New Year Planning! Annual Plan for Online Entrepreneurs
Can you believe another year has flown by? I don’t know about you, but this year has been a journey of ups and downs. I frequently have to remind myself that the LORD's plan is always greater when things do not go exactly how I planned. With that said, an annual plan provides a compass so you don't lose sight of what's important when you hit the bumps in the road.
Successful online business owners understand that business ebbs and flows. What you need to hold tight to is your why. That is what will keep you going during the struggles and thankful in times of prosperity. Understanding what drives you towards your goals or why you are so passionate about taking yourself on this unknown journey of entrepreneurship. Your why, along with your what or the vision you have of where you want to go in the next year, three years, and even five years. Does this mean that every detail is planned? Nope, not at all. It's important to plan your year as a small business owner. But, even more essential is to plan each quarter. That’s when you dive into the details.
Let's start the new year strong by creating a purposeful success plan. I'm sharing everything that's in my annual planning process. Download the Free Quarterly Planning Guide for Small Online Business Owners. It will be a resource that you will use time and time again. https://misstask.com/free-planning-workbook
If you’d like this in a Google Doc, I’ll put the link to get your hands on the Annual Toolkit for only $27! Here is the link to buy it now!
Why Create an Annual Plan?
Are you thinking, NOOOO, Michele, I am not a planner. It feels overwhelming, so I'll stick with flying by the seat of my pants. I get it. In the past, I've flown by the seat of my pants and felt that worked well. However, if you intend to grow your business and become a CEO, you must act like a CEO. What has worked in the past to get you to this point will not be what scales your business to the next level.
You see, an annual plan provides many benefits:
- It lets you set goals and work towards achieving them
- Keeps you focused on what matters most to you
- Reduces the chance you'll lose sight of your priorities,
- Provides direction and alignment for the year ahead
- Helps you feel in control and on top of your business
- Allows for less hustle to get everything done
Map Out Your Year
When we map out the year, this is our roadmap of where we want to go in the upcoming new year it allows you to focus on the big picture.
Creating your full-year roadmap lets you schedule important events and commitments around your life by blocking out vacation days.
When you map out the year, you begin to understand your time bank—knowing what you can take on and still allowing yourself three-day weekends and spending time with your kids during the summer.
It provides direction without getting stuck in the details. When you create your annual budget. Plan your launch schedule around your life and not your life around your business. Decide what major initiatives to undertake for the year, not only with your business but with your life, too.
Because whether it is a business project or a personal project, it is important to keep it to one major initiative at a time. When you take on too much, you’ll not have enough time in the day to do all the things in the end, leaving you feeling like you’re failing.
Begin With Reflection
Take a moment to reflect on what has happened in the past year before planning. Allow yourself to identify successes and areas that need improvement. This will help you focus your energy on the initiatives that will have the most impact. Your wins and failures can teach you a lot. Take some time to reflect on what is most important to you. Write about the life you envision for yourself in the future.
Here are a few journal prompts to get you started:
- What went really well that you want to repeat?
- What are you most proud of?
- What challenges did you face?
- What changed you?
- What do you want to do differently next year?
- Remember, there is no failure, only feedback. What feedback did you receive?
Not much of a journaler? Don't worry; instead, write out an exhaustive list of key points and things you’d like to improve. As with everything, it has to work for you.
How Happy Are You Really?
Inside Notion, I have a daily journal. One of the fields is my daily happiness. By keeping track of this daily, I’m able to go into my monthly and yearly roll-ups and see how happy I really am in my day-to-day life.
Next, let's do a self-assessment to determine how happy you are with your life and online coaching business. Let me break this down for you, how happy are you with each of these categories in your life? One is not happy at all something must change, and ten means you’re over the moon happy.
- Money
- Personal Growth
- Self Care (Mind-Body-Spirit)
- Family and Friends
- Love and Relationships
- You Time (Fun and Leisure)
- Home Environment
- Online Business
Reflect On Your Assessment
- What scored high in your self-assessment?
- Why do you feel these things are working?
- What is not working in your life and online business?
- What scored low on your self-assessment?
- Why do you feel these things are not working?
- Where do you need to give yourself grace?
Vision Planning for the New Year
If you have a journal, now is the perfect time to get it out to dream about your future life. Really, let your mind wander as you think about what you’re aspiring to achieve in the new year. Step into your future self and what is different in your future life. In one year, where do you hope to be? I believe this is very important; what do you want your feelings to be one year from now?
I’m not stopping there; here is a list of questions for you to journal on in order to gain even more clarity.
- Where are you now in your present life?
- Who do you want to become in the new year?
- Where do you want to be in your life and online coaching business?
- Where do you hope to be one year from now?
- What does your ideal life look like?
- What does your ideal schedule look like?
- Where are the gaps between who you are now and who you want to become?
- What's holding you back? Let go of limiting beliefs.
- Looking back at your self-assessment, where are you not in alignment?
- What matters most in life to you?
- What makes me the happiest?
- What is one word to describe your focus for the year? Is it family, consistency, joy, growth, or health?
- I haven't fully decided on my word for the upcoming year yet. But, gratitude has come to mind on more than one occasion.
What is holding you back? Be honest with yourself; what beliefs or shoulds are you holding on to that are no longer serving you?
Once you have answered the following questions, go to Canva or Pinterest and create your vision board. On Pinterest, make a secret board and pin those images you want to embody in the new year. As for Canva, design an image for your desktop to keep your vision board and goals front and center!
Create a vision board featuring images that represent your ideal future. Keep it visible as motivation.
Another thing I do in Notion is my vision board. I find an image to represent one thing I envision in my life. Then, I write down why I want this and how it will make me feel.
Once I have my vision and goals inside of Notion, I create a vision board for my desktop. I have two monitors. One that has my vision board for the year. My primary monitor has my vision board for the month. Yes, I create a vision board each month to focus on one thing.
Here is a previous YouTube video that I did on annual planning.
Long-Form Content Planning
What is your content strategy for the year ahead? Does your long-form content lead up to your live launches? Does your pillar content support your revenue stream?
The long-form content in your business is a door away to working with your business; it should be given the proper amount of time. Does your long-form content showcase your skills and the benefits of your services?
Do you have a process for refreshing, reusing, and repurposing your content? If you take the time to create the content, make sure you have a plan to spread the word without leaving you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.
If part of your yearly plan includes being more consistent with your long-form content, or you want to refresh, reuse, and repurpose what you already have… this is where I can support you. My done-for-you repurposing services give you strategic content that actually sounds like you, without the overwhelm. Check it out here: Content Repurposing Services
Yay! Goal Planning
With your vision in mind, set goals for the year. Do you know what motivates you to accomplish your goals? Do you need outside accountability? If that’s the case, find yourself an accountability bestie. What if you’re not really sure?
In the past, I’ve mentioned Gretchen Rubin's book The Four Tendencies; here is a link to the quiz to find out your tendency: https://gretchenrubin.com/quiz/the-four-tendencies-quiz/. What, I know, right? It boils down to this: what drives you to take action to achieve your goals?
UPHOLDER: “I do what others expect of me—and what I expect from myself.”
QUESTIONER: “I do what I think is best, according to my judgment. If it doesn’t make sense, I won’t do it.”
OBLIGER: “I do what I have to do. I don’t want to let others down, but I may let myself down.”
REBEL: “I do what I want, in my own way. If you try to make me do something—even if I try to make myself do something—I’m less likely to do it.”
Gretchen Rubin, The Four Tendencies
Set Your Goals
- What do you want to achieve this next year?
- Launch a new service or product.
- Hit your ideal income amount.
- Achieve important business outcomes.
- Make commitments to what you'll achieve.
- Address expected challenges
- Get the resources you'll need (team, tools)
Are your goals in alignment with your vision? Be committed to achieving them. If you’re not committed to achieving your goals, who will be? I’ve mentioned this before: Is it the right goal if you’re unwilling to dedicate time to your goal?
Plan Your Budget
An essential part of annual planning is creating a budget for the year ahead.
Determine:
- What are your financial goals for the new year? Not sure what financial goals to set? Here is a list:
- Revenue goal
- Spending goal
- Savings goal
- How much do you want to pay yourself this year?
- Make sure your products and services are priced right to hit these goals. Have you done the math on your revenue goals versus the price of your offer?
Do you know if it is even possible to hit your revenue goals with how you have your services priced?
I have a free resource, Know Thy Number. It has a bonus tab to Price for Profit. If you’ve not created a budget or do not have a clue how to price your services for profit, grab that free resource here: https://misstask.com/know-thy-numbers
Map Out Your Launches and Promotions
The final piece to include in your annual planning is your launches, promotions, and time off:
- Block out vacation days and regular days off first
- Decide your quarterly focus areas
- Schedule promotions and launches
- Allow time for new offer creation
One of the key reasons you map all of this out at a high level? It gives you a 10,000-foot view of your year. It allows you to avoid planning promotions or launches during your scheduled time off. I promise you, your family does not want to go on vacation while you’re in the middle of a launch. That would not be a vacation for anyone.
What more planning read this next!
Time To Wrap Up New Year Planning
Wow, we made it to the end! You have everything you need for annual planning success! Download the FREE Quarterly Planning Resource to get started.
Or, for $27, get the Annual Planning Google Doc template to use again and again. Feel free to reach out with any questions. Here is the link to buy it now! Cheers to a fabulous New Year ahead!
Happy planning!
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate you and hope you have a wonderful week!
Give Yourself a Pat on the Back: Encourage Solo Business Owners
Stop Being So Hard on Yourself
Girl, you need to stop and give yourself a pat on the back.
I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that same thing. How about you?
As women, we can be so incredibly hard on ourselves. We speak to ourselves in ways we would never speak to anybody else, and we justify it by saying, “I'm just being honest.”
But why do we tear ourselves down instead of acknowledging everything we carry, everything we juggle, and everything we've overcome by the grace of God?
The truth is, life requires a lot from us. Business requires a lot. Faith requires surrender. And yet when it comes time to pause and say, “Thank you, Lord, for helping me show up today,” we skip right over it and focus on everything we judge as not enough.
We create mental lists of how we should have done better instead of saying, “Look at what God and I just did together.”
Why Solo Business Owners Struggle with Self-Praise
Now, this is important. Looking for others to validate us only keeps us stuck. No one else can hand you the confidence that comes from partnering with God. That's an inside job, friend.
Listen, I'm a work in progress here too. I used to think giving myself credit was so prideful, but acknowledging the work God has done through me just isn't pride. It's gratitude.
Flipping the script and actually giving yourself a pat on the back is actually an act of stewardship. You're recognizing the gifts He's placed in you and the courage it took to actually use them.
It's Not Always Easy to Celebrate Your Wins
Let's be real. Depending on how you were raised, self-praise might have been frowned upon. But why?
Why is it considered acceptable to receive praise from others for our accomplishments, but somehow wrong to give ourselves thanks and acknowledgement for what we actually did and accomplished?
I'm just gonna say it—it's a bunch of crap.
You can be humble. You can surrender. And you can give yourself a pat on the back when you actually deserve it, because it's not about saying, “Look at me.” It's about saying, “Thank you, God, for helping me do this.”
Be proud of yourself. Give yourself that pat on the back. Be the empowered business owner God created you to be.
When Fear Keeps You Stuck (A Real Client Story)
Here's an example. I was working with a client who had written so many beautiful blog posts about her clean living homestead—good content that could genuinely help people.
But she hadn't hit publish on a single one of those blog posts.
When we talked about it, the truth came out. Her own thoughts were keeping her a well-kept secret. Fear was calling all the shots in her business, and it was keeping her stuck.
So here's what I did. I challenged her to do one small thing before our next meeting—publish just one post. Give someone the possibility to benefit from what she had written.
And when she took that action? She needed to give herself a pat on the back to celebrate that she had the courage to do the hard thing.
We get to pick our hard in life, friend. Which one do you want it to be? And when you pick the hard thing, celebrate it.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves as Solo Business Owners
We tend to make up all these stories in our mind about what's going to happen, about how people will respond, about whether we're good enough.
The only thing these stories do is keep us stuck.
We will never really know until we take action. And once we do the hard thing—whether it's publishing that post, launching the offer, or just showing up on video for the first time—we need to give ourselves that well-deserved pat on the back for doing the hard things.
Quick Recap: Why You Deserve a Pat on the Back
Let's bring it back to the big picture:
As women and Christian business owners, we're often incredibly hard on ourselves—saying things we would never, ever dream of saying to anybody else. We judge our efforts instead of celebrating what we've actually done.
The stories we tell ourselves keep us stuck, but taking action will actually free us.
And here's the thing—God's not asking you to be perfect, friend. He's just asking you to be faithful.
A Reminder for Your Heart
I want to leave you with this thought: Love yourself.
This doesn't mean pride or arrogance. It means recognizing that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that the calling on your life matters, that showing up—even imperfectly—is worth celebrating.
So the next time you accomplish something, big or small, give yourself a pat on the back. You are doing important work, friend.
I pray this reaches the person who needs to hear it today.
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