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Today’s talking point:

Wondering what to focus on as we head into the final quarter of the year? I’ll explain exactly why you should hold your own quarterly planning party, what you should explore and the impact it can have on your life and business.

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There is so much fresh possibility in a new quarter. Especially in the last quarter of the year, the Golden Quarter ✨ So much magic can happen.

Planning quarterly is so simple and effective, but I come across so many business owners who don’t do this.

I introduce all my clients to Quarterly Planning Parties, a dedicated time to assess your goals, make sure they’re still aligned with your vision and then schedule which goals to focus on over the next few months.

It is essential and makes decision-making so much easier in business.

Lay the groundwork

In order to be the boss of our lives, we need to plan to make that happen and that's where some key boss habits come into play.

One of these is setting regular vision and planning meetings. Doing a yearly vision meeting in December for the New Year lays the foundation for your quarterly planning parties. And your quarterly planning parties lay the foundation for your monthly planning parties.

The reason we call them quarterly planning parties is that we want this to feel fun, and it is so much fun. I want you to set it up as a total vibe. If you do this by yourself really romanticise it, light a candle, maybe you're in your pyjamas, maybe you're on the floor with loads of coloured pens, you've got a cup of tea, some music on whatever that looks like for you.

Here's how I want you to think about each one of these:

Your yearly vision meeting is casting a vision for the year as a whole, and deciding on some goals that you want to work towards that align with that vision.
Your quarterly planning party is a time to assess your goals to make sure they still align with your vision and your season and then schedule specifically when you're going to focus on each goal.
Your monthly planning party is to allow you to create specific plans of action for each goal.

quarterly planning parties

The ability to create accountability, discipline, and then execute is one of the greatest areas of weakness that I see in businesses. So many of us have so many ideas, and so many of us are visionaries, but it's the action part that we struggle with. The quarterly planning party is what will bridge the gap between vision and action.

It’s worth noting here that bringing discipline and accountability into your business will make you feel uncomfortable. That is an inevitable part of growth. Usually what holds us back is the fear of creating discomfort. But you really don't have any other option if you want to build the business of your dreams. So if you can accept that, and lean into the uncomfortableness.

The solution is to implement two practices.

Setting specific, measurable priorities
Meeting better with yourself as the boss as the CEO.

Why 90 days

If you woke up tomorrow morning and listed every single detail and action necessary for you to achieve your long-term vision, you would probably have a list of at least 100 items, maybe even 1000. It would be overwhelming, and basically impossible.

Now imagine that you have your own quarterly planning policy, or you do it in a programme with your mentor. And you agree on the 3-7 most important priorities/goals that the business must accomplish in the next 90 days to achieve your long-term vision.

You could wake up tomorrow morning, knowing that there are only 3-7 critical objectives that need to be accomplished. You would be so much more focused and effective, and you'd feel way less overwhelmed.

By limiting priorities, you can focus on what is most important and with the increased intensity of focusing on a limited number of goals or priorities, you will accomplish more.

5 step process

There are five steps to this process that I like to call the five Rs:

Review
Reflect
Refine
Results
Remind

Review

This is where we talk about money. We review our income goals, and we set new income goals for the quarter. We start with numbers first because they define everything else.

ReFLECT

The purpose of this is that before the start of each quarter, you're checking in to make sure that your goals and how you're working toward them still align with your vision for the year. Because as our seasons change sometimes we have to shift our goals too.

It's important to start off this section with key questions like:

What is the best thing that happened last quarter?
What didn't work? Well, last quarter?
Do my current habits support my vision?
What new habits and routines do I need to implement to better support my vision?

The reflection piece is what makes you the boss of your life because being the boss of your life means that you are working toward your big, amazing goals while prioritising what's important to you.

If you skip the reflection part of the quarterly planning party, that's when the potential to tango with burnout and overwhelm increases because we're just going through the motions. So reflecting is taking the initiative to pause and evaluate your processes to make sure they're serving you really well.

Refine

Refine is usually the quickest step. We're not quite into the planning just yet, but here is where we want to create some clarity on what you've done so far.

We are gathering all of our ideas from the work you've done so far and just writing down any and all your goal ideas for the next 90 days. Here I would much rather that you focus on having fewer more intentional goals that you actually feel a connection to.

Results

This is where we create a simple and strategic plan that you cannot wait to get started on.

A priority or a goal for a 90-day period has to be three things:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable

A 90-day goal must be clear so that at the end of the quarter, there is no ambiguity as to whether it was achieved or not.

Remind

I would really advise you to put your plan in one place, like Notion, Trello or Asana.

You want your plan to have three key things:

Your journal responses to any reflection questions that you went through.
You want to schedule what goals you are focusing on in each month of this quarter.
Make a note of any important events coming up this quarter along with time off things like that.

Boss moves

It's so powerful what this can do for you. It focuses you on which direction you should roll in, and you come out fired up and ready to take on the next quarter 🔥

You are now doing what successful businesses do. Your frustrations from the past start to subside, and you make progress on your way to breaking through that ceiling. Your business evolves from chaotic and busy to a well-oiled machine.

let’s recap

Planning quarterly is a hugely impactful thing you can do for achieving your business goals.
Achieving 80% of your quarterly goals is enough to be truly amazing.
Don’t forget to check in if your goals are still aligned with your vision
Being uncomfortable is an inevitable part of growth.