I created Living ROI as a passion, to share my experiences and support others who want to live more authentic, joyful and fulfilling lives.
Dear Friends,
This morning I got up early to start my annual planning process. I’m meeting my weekly planning friends, Jo and Jennifer, this afternoon for a planning slumber party at a beautiful beach retreat. We’ve done this process together every year for the past five years.
The goals we come up with today will be the North Star for our weekly planning. Each week we will check in to see if our day-to-day lives are reflecting and aiming towards those goals.
The first step in the process of looking forward to 2019 is to reflect back on 2018. What were the important events and accomplishments of 2018? These can be big and small. I look back through my journals and calendar. I think about my life in terms of wellness, my family, my work and other hobbies and important projects.
For me, the biggest event this year was my youngest daughter, Marina, heading off to college. I also made great strides in the areas of work and health. A couple projects I planned to work on didn’t get very far. I will take this review into account as I look forward.
This afternoon Jo, Jennifer and I will be filling in the annual planning section of my Weekly Guide for Soulful Living. You can download the journal for free. You can also buy the physical journal on Amazon. Over the five years that Jo, Jennifer and I have been meeting weekly, we have refined our planning approach, which ultimately resulted in the journal.
Two of my favorite up front questions for planning are:
- What’s NOT working in your life right now?
- Imagine you only have six months to live. You will be healthy for those six months. What would you do and with whom?
After answering those two questions I have a clearer idea of what my priorities for the year should include.
There are various exercises in the Weekly Guide for Soulful Living to help you get to your top goals for the year. These goals should be somewhat fluid and revisited through the year. Some goals may be accomplished quickly, others are a multiyear exercise. I always (and will always) have my personal wellness as my top goal. My strategies and needs for wellness evolve over time, but if I’m not taking care of myself, I can’t be there for others.
After I finish my own planning experience with my friends, Colin, my husband, and I find time to talk about our overarching plans for the year and fill in our big wall calendar. Colin doesn’t like to spend a lot of time planning, so it’s a quick session that we revisit every quarter as needed.
On New Years Eve we will have friends over to celebrate 2018 and create vision boards for 2019. It’s such a satisfying way to end the year and set ourselves up for a great 2019. If you’re interested in doing your own vision board session, you can watch a video I did on creating vision boards.
Wishing you a fabulous start to this month of festivities,
Barbara Fagan-Smith
CEO, ROI Communication
Chief Catalyst, Living ROI
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Love your peer-life-coaching process and your six healthy months to live question. I recently did a presentation entitled 200 yrs or 200 days (to live) which concluded w an exercise that sought a synthesis of the advantages of each. “Dream as if you’ll love forever; love as if you’ll die today.” Thanks.