Why you should (or shouldn't) do quarterly planning?

Have you ever felt the anticipation of a fresh start as one quarter rolls into the next? That's the magic we're unpacking in this episode, where we delve into quarterly planning. It's not just about setting goals; it's about transforming those goals into a clear and actionable path forward. I'll share how to untangle your complex visions, turning them into exciting, manageable steps.

We'll explore how this approach not only catapults you toward your aspirations but also ensures you're not sacrificing self-care along the way. By the end of this conversation, you'll be ready to embrace the upcoming quarter with a newfound zeal and balance.

In this episode, I talk about the following:
1. The importance of quarterly planning for businesses and individuals.
2. My unique approach to quarterly planning.
3. Determining your readiness for quarterly planning.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:07

Are you a woman who runs the world but know you need a little support to Listen up? Through coaching clients and pursuing my own health and ambitions, I've found getting to a goal takes more than just willpower. It takes a mindset restart and learning how to adjust and not quit. In this podcast, you'll hear from women out there leading the way in momentum and I'll be sharing impactful mindset strategies to help you get out of your own way. Whether you're on a health journey, starting your life after a big change or trying to keep up momentum towards your passion project, with all the ups and downs, this is for you. It's time to decrease the things that hold you back and increase the things that move you forward towards a life that you want. I'm Amber Bebelheimer, and this is the Momentum Restart Podcast. This is Episode 102 Momentum Restart Podcast. I'm your host, coach Amber Be.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Let's talk about quarterly planning today. Quarterly planning is this something that you do already for your business and your life, or is this something that you have been wanting to start doing? If you have listened to any Momentum Restart Podcast, you know that I love planning. You've probably heard about the planner in journal that is on sale right now and in there you get a little sneak peek about how I work, my quarterly planning sessions with my clients and how we talk about productivity and visualization and making sure that your plan fits your capacity, like we talked about last week. I love doing quarterly planning for clients because of a few reasons, and let me know if you think this is just wild or if you can relate, because we all have different, unique gifts. And what it reminds me of is that scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation where Chevy Chase takes a huge ball of Christmas lights and hands it to his son and asks Russ to work on those. I always think of that when a client comes to me for quarterly planning and they have this vision of how they wanted this house to look when they're decorating for Christmas. But it's coming from them in a huge, messy ball of lights and they hand it to me. But on my side I get so excited because the way my brain works is I can see and compartmentalize all the different action steps that have to happen. It's one way that I've worked through strategy and through my years of teaching and my years of project management. All of my past experience, I feel like, is leading me to help women plan better. But also, at the same time, I love doing these because every single client, every single client when we get off a call for 90-day planning, they come in thinking, okay, this is going to be intense, or planning 90 days, I've got to be ready for action. And they are pleasantly surprised on how I run these planning sessions because we are visualizing, we're feeling into how you want to feel at the end of the year. We're thinking of your five-year vision, we're talking about self-care, we're talking about time spent on you and we're mapping out your business. At the same time, and at the end of every call almost every call the client says thank you, I feel so much relief. If you could look at your next 90 days and say I feel so much relief going into these next 90 days, that's something that you would want, right? That's something you want more of. You want that relief and you want to be excited to go into this plan.

Speaker 1: 6:32

I've had a lot of questions about quarterly planning, what this looks like. Today. I want to share with you why you should use quarterly planning sessions and why you shouldn't Really check yourself which side you're on and if you're ready for that next step, to really dig into a 90-day plan, momentum restart style, which is unlike anything I've ever gone through before. I know that feeling relief with a plan makes this really unique. Let's talk about these two different sides here. First, we'll start with why you should why you should use quarterly planning.

Speaker 1: 7:12

If you are someone who has a lot of ideas, I'm with you. I totally get that. I do too. Manifesting generators, generators, anyone who's a visionary, entrepreneur, creative. You have a lot of ideas, but you might need help determining what to do first. You have a lot of ideas, you have this big vision. You're wondering what should I do first, what do I prioritize? Because this is the way my brain works and I love this and I get so excited sometimes I just can't help myself and I was hanging out with my sister and cousin the other weekend and we were just having coffee, my cousin's sharing her visions that she has for her company and she's has so many wonderful ideas for this new year and she wants to write a book and start a blog and do X, y, z. There was a whole list which I'm so excited for her and I know she can do all of these things.

Speaker 1: 8:17

What I asked first, I said I know we're just hanging out having coffee. I'm trying to hold myself back here. I know we're just hanging out having coffee. Is it okay if I just give a little bit of advice? She's like yes, please. Okay, the door is open. So I started asking some more questions about where she's at and I asked her about well, which one of these steps are going to give you the most income right away to help support your new business? Which one's going to make the most impact and reach more people so that you can get more people to know about this awesome business that you have?

Speaker 1: 9:00

We started prioritizing and within a few moments, all of a sudden, I've got a big piece of paper on the wall and a marker and we're writing out what our top priorities are for impact and income, and I was able to help her really shift or sift through all of those ideas and pinpoint. Okay, here are the top three to focus on today. We knocked them out and then here are the next ones to focus on next month. And sometimes some of our ideas have different phases too. A lot of ideas that we have have different phases of market research in a beta test and then going to sell, and then reiteration there might be different phases too, and so if you are someone who has a lot of ideas or there's a big vision that you have, having a quarterly planning session is going to help you focus. It's going to help you start taking action, because sometimes a lot of us with a lot of ideas we can sit in those ideas and we can be kind of paralyzed with what to do first so we don't do anything. So it's going to help you focus and it's going to help you take action and it's going to help you feel relief in that you don't have to do everything at once, knowing that they can have a long-term plan in place in order, like Domino's set up. That's one reason that you should definitely do quarterly planning.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Another one would be if you are juggling more than one role in your life and all of the moms are now shouting, that's me If you are juggling more than one role, even if you're not a mom. If you are juggling more than one role if you have a business or a full-time job and you're starting a business, if you have multiple businesses I've learned this over this last year of I still have my AB productions working in the background, which I've had for the last 20 years. I have Momentum Restart, which I absolutely love here with you, and then last year starting the Restart Collective in-person events. I'm now spread a little bit thinner. Plus I'm a mom, plus I love to dance and have yoga and hang out with my friends and my husband and go on trips and do all of those things. So I'm definitely juggling a lot, and I'm sure you are too.

Speaker 1: 11:39

So if you are juggling more than one role especially if you have more than one business, or you have more than one area of work or more than one priority quarterly planning will really help you compartmentalize where you're going to be focusing on different areas. I've had to really adjust my schedule this year, knowing that just seeing how much more is on my plate now, in order to handle it mentally, to be able to look at the list and not feel overwhelmed, I've had to really get strategic on how I'm going to streamline my day but also theme my day and really not feel like you have to do every type of role all the time at once. Really start separating them so you're not always shifting from one business to the next priority, to the next role. So if you are juggling more than one role, more than one priority. Quarterly planning will definitely help you theme out your week, separate the different responsibilities, so that you can feel more relief as well.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Another reason to do quarterly planning is if you feel overtaken by your to-do list, if your to-do list is never going to actually be completed, or if you dread looking at it, or if it gives you those feelings those feelings when you're looking at it, like I'm imagining a big post-it to-do list on your desk with like a googly-eye cartoon, just like staring at you. If it gives you that type of feeling, if you feel like your days are run by your to-do list, like you're putting out fires all the time and you know that there's other things that you want to be doing to get ahead, but you don't have time because you're constantly putting out fires, the quarterly planning is going to help you do exactly that, because we're able to take all of the things that are on your to-do list. I mean, if you want to send me your to-do list and we plan it out together, I would love nothing more. That sounds amazing to me, because what I'm going to do, I'm going to do this who are really buried in their to-do list. I've definitely done this with them where I say, okay, send it to me, and I take it and I separate it for them, because sometimes we just need someone else to organize our closet right, we need someone else to organize our pantry or organize that drawer with a junk drawer, because when someone else does it they're not so emotionally attached to it. And then, once I took that list and I broke it down into the four sections you've probably heard of the Eisenhower matrix before. If you haven't, you will now, because that's something I use all the time with clients is I'll help them take their to-do list and we break it down.

Speaker 1: 14:42

We look at what are those fires that they're putting out and how can we make those more manageable so that they can focus on that important quadrant, which is what's going to move the needle. It's planning, it's working behind the scenes, it's making connections, it's building relationships, it's creating that new project that you've been wanting to create, those things that always get put off, that are really important to you. We help bring those up to the forefront. And then everything else we talk about okay, let's streamline, let's automate, let's delete. What can we take off your plate? How can we get you to have more support so that you can focus on those dreamy things. So, if you're feeling overtaken by your to-do list, a quarterly planning session is going to help you get organized so that you're not constantly putting out fires and you can focus on those dream steps, those dreamy, creative steps that you know are going to move the needle.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Another reason why you would love quarterly planning, or should do it, is if you work really well with accountability. We all have different motivation styles. This is a freebie quiz I put out a couple of years ago I think it's still on the website coachhamburbycom. If not, reach out, I'll make sure you get it and we talked with the four different types of motivation and knowing that each of us has a different. We're motivated by different things. Some of us are really motivated by a checklist. You would love the quarterly planning session because I literally map out your three action steps every week in your daily checklist.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Some people are really motivated by a challenge and when I know that we put that into their quarterly planning, let's talk about how we can make this a fun challenge for you. Some people are really motivated by accountability. I know that that is me 1,000% If I don't have to show up for someone, I'm probably not going to do it. So I have established my life to be filled with accountability in every area, so that I follow through on things that are important to me and with the quarterly planning, knowing that you've got to show up, you're going to have this plan in place and then you're going to have those check-ins to make sure that you're following through. It's everything. It's the game changer, so it's going to help motivate you.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Those are reasons why you should do quarterly planning, but I think it's also really important to pinpoint and let you know when it's not time for you to do quarterly planning. And it is not time to do quarterly planning if you are not ready to take action, if you just want someone to do it for you, if you just are not ready to actually get your hands dirty and do some of the work, or you just want someone to do everything for you, then instead, I get it, I get it. Then let's discuss outsourcing, let's discuss taking things off your plate instead. Maybe you're not ready to take action and let's dig in why. Let's maybe dig into the mindset Is there something holding you back or doubt, or imposter syndrome, or are you not ready to take action because you're tired, you're burnt out from the action you had been taking and it didn't come to fruition the way you wanted it to? Let's talk about that first. Those are things to tackle before a quarterly planning session and do some mindset and productivity coaching just to get yourself used to taking action and learning how to adjust along the way. So I hope this was helpful today.

Speaker 1: 18:43

If you want to discuss if quarterly planning is right for you, I encourage you to reach out, book a discovery call. Let's chat over voice memo on Instagram at coachamberbcom, or head to my website, coachamberbcom, and let's chat. Let's talk about where you're at with these and if there's some sticking points with mindset or productivity or just feeling overwhelmed, let's talk about working on those first. Or if you're ready to put this plan in place, let's talk about what we can do to give you that relief and move you forward. Thank you for listening to this episode of Momentum Restart Podcast. I would love to hear what you think about it. What were your takeaways? What action steps do you now want to take? Dm me on Instagram at coachamberb, and let's keep this conversation going. I promise I respond to every message I get Talk with you soon.