2024.
A big part of this is about personal responsibility and self leadership and showing up for myself in the same way I show up for my family, my clients and my community.
And I know having the word POWER as my north star this year guiding the decisions I make, the actions I take – it’s going to support me to really take things to the next level, and I’m really looking forward to where that leads me in 2024.
What I encourage you to do is to allow your word of the year to land intuitively, and then dig a little deeper into what it means for you. The why and the meaning behind it is the most important part.
So, that’s step 2 – bringing clarity to your vision and deciding on your word of the year.
Step 3: Set your goals for 2024
Okay, so now that you’ve got your big picture vision, your word and theme of the year – it’s time to get into the details.
What does that actually look like practically?
What are the tangible goals?
What are the priorities?
What do you want to achieve in 2024?
What do you want to bring to life?
When it comes to goal setting I set goals under 5 categories: Self, Health & Wellness, Relationships & Family, Home and Business.
I usually have 3-5 goals under each category, for the business it’s sometimes more.
And I make sure I write them all in the PRESENT tense and am as SPECIFIC as I can be with any numbers, if relevant.
So for example, under Health & Wellness you might have the goal: “I am moving my body everyday and exercising 3 times per week.”
Under Self, you might have the goal: “I have found a local hairdresser that I love and always have my next appointment booked in advance.”
For the Business, you might have a monthly income goal: “I am easefully creating consistent 10k months. 10k months is my norm.”
The reason present tense is important is because, as we’ve already talked about – this is much a strategic, planning process as it is an energetic one. We are manifesting here. So by writing our goals in the present tense, we are calling it into the sacred now.
And you can also use them like affirmations, to repeat them again and again, and cement them in your subconscious as being already true for you. Your brain will literally then be wired to look for the opportunities to make your goals happen.
When it comes to being specific, this is important because firstly, this is what helps you know when you’ve achieved your goal AND secondly, the more specific you can be the better energetically.
When you’re wishy-washy with the universe, the universe is wishy-washy with you. When you’re specific, the universe is specific. So, be specific.
I also recommend writing them somewhere you can access them easily. I’ve got mine in my notes app on my phone so I can regularly check in with them. You could also pop them up in your office or on your desk somewhere. Somewhere visible and easily accessible.
Once you’ve got your goals, the final part of this is to surrender and detach from the timeline. There’s a fine balance between holding the vision of your goals and trusting in the process at the same time.
These goals, they’re yours. This vision, it’s yours. It’s just a matter of time and trust.
I know that’s a lot easier said than done. As humans it's in our nature to want to know exactly when and how things are going to work. We crave certainty. But it doesn’t work like that.
So we need to set the goals, hold the vision and then surrender.
This is also why your mindset is so important, because this part isn’t always easy. Trusting in the process and the divine timing of it all, it’s not an easy thing to do. But it’s important. So how can you hold the vision and trust, and do the mindset work you need to do in order to do that.
So, that’s Step 3 – setting your yearly goals.
Step 4: Map out your yearly plan
We’re getting into the masculine action-oriented energy now. This is about creating the plan of what you’re actually going to DO in 2024.
I recommend doing this in two stages – first, high level across the year and then a more detailed plan for the first quarter, the first 3 months of the year. I like doing this so I have both a skeleton plan of what’s happening across the year and a detailed plan of what’s happening over the next 90 days, because that’s what I’m obviously going to have to action first.
High level across the year:
What are your planned projects for 2024?
What are the things you already know are locked in?
What are you launching and when?
What holidays are you taking and when?
What other key dates are important? Long weekends? Birthdays? Mothers Day? Fathers Day? Black Friday? We wanna map it all out now so we know what we’re working with.
For me, I always know when I’m launching the Spiritual Business Mistressmind, so I map out those dates first. I then look at what other programs I’m planning on running live – in 2024, I know I’ll be running Confident Consistent Cash at least once. I’ve got some in person events I wanna run. And I’ll be scheduling in some holidays too,
Then we wanna look at a more detailed plan for the first quarter. So in your high level plan you’ve already decided what you’re selling, what you’re launching, what you’re creating. It’s then about going through and looking at what decisions need to be made, what tasks need to happen, mapping it all out and scheduling it in.
So this quarterly planning process happens every 3 months, and because we’ve got the high level plan for the year, it’s much easier because it’s then just a matter of colouring in the detail and bringing it to life.
So now you’ve got your high level plan for the year and your more detailed quarterly plan…
Step 5: Call in the mindset, energy resources and support you need
This is the bit that people don’t often think about but it’s an absolute game changer, because this is what sets you up for success. It takes you from “okay cool, I’ve got a plan” to “okay, I’ve got a plan AND what I need to actually make it happen.”
So there’s 3 questions I’ll ask you here…
1: What mindset shifts need to happen to bring your 2024 vision, goals and plan to life?
Mindset is everything. There’s not much point setting out to bring your big juicy vision to life without having the mindset to back it up. You wanna be doing the mindset work you need to do to support you in reaching your goals. Otherwise it’s going to hold you back and make it harder.
So looking at your vision, your goals and your plan – what are the mindset shifts you need to make? What mindset is going to support you here? What are the beliefs and standards that are going to make it happen for you this year?
Take some time to identify those mindset shifts and make it a priority.
2: Who do you need to be to bring your 2024 vision, goals and plan to life?
This is about your energy and the embodiment of your goals. Who is the version of you that has already achieved this? How do they show up? How do they carry themselves in the world? What are their habits? What are their rituals? What are their practices?
How can you step more into this energy today? What is one small action you can take to bring you closer to embodying that version of you?
If you can continue to ask yourself these questions and continue to step more and more into the version of you who has already achieved your goals and is already living your 2024 vision, then you are going to fast track your way there.
When I think about this, I’m reminded of that saying “it’s not about reaching the goal, but about who you become in the process” – so who are you becoming this year as you move towards your goals and vision?
3: What support and resources do you need to reach your 2024 goals?
This support can come in many forms – it might look like investing in a coach or bringing on a new team member or contractor, it could be adding something new to your tech stack, it could be an investment in your own self care.
What I recommend you do is look at each of your goals and ask yourself if you have the resources to achieve that goal on your own, and if not, what support you need to call in.
So for example, if your goal is to launch a podcast in 2024 (and I’ve got a few clients who are doing that this year, YAY!), then you might need to get some new gear e.g. a microphone, you will likely need to add to your tech stack and you might decide to outsource the editing and production of your episodes.
If your goal is to start running at least once per week, then you might need to buy some new running shoes. And yes, that’s an example taken straight out of my 2024 plan.
So, what support and resources do you need to reach your 2024 goals? That is the fifth and final step of my yearly planning process.
I cannot believe that means we are here at the end of the final episode for 2023. So wild.
I really hope this has been supportive for you today. I really wanted to dive in deep and unpack my planning process with you so that you have everything you need as you’re sitting down to map out your year ahead.
So for now, I’m signing off for the year. Wishing you a very happy holiday season. I’ll see you in 2024.
Big love!