Hello here to Thrive listeners. This episode is short and sweet. It's me logging off for 2019. It's really me logging off for the decade, which is pretty crazy.
And to tell you about the life planning guide that you can all get access to, absolutely free. You can find it over on my website at thrive.how forward slash freebie, F-R-E-E-B-I-E. So if you want to know what I'm talking through, go over there, throw in your email, and it will be automatically delivered back to you. Now I'm a coach.
That's what I do for my day job. I help executives and people clarify and move towards the things they want in life. It's a lot of fun. I made this guide for my coaching clients.
It gives me some structure to help them clarify what their objectives are for the following year. What do they want to do with 2020 when it comes to any goals? If we can get them out of our heads and our hearts onto paper, that's when they become workable. That's when we can do something with them.
So that's the backstory. That's why this life planning guide even exists to help us get some structure around communicating to ourselves what we want from life. Now I have mine. I've got a little printout and I've written all in it.
And I'm going to talk you through some of the steps so you can be aware. These are the exact same steps you will see in the life planning guide. So that's what I'm talking to. No surprises when you download it.
This is it. I always encourage my clients to start with reflection, reflection on the year that's been. There's a few questions specifically in here to help you reflect, but it starts with what have been the personal wins, successes, or highlights for you in the last 12 months. What are you proud of?
So often I work with driven types who just run through life looking for the next achievement and aren't that good at really taking stock of how far they've already come. I feel like I'm consistently reminding my husband to take a pause and turn around and look at how far up the mountain he's already come. That's exactly what I'm encouraging you to do here. Just take a moment to reflect on the year that's been.
How have you changed and grown in the last 12 months? Take a moment to celebrate that. I then encourage you to consider your big dreams. I feel like back in the 90s, these were called B-hags, big, hairy, audacious goals.
I call them big dreams. But what are those things that sit in your heart that you may not have ever given voice to? Sometimes owning our dreams can be scary. I had a lot of fun going through this for myself.
I have an idea of where I want to go and the types of dreams I would love to make come true, but I haven't actually sat and clarified or just spat them out for a very long time. I chunked mine in a 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year big dream list, and it helped me get really clear of where I'm going. Along with 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years, I also mapped how old I will be at that time and how old my boys will be. It felt like it made it more real to me.
It helped give me more context of where do I want to be in this phase of my life. It grounded those time frames for me. After you've considered your big goals, your hopes, your dreams for the future, how does that feel? What do you want to focus on as a theme for this year that will take you closer to your dreams?
The guide does encourage you to choose a word for the year. I actually have had my word, excellence, made into a necklace. I've done this in other years, and it was such a nice way to have a reminder. So if you see me wearing one of those little My Intent necklaces, the little circle ones, you'll know what the word is between you and I.
It's excellence. A shout out to My Intent. They're not paying me in any way, shape, or form, but it is a really cool way to wear your word. So check them out if that appeals to you.
Your word should align with the path, attitude, and desires of your biggest dreams. So my year for 2020 is excellence. It sounds kind of like a perfectionist word, but I don't mean it in that way. And that's the thing.
This word only has to be meaningful to you. I mean it in that I don't want to do anything half-assed. I want to put my whole button. No, I really, if I'm going to pick up something this year, I need to do it super well.
It also to me reflects that I'm still growing, I'm still learning, and that I want to further formalize some of my knowledge. So I'm going to be doing some more study this year, for example. Continuing on the theme of focusing and feeling, it's always good to look at those main categories of your life. If you're a coaching client of mine, I might encourage you to look at your values, but in the guide, I've got something a little bit more general, just to get you to consider where am I at with the things that matter in life?
And how can I do things better? Or I might need to stand back and be really grateful for a second. Then it's time to consider what you want to do. How do you turn your big dreams and your focus points into meaningful actions for 2020?
Is there anything you need to cut out? And what do you possibly need to start doing? Finally, I think it's really useful to bring that down into quarterly goals. I hope that after you do this planning guide, it's not something that sits in your drawer.
I know for one, that I'm going to be taking my key goals, the things that I will be proud of if I do this year, and then I'll be sitting up on my pinboard in my office so I can reflect on those every single week. These are the things that next year I want to have at the start of my planning guide as massive wins. It's the things that I can sit back and go, oh yeah, I did it, and I'm so proud of myself. So I challenge you to think what that is for you, and then consider what actions you need to take to get there.
It's all in the planning guide. It may not sound very clear as I'm talking through it, but it follows a natural progression in the guide. Ultimately, this comes down to the crucial idea that I believe the good life takes a little intention, and intention takes reflection. It means taking that time.
This should only take you a couple of hours max to sit with yourself and break away from the chaos of life for a moment and just say, what do I want? What am I going to commit to this year for myself? How can I honor myself? What would make me proud?
And what am I going to do to make that happen? If we don't take those steps in our lives, we end up living round and round in circles. We end up not necessarily going all the places we hoped and dreamed. We have to put a little forethought in, and so that's where the planning guide came from.
Now, if you're listening to this after the start of the year, it doesn't mean that you can't still take a moment and recommit to your own personal goals. Like I said, I don't expect that people should do this once a year and have it sit in a drawer. It needs to be something you reflect upon regularly. For me, that means a refresh every quarter.
For you, it might be different, but you can pick up this type of guide at any time throughout the year and go, where am I at? Where do I want to be? How am I growing? So I made it for my clients, and it's my gift to you, you wonderful Head of Thrive listeners, because I appreciate you thoroughly, and I may as well share it with you too.
I'm not going to hoard all the goodness over here. So to get your copy, you need to go to thrive.how forward slash freebie. The link will be in the show notes. I'm logging off.
I'm flying to New Zealand this evening with my two little boys. We're truly in the holiday season. I grab this little moment just to come in here and share this with you, and I will be back in the new year with new interviews and new motivation and inspiration to help you live into your version of your best life. Till 2020, beautiful people.
Just keep thriving. I hope this guy helps you do so.