Are you constantly feeling overwhelmed?

We focus a lot on what we can do to make our business practices more efficient. We often forget about the personal side of business and how chaos at home can cause overwhelm and stress throughout. Today, I’m introducing you to part one of this incredible series to plan and execute your most epic year ever! We’re going to discuss:

• The benefits of prioritizing personal planning
• What you want to get out of this next year
• Brainstorm together the specific goals you want to focus on

I have some really exciting things to share with you over the next four weeks, things that have really transformed my personal life and my business. We’re going to go into how to create a personal plan for the year. It doesn’t have to be a January start date either in order to reap the benefits. You can start this at any point in the year, and still take these same principles and apply them to your life today, going forward. So if you are ready for this, let’s get right to it!

Why Does Personal Planning Matter?

Let’s start with the basics, why does personal planning even matter? When you take time to think about your personal life, and you plan it, you don’t just fly by the seat of your pants or wing it. It allows you the freedom to step into the person you want to become.

A few weeks ago, I put out Episode 83, which speaks about the importance of a personal CEO day. I go into so much detail about why this weekly personal CEO day is crucial. But just to give you a quick rundown, it’s time that you set aside on a regular basis to think about the future trajectory of your business or personal life.

We have to have a plan in our personal life as well.

If you want to have a successful photography business, without sacrificing your family or your sanity, then you’re going to have to plan how you’re going to take care of your family and your sanity. It’s as simple as that. So until you take the action steps to make it a priority, you will always end up feeling lost, overwhelmed and frustrated.

What Happens When you Don’t Prioritize Personal Planning?

Well, I just mentioned a few of them. You’re going to experience an increase in:

• Overwhelm
• Stress
• Anxiety

Because you’re not carving out time for self-care. If you cannot take care of yourself right now, how are you going to be able to take care of anyone else? You’ve put everyone else first and haven’t even taken the time to care about what you need. I’ll say it for you in case you haven’t heard this before:

Self-care is not selfish, it’s absolutely crucial.

Here’s something else that will happen if you don’t prioritize your personal planning: there’s going to be tension and arguments, not just with your kids, but with your spouse.

Importantly, something else that can happen if you don’t prioritize that personal planning is burnout, bitterness, resentment. Those are all things that will happen at some point, if you don’t prioritize your personal planning.

How to Prioritize Personal Planning

Let’s chat through how do we even figure out who we want to become. I have a worksheet, it’s more like a workbook, that goes along with this exercise. To access it, head on over to thepurposegathering.com/epicworkbook. There’s a couple of pages in there that I want you to fill out. Please take action and do this exercise, because if you don’t, you’re not going to be able to move forward and become the person want to be.

#1 Who do I want to become?

Maybe you want to be a more supportive wife or a more fun and adventurous mom. Maybe you want to be a more decisive person and learn how to say no more often. I want you to write down all these things, who do I want to become?

#2 What do I want my family dynamic to look and feel like?

Answer the question, and once you’ve figured out your family dynamic and what that feels and looks like to you, I want you to take some time and think through what are the habits that you want to change.

Personal Goal Brainstorm

Then this next part is going to be a personal goal brainstorm. On that same worksheet, I have space for you to fill out your goals.

Planning Faith & Spiritual Goals:

When you think about this upcoming year 2022, I want you to think about what are your faith and spiritual goals. Maybe you don’t have any faith or spiritual goals right now, maybe your first step is to just seek out faith and spirituality, whatever that means for you.

Planning Physical Goals:

Next, I want you to think about your physical goals. Physical goals can be around fitness and nutrition.

Planning Emotional Goals:

Now I want you I think about your emotional goals. How do you want to feel? Do you want to feel less stressed? Do you want to feel more patient?

Planning Relational Goals:

Next, jot down ideas about relational goals. Maybe you want to be more intentional with your kids or you want to have more date nights with your spouse.

Planning Character Goals:

This could be habits that you want to change or habits you want to create that fit your current season of life right now.

Planning Family Goals: 

Next, think about your family goals. What do you want to experience as a family? And include your spouse in this activity too because sometimes they might have an idea that you haven’t thought about. If you’re having a hard time with your children getting along, maybe one of your goals should be how to foster more sibling bonding with your children. Another fun idea is to create a family bucket list. Have every member of your family come to the family meeting and you can decide on this bucket list.

Planning Household Goals:

What do you want to do around your house? It could be a decor goal or it could be a decluttering goal. Maybe you want a solid meal plan system. This is crucial to every family, because nobody really wants to help with planning the meals and prepping the food. This is definitely one of those household goals that I think every family should have to come up with. How are you going to plan and prep your meals every single week? And divide the responsibilities, so you are not always solely responsible for it.

Planning Financial Goals:

Lastly, I want you to brainstorm your financial goals. Maybe you want to create a savings plan, or a retirement account or you want to pay off debt. Whatever your financial goals are, list them out.

Now that you have all of these incredible goals, I really want you to just brain dump and list out all the goals that you have. Examine what would be the most beneficial goal to attain and which one would really change the dynamic for you. So from this list, I want you to pick out 12 things and prioritize them in order of importance.

ACTION STEPS

Now it’s your turn to take action. Don’t let this exercise just trail off, and then you forget about it. This will impact the feeling of peace and calm and tranquility in your home. This can improve all of the relationships in your family and it will 100% give you the clarity that you’ve been looking for. Next in the series we’ll talk all about executing your personal plan, so have it ready to go!

If you enjoyed this exercise, I would love for you to do two things for me. First, take a screenshot of this episode and share it out on Instagram and tag me @thepurposegathering. Two, send me a quick DM letting me know that you listened to this episode and I would love to start a conversation with you about what your favorite part was. I can’t wait to connect with you!

As always Mama, I am here rooting for you. And you are not alone on this journey.

Resources

• The Purpose Gathering Side Hustler to CEO Group Coaching Program
• Join our next Virtual Hangout – A great way to connect with like-minded mom photographers discussing various topics related to motherhood and business!
• Grab your copy of the Epic Workbook!
• Ep 83. The Importance of a Personal CEO Day
• Find me on Instagram: @thepurposegathering