Making My Roadmap for 2018

I’m not sure when fell in love with planning, but I recall being in high school and excitedly buying a teacher’s lesson planning booklet and multiple colored pens. I would write down some goals for the school year, all my homework, after-school activities, and errands, color-coding to keep myself organized. Crossing through my to do list was extremely satisfying, so I would put anything and everything on my list to have the chance to say, “It’s finished!”

Interestingly, as I started and grew in my career, I often only found myself planning with such detail and energy at work. Most managers required some sort of future-looking plans, and I purposefully set aside time with teams I oversaw to set goals and priorities for the work ahead.

Sure, I would have some vague personal goals in my mind, but rarely did I look across my whole life and envision what I wanted to go after and then plan next steps. As a result, I achieved some goals, didn’t achieve others, and I sometimes felt a bit rudderless. It was almost as if anytime I didn’t put solid attention and intention into something, it more or less didn’t happen.

Now that I run my own company AND find myself in one of the most demanding moments of my personal life as a working mother of an infant, I knew I owed it to myself, my family, my community, and my work to set aside some time to plan for 2018. So at the start of the year, I set aside a few days to “retreat.” (Trust me, it sounds fancier and like more of a time commitment than it was!)

I’m a big fan of collaborating with other business owners, so my first step was asking brilliant leaders how they plan for the year. I received a variety of responses, reminding me there was not one perfect way to approach this. Some folks use online reflection and vision-setting guides of varying lengths, levels of depth, and content (resources linked below). Others use a “wheel of life”-like mapping process, with categories like money, work, family, friends, recreation, and mental/physical/spiritual health that then guide goal setting.

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to start with the wheel of life method and then moved on to one of the backward looking/forward planning guides. Some interesting themes emerged for me:

I loved thinking holistically:

When planning for Spark Collective, I intentionally integrated planning for my whole self (instead of a teacher’s planner, I used a journal… and multiple colored pens, of course). For example, I thought about how work goals might affect family- and friend-related goals, and I started to see some exciting ways that different areas of my life serve another. For instance, as an executive coach and trainer/facilitator, I learn a lot of content that is applicable to developing strong relationships with family and friends. I also started to see synergies- could I start a new hobby and invite a friend to join me?

I am reminded about WHY I do the work I do:

One of my favorite questions right now is: “For the sake of what?” Said another way, why am I doing what I’m doing and what’s it in service of? Planning for 2018 allowed me to become crystal clear about the values, interests, and purposes that are sparking for me right now as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, community member, and professional. I emerged from the process more committed than ever to my work, and I know this inspiration will motivate me through the ebbs and flows of the year.

In order to plan for the future, I need to grapple with the past:

I looked back on 2017’s experiences, emotions, internal monologues, wins, frustrations, and data such as dollars and time spent on various activities. After all, as long as we don’t stay stuck in the past, it can be instructive in determining what to continue, what to stop doing, and what’s left undone.

I also realized that lessons learned earlier in the year were harder to recall; my most recent experiences dominated my memory. Going forward, I will be sure to incorporate reflective practices more frequently than once a year or at the end of projects. In addition to my daily, very quick bullet journaling, I plan to have a quarterly retreat.

I honored my planning, processing, and accountability style:

Some of us tend to be big dreamers and then struggle with details, while others of us love to jump in and get started. To honor the planning process, I’ve found it’s important to do as Tide Riser’s very own Lara Holliday advised me- keep planning and doing separate. To help me, I kept my to do list nearby and wrote down any “doing”-related ideas for later so I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of budgeting for my grand ideas, for example.

Some of us can write alone in a room and come up with brilliant reflections. Me, not so much. I need to couple my individual, quiet reflection with boisterous, challenging, and supportive conversations. That’s one reason why I love being coached and being a coach, so I will seek out colleagues with whom I can talk about my vision for the year ahead.

Relatedly, I’ve learned that, most of the time, I’m apt to do something when someone else is involved. To help keep me committed to all I’ve dreamt for myself and Spark Collective, I will be sharing my 2018 vision with my husband and close colleagues.

Callan Blount Fleming, Tide Risers Empriseur

So what’s sparking for you? What did you learn in 2017 and what’s ahead for you in 2018? For the sake of what? When December 31, 2018 rolls around, what will you have accomplished and experienced? What do you need to get there and who can you enlist to be on your team?

If you’re interested in some of the guides I perused, see below:

2017-2018 Annual Review/Preview Reflection Guide, Rosetta Thurman

Unravel Your Year, Sussanah Conway

Purpose Packet, #OnPurpose Movement

PS: You may find Gretchen Rubin’s theory about the “four tendencies” is an interesting read if you want to better understand your accountability preferences.