56: How to Make Next Year Even Better

Andrea Liebross | www.andrealiebross.com | Episode 56
[00:00:00] you're listening to the time to level up podcast. I'm your host business life coach Andrea Libra. I help women in business. Commit to their own growth personally and professionally each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the.
So that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan. So you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right. It's time to level up. Let's do this.[00:01:00]
Hey, time to love up listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. I cannot believe we are up to episode 56. It seems like a lot to me. It's been a year. It's been literally a year. So today I am. Excited to talk to you about, you know, I think I say I'm excited to talk to you about a lot of things cause I am, but I am really excited to talk to you about how to do things better in 2022, by taking a strategic pause in 2021.
And I've been playing around with what to title this episode. And to be honest, I have not yet decided because it could have a lot of title. And here's why I'm recording this. So over the past month or so, I [00:02:00] have taken five women through the process of planning for next year, each, individually. And inevitably, when we plan for next year, we ask, well, what did we do this year?
And how can I do next year better? And I do what I call a deep dive, which is really a three. Our block of time where we kind of dissect what's working, what's not working what they want to do differently goals, how they're feeling kind of. Look at all aspects of their life and business. And I want to say that, you know, a couple of these women or entrepreneurs and a couple are employees.
So this isn't just for business owners, or it's not just for corporate it's for any woman out there, this kind of deep dive experience. So I did, I've been doing that over the past few weeks and I've also [00:03:00] read a book called a minute to think by Juliette. And so that's in the back of my head too, as I'm doing all of this.
So what I want to do for you today is briefly outline the process that I take them through. But what's more important is I'm going to share with you why taking this strategic pause or deep dive is important for you and what it creates. Okay. So let's dive in. This is the process that I take them through.
In a nutshell, first we figure out what are they want to focus on? Okay. And how I get them to figure this out is I say, describe what you want in life and business in eight words, in a sentence or a phrase, not eight individual words. And if we focus in on eight words and try to sum it all up, it really keeps [00:04:00] us focused.
So that's the first. Next what's your 10 year vision, and this is like a painting on the wall. It doesn't have to be specific if you have a 10 year vision of where you want to be. It's kind of like a rudder on a ship. And I did a whole episode podcast, episode 36 on creating a vision. So you might want to go back and re listen to that and think about this in 10 years.
Like for me, my kids will be gone. We'll probably be living in a different house. Maybe I have grandchildren, I don't know, but 10 years is a long time, but I still have a vision for what that might look like. So number two is the 10 year vision. Then we go into, well, what is their three year plan? And by having a three-year plan, it creates some alignment.
Something that they can get others on board with. Spouses coworkers, you name it so that everybody is moving in the [00:05:00] same direction. Most importantly, themselves. Okay. Next I ask. What do you need to believe in order to take these actions or make this three year plan or reality? Okay, what do you need to believe?
So this is kind of like their belief plan, which I did another podcast on podcast 17, because although we want to figure out what we want to do and where it will get us. Remember in order to take any action, you have to have a certain feeling and a feeling stems from your thoughts and beliefs are really just thoughts.
So this is important. What are you believing? What do you need to believe in order to make this happen? After that step five, what's your one year plan? What are three to seven things that you need to get done this year [00:06:00] in order to move toward that three year plan. And these one year goals essentially need to be smart.
They need to be specific and measurable and attainable, realistic and timely. S M a R T. Now you might say, oh my gosh, I have way more than three to seven goals or three to seven things I want to accomplish. True. But I would bet you that if you wrote a list of everything, you could probably sum it up into three to seven categories.
Now, if you are a solo preneur, we might also stick in a step here where we would figure out a marketing plan or your core values, but what I'm describing right here at pertains to anyone in any type of business role job doesn't matter. Anything. So we get that one year plan and then sixth, we talk about what I call quarterly rocks.
And I bet a lot of you are familiar with the theory that if you have a jar, you have to put [00:07:00] the rocks in first in order to fill the jar with sand. If you put sand in first. There's no room left for the rocks. So I call these quarterly rocks and I ask what is, what are the most important things that you're going to get done in the next 90 days?
What deserves the attention of your three most valuable resources, three most valuable resources, time, money, and energy, right? So where are you going to put your time, money and energy over the next 90 days? And again, these need to be smart goals. They need to be clear and concise, not wishy-washy. And sometimes my clients want to jump all the way to like, oh, well, I mean, I need just to get started on whatever this quarter, but I don't know.
So I always say, no, we're just talking about what do we feel? What can we feasibly and reasonably do this quarter? And then we'll worry about the other quarters later, but looking at things with like a 90 day [00:08:00] plan, Rachel Hollis does a lot of 90 day plan. This is a great way to look at things. And then once you have these 90 day rocks, you can obsess over them weekly.
Now you might say, I don't know how I would ever get anything done. I don't have enough time. Well, in podcast 34, I talk about how to create time when you think you have none. So after we do this, I pause and I ask, Hey, is there anything here that we can let go of that we don't really need to include?
Where in this plan might good enough be good enough. So we don't have to strive for the best. We can just strive to get it done. And then I ask them to assess what do they truly need to know in order to start? Is there anything else they need to know in order to start in? Because if there's something they need to know, then that in and of itself might be.
So that in a quick nutshell is the [00:09:00] process that I take them through, but it's so much richer than that because here is why. Okay. Here's why this process is important. Why we all need to invest our time, money, and energy into pausing. And this really this morning or afternoon that I spend with them is truly a pause.
Why we need to pause and. Reflect in order to move forward. So science and common sense tells us that taking breaks and resting our attention or focusing our attention is a path to enhancing energy, creativity, and problem solving. And when we pause, it really comes kind of in. Forms. So Juliet Funt in her book kind of describes these four forms.
And I think it totally sums up [00:10:00] what a gift these deep dives are for clients. So here's why number one, it's a strategic pause to recuperate. Okay. You know, how many women that sit down or rush in like say, oh, I finally. I finally got on your zoom. I got my coffee. Kids are after school. I've canceled my appointments for the morning I'm in.
Okay. So by doing this, we are giving ourselves time to simply reboot our exhausted brains and bodies. They are devoting a big block of time to this, and somehow that helps us reboot. Okay. So the strategic pause to recuperate, it's also number two, a strategic pause to reduce. It's truly, as we, as we comb through all the things they would love to do, we can systematically kind of lesson what's on their plate.
Okay. Cause [00:11:00] this pause allows us to really reduce and let go of what is unnecessary. Okay. And this is so critical in our world of over committing so many times, we have so many things on that list that we want to commit to. And then once we see them all out on paper, we realize we're over committed. So by taking this time, you have a strategic pause to reduce, which makes room for everything else.
So that helps you also. Do number three as strategic pause to reflect. And when you reflect, you can see the opportunities where you can advance. When you reflect, you can see where you might be leaving money on the table. When you reflect, you can see ways that make work life integration easy. When we reflect, we can see what we might be able to delegate.
And we can see why something [00:12:00] might not be getting done or what it takes in order to get it done. So this is a strategic pause to reflect and last, the last type of pause, I would say it's a strategic pause to construct. Okay. So to construct, I really think is thoughtfulness as a generative tool for growth.
Okay. So a strategic pause to construct is allowing yourself to thoughtfully generate growth, invent a plan, dream up what's possible. So a constructive pause is where we make things in our minds, right. Which goes back to it's in our minds. That's what we need to believe. So a strategic pause to construct [00:13:00] creates growth and innovation in problem solving.
So I love that. Think about this. If you could carve out three full hours, it would give you a strategic pause to recuperate, to reduce, to reflect and to construct. Now, during this time, I also bring up the fact. That we have to lead and manage ourselves versus just executing on things. We love to go to the action, but we also need to manage ourselves, which is holding ourselves accountable and making things measurable and giving clear and concise direction.
This allows us to get that clear and concise direction. Over that that managerial piece is leading. We have to lead ourselves and to lead ourselves means to take brave action and brave action means [00:14:00] allowing ourselves the possibility that we might fail on the way to succeed. So we can see in this pause in this deep dive, in the process of creating the plan, we can see where we're going to require our brain to lead us versus manage us versus execute.
Cause they're three different things. And we have been blessed with the brain that can do all. But we like to jumble everything up into one and we just talk about what we need to do. And that's just not the case. Okay. We have to generate thinking we have to trigger feelings and then we have to execute.
So why do I love this so much? I think I love this so much because of what it creates pain. Here are six things I think. It creates [00:15:00] number one is kind of what I just shared with you. It forces us to understand where we need to lead, manage and execute. Okay. It creates that space. Number two, it forces women to think big.
Do you know how many times in those mornings that I spent with these five individual women each one-on-one that they thought there's no way I could do that, but I'd still love to. Crazy. Everyone says that, but when I gave them the space to really think about what they would love to do, they were able to think big number three, this space forces women to begin to realize that often they are not asking for what they need.
This is really interesting. A lot of times when I say, what do we need to do to make this happen? They talk about other people doing things or changing or [00:16:00] supporting them. And really what that is, is them just asking for what they need, requires them to change their thinking. So this exercise brings to light asking for what you need yesterday.
I was working with someone who said, Uh, I have only, my kids would follow instructions and they're big kids and keep the house clean. Then I think I'd be able to focus on some of this. So I said, do you ask them specifically to clean up? Well, not really, because we're always trying to make excuses for what they want them to be doing instead.
They're so busy. They've got so much on their plate. Yeah. You're busying that things on your plate. So are you asking for what you need that comes to the surface? Number four, by taking this strategic pause by doing this deep dive, [00:17:00] it forces you to look at your relationship with yourself yesterday. It also came up.
The topic of worthiness is this woman worthy of doing feelings. And having what she wants. Yes. But in some of our internal dialogue, we question whether or not we deserve things. So by taking this pause, we start to see what our relationship with ourself really looks like. Number five reason why I love doing this, what it creates for women, it brings them.
Both a sense of excitement and a sense of peace because they become more in tune with themselves and get excited for what's ahead. So it's kind of like excitement [00:18:00] and peace. There could be opposites. They could be the same, but both come to the surface. And then the last thing. The last reason I came up with or last thought about what this creates is that it truly moves from what seems impossible to possible, to inevitable.
Imagine where you'll be 10 years from now. It might seem impossible, but we can make it possible. And then inevitable. Those are the six reasons that I love doing this and the six things that it creates. So doing these deep dives, doing these strategic pauses, create space in space is really the missing element.
In work and life. And I, I think it's so necessary to bring oxygen back into our busy, overwhelming [00:19:00] overflowing days. Taking these strategic pauses really on a quarterly basis allows us access to that white space and creates time for thinking and reflecting and rest and create. And when you give yourself permission to pause, it makes everything better.
So I want you to ask yourself, here's your coaching, ask yourself. When was the last time you guiltlessly invested in creating space for yourself in using time to define what you want, what you need, what your relationship with yourself and your work is? To plan for tomorrow the next quarter, the next year.
And the next 10 years, this kind of work is some of the most fulfilling work I do because when we hang [00:20:00] up or when we leave that room, my clients see immediate change and they see that by carving out the space and time they have something tangible to walk out with. A plan and they also have an internal feeling to carry with them.
And that internal feeling is really more of a happy you are you? That is at ease with what's ahead in a map to get there. So I invite you to schedule a deep dive, a strategic pause, whatever you would like to call it. I like to call it a VIP day with yourself. Schedule it with yourself, or even better invest in doing this with the help of a coach to ask you the questions.
Here's the real value having that coach or that guide who [00:21:00] will ask you questions will help you extract what you really desire and. What you will create in 2022 or in the year ahead that aligns with that desire. So think about this by asking ourselves, or having someone ask us and really help, really helps dig deep and extract from you, what you want to change.
What do you want to keep and what you desire so that you can have a plan that aligns with all. This type of work is transformative on so many levels. And I am a strong believer that you deserve to have that transformation. So as we close out 2021 consider when was the last time you spent three undivided hours and uninterrupted hours [00:22:00] with your undivided attention on you thinking.
In a planned out way. This isn't just journaling. This is different. This isn't creating a business plan. This is different. This is you taking a deep dive into who you are and where you want to go. So reach out to me via Instagram, direct message. Facebook direct message. Share this episode with people you think who need it.
And you can always visit my website to schedule a consult. Andrea libras.com backslash consult. Okay. My friends, that's what I have for you today. I hope that your rest of 2021 is amazing and I hope your 2022 is even better. Remember, [00:23:00] here is your time. This is the time to level up to upgrade. You see you next week.
Thanks for listening to the time to level out podcast with me, your host, Andrea Lee bros. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Okay. Now what about you? You've listened to the podcast. And if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade you, then stop being only a listener and start being a liver.
Living that upgraded life, head over to my website and schedule a call right there on that call. We'll start changing the way you think about. So that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business and have the [00:24:00] resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.