Episode 160: How We Do Our Year-End Review and Annual Planning

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I just saw a meme today talking about how November just feels like this crazy month with 13 looming deadlines and holiday family stress and endless to-do lists…plus it’s DARK.

I get that this time of year can be really hard. Maybe you’re approaching the holidays solo for the first time in years after a breakup. Perhaps you’ve overscheduled your promotional calendar, and the pressure of the deadlines is squeezing the joy right out of you. Or maybe there’s a family member who’s incredibly challenging to be around but who you feel like you have to share the holidays with.

I want to offer up another possibility for you. One that can change the way you experience this time of year and ensure that every year starting in 2020 and beyond can be even better than the last in terms of your health, joy, abundance, and impact.

In 2013 Mike and I bought a really big blank book for a practice that we’ve committed to every year since.

We wouldn’t miss this practice for anything, and every year we carve out more and more space for honoring it.

It’s our year-end review and annual planning practice, and this single practice has been responsible for:

Feeling more connected to one another and falling more and more in love every year
Buying the home of our dreams with money we earned from sharing our ideas with the world
Creating a family life and environment to raise our daughters in that we’re incredibly proud of
Ensuring that we grow our business with the Do Less principles front and center so that as we grow our audience, revenue, profits, and impact, our personal wellbeing and joy doesn’t shrink but instead grows right alongside

This week we’re taking you behind the scenes in our year-end review and annual planning practice and telling you exactly how we do it, step by step.

We’re letting you in on:

Exactly how we set goals (and the critical second category we outline at the beginning of the year)
A new practice we’re implementing this year to ensure that reaching our goals becomes inevitable
The critical step we take to ensure we integrate the lessons from the past year to make the next year even better
The 10 key categories we’ve identified in our lives that each get airtime during our annual practice
The single biggest thing we did in 2019 that allowed us to finally break a bad habit that’s haunted us for years, so we’re not carrying it forward into 2020

Whether you already have your year-end review and annual planning time on the calendar for this year, or you don’t even know what I’m talking about, this episode will help you set yourself up for a year that exceeds your wildest expectations.

Once you’ve listened in, we’d love to hear from you.

Do you do year-end reviews and annual planning already? What elements do you include? What did you hear in this episode that you’re going to incorporate moving forward?

How We Do Our Year-End Review and Annual Planning

In This Episode

Why a year-end review is so important – and how much time we dedicate to this practice [17:43]
What happens when you only focus on where you’re not [18:34]
Why “bigger, better and more” shouldn’t always be your goal [19:10]
How this year-end is different than for other years [20:50]
What are the steps we take for our year-end review [24:20]
Our top takeaways from last year [30:40]
It’s actually ok to not hit all of your goals from last year [34:00]
The book that changed the game for both of us on our journey with money [35:25]
What benefits you’ll get by reviewing your goals and plans regularly [42:10]