#192: My 5-Step Planning Process + Worksheet

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina, Onativia, here to inspire you to take action and build momentum for your online business. I want nothing more for you than to feel progress, a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of freedom that comes from having a course or an online program driving your success.

Today, we’re planning for the future, and I love doing planning exercises. What you’re going to do for the next quarter, the next six months, the next year. And typically, I can’t wait to dig my teeth into this. And I realize I’ve been dragging my feet a little bit this year. And then I discovered why. It’s because I had all these lofty goals and I had all these lofty visions of where I want to take my business last year.

And of course, I had an unexpected eye surgery pop up at the very beginning of the year. And all those personal and professional goals kind of left flew out the window when I had a three month recovery. So I think part of me is thinking, why am I planning when goals might not happen or I might have to go into survival mode?

Now, I’m not complaining. I’m so grateful where I am today. My family, my friends, I have the best doctors, but I didn’t want to drag my feet anymore because I know how important it is to plan and to look ahead. I had a conversation with my friend Sal Sal Night, a link to her episodes in the show notes, and she’s a genius.

And we were talking about planning for the New year and I was saying, I want to do all these different things. And she challenged me. She said, okay, well, where’s the bigger strategy here and where’s the money coming from? She really held my feet to the fire and I to snap out of that fear. That hesitation I felt about planning out the next six months and move myself forward.

So this episode is for you. If you’re ready to reflect on the last year and map out where you want to go and by the way, if you’re not quite there yet or if you’re not in the headspace, just bookmark this episode for later. And either way, we’re going to work through my five step planning process. And if you’re listening in the car or you’re on the go, you’re on a walk or run.

I’ve got a worksheet that I want you to download that walks you through the entire process. I love my worksheets. This is something that I’m going to start doing as my annual tradition. Make sure you download it. Go to the show notes, download it so you can fill it out and go back to it so you can listen.

Now get the gist of the process and then really take action on it with the worksheet with the downloadable PDF. And a quick reminder before we dive in, if you’re ready to take your course idea to the next level, we’re accepting new down for you. Clients Head to Course Creation Boutique dot com search course to learn more. We’d love to help you build your course and get it done.

You of course get some marketing strategy as part of it and we’re really with you every step of the way. We break up your milestones. We hold you accountable little by little, phase by phase, getting your course done and out there to the world of course creation boutique dot com slash course. All right, let’s kick off my five step planning process and part one is, of course, the look back my debrief of the last year.

We have to know where we’ve been in order to move forward. So part one is the debrief and I love to do two columns again, make sure you download your worksheet. So first, what was great? So one, two, three, what was great? And then one, two, three, what was not so great. So I love starting with what’s great.

I’ve talked about this before when I work for Tony Robbins. We always started with what’s great. So even if you had a bunch of feedback to give, like we just did an event and we were having a debrief call, we always started with what’s great because a lot of times when we’re diving into feedback, we forget to celebrate and acknowledge what really worked.

Because I’m promising you, you might say you have the most terrible year. Something was great. There is something worth celebrating. So for me, if I were just going to debrief with you guys right now, I had a great chance to coach and mentor some corporate clients and some agency clients, and it was incredibly fulfilling for me and I forgot how much I love mentoring young talent.

Going back to my days when I worked for Vintage International, which is peer to peer coaching. I had three people under me and I loved it. So I got an opportunity to do that this year and it completely lit me up. So that was a huge win. Another win, another what’s great is our done for you clients, working with them, getting the opportunity to see them launch their courses go out to market brings me and the team such great joy and fulfillment.

So that was awesome. Another win is we got to work on a special course with American Council, an exercise on behalf of Special Olympics. Super, super cool designing it for people with intellectual disabilities going through that process. I have never had that challenge before. I found it incredibly rewarding. It really it challenged me. It challenge my husband to design for this group.

Just thought it was so cool. Any time you’re kind of flexing that muscle and going out to a different audience, I think is so rewarding. So those three things, the mentoring and the coaching, the View clients, and then the Special Olympics course, those three things would go on my worksheet. Now, of course, we’re going to talk about what’s not so great and this is we’re going to be honest with ourselves.

And first and foremost, we didn’t really innovate this year. I was looking back and I had in my head that I didn’t introduce anything new this year, and I didn’t realize it till I had a former student reach out and say to me, Hey, what are you doing right now? I love learning from you and training with you.

What’s your newest thing? What? Other than this podcast, I haven’t really been in a creation mode. So in the next year, that’s going to be big for me. And we’re going to talk about that in a minute, how that’s going to show up. So the second not so great piece is that I wasn’t great about

I could have done a lot better job building up partnerships, connecting with new people, and I just kind of dropped the ball. So I know that’s a growth area for the new year and something I need to work on. And then the third not so great is the recovery. So and this is kind of with an asterisk, right?

There’s nothing I can do about it. I had eye surgery. I had to recover and it was just not a super great time. Again, I said this at the beginning of the podcast. I’m grateful for having gone through that. That definitely changes how I approach business, how I approach my own business. So but I would say the recovery was a not so great area.

And if the recovery if we wanted to kind of put that to the side, I think what was not so great is I need to spend more time with my team and giving them feedback and guiding them because sometimes I feel like my hair’s on fire and I don’t give them the feedback that they really need. So I think that’s what’s not so great area if I’m truly being honest.

And that’s what this podcast is all about, right? Being really honest. All right, so let’s start one. You debriefed, so you did your great three areas. You didn’t hear not so great three areas. And then in step two is what are you saying no to and what are you saying yes to in the next year, the next quarter, whatever it looks like for you.

So for me, I’m saying no to being unfocused or letting myself get distracted. And I’ve gotten into this terrible habit where I’ll work for 30 or 45 minutes. I’ll even set my timer and then let myself get on threads for 15, 20 minutes and get into that rabbit hole of Doomscrolling. So there’s better things to do with those 15 or 20 minutes stretching.

My trainer would say, Right. Every time I walk in, I’m like, the hamstrings tight. She’s like, Somebody needs to stretch. Okay, I could be drinking some lemon water, okay? I could be grounding my feet outside, taking my shoes off. I could just rattle off ten different things I should be doing instead of going doomscrolling on threads. So I need to be, I feel like a little bit more focused.

And then when I do give myself a break, get better about it, or do something that empowers me and not disempowers me. So. So I’m saying no to the distractions or the too many distractions. By the way, what you’re saying no to it could be a behavior, something you’re doing like I was doing. It could be something you’re delivering like, say, you’re doing monthly Q&A right now, and it’s not really moving the needle for your business.

That could be a no. Or you’re saying no to a client or maybe a client wants to re-up, but you’re not going to move forward because it doesn’t make sense for you and your business anymore. So those could be no’s as well. All right, then. As part to be what are we saying yes to? And I’m saying yes to so many things.

Relationship building, like I mentioned, I’m saying yes to Legion list building, building up my platform again and really embracing that so you can have multiple things that you’re saying yes to. Same thing with the saying no. So don’t be afraid to use your worksheet and let it loose. Then we’re on to part three of our five step planning process.

Amplification is part three. What is worth amplifying in your business? Work is worth building on. That’s working right now. For you, it might be something that’s making you money. Maybe it’s getting new leads. It’s helping you put your course out there in a bigger way. It’s putting out your brand in a bigger way. Whatever it is, it’s working for you and for me.

It’s this podcast. Some of you know, I brought the podcast back over the summer after missing it for about six months while I was in recovery, and I went to every other week at first because I thought that felt doable and I didn’t want to crush my soul and just jump back into it without making sure I could wrap up.

So we started every other week and I was recently at the Retina Specialist for hopefully the last time going to see him for a year, which is yay celebration. And my husband turned to me and said, Okay, babe, when are you going to bring back the podcast weekly? You know, my husband so funny. Every once in a while he just asked like these questions about the business and I love it.

And I said, In a month, we’re going to do it soon. Maybe not a month, but soon. Very soon we are going to bring this back. And he says, It’s good for you, it’s good for business. What do you have to do to make it go weekly? So I’ve already been having conversations with my team about this. They’re on board because it impacts them in a big way.

I’m a lucky gal because I get to just create. I get to just be in my zone of genius, come up with the ideas, come up with the scripts and then record, and then my team handles the rest like they’re they’re absolutely awesome and brilliant in what they do. And, and like I said, I’m a lucky girl, so I know I need to just rev up my content and be confident and be inspired like I was when I was writing this script.

So I know I can get back to that place. And then I just wanted to check in with my team to make sure, hey, they can handle it. They’re ready to produce the content in the podcast on a weekly basis. So that’s a long way to say our podcast is the answer for part three, which is what? To amplify.

So what is it for you? What’s working? What do you want to double down on? What do you love doing? And you’re thinking, I could have more of this. Okay, write that down for part three four. Step three. Okay, so part four. Yes, we’re on part four. Look at us. Okay, Make sure you download your worksheet so you can follow along.

So you can do this later. We’re going to innovate. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, I didn’t do a ton of innovation last year. Okay, Now it’s time to innovate. One of the pieces, or one of the places I want to innovate is I want to put out a course with my friend Megan O’Leary, who all link to her shownotes in to her episodes.

She’s absolutely genius and she’s the best copywriter. I know. And I said, It’s time for us to put together a copywriting course specifically about sales writing. By the way, if you’re interested in that, and if you’re as stoked as I am about this, just send me a dime and I’ll make sure you get on the waitlist. And O’Leary and I have worked for years and years on different campaigns and what makes them run so smoothly and do great is our process and how we approach the copy.

And now it’s time to teach it. So I will I’m going to do this course with O’Leary. And then of course, in addition to this course I’m thinking, who can I partner with in terms of putting out programs and courses? So that’s where I’m going to innovate. Bottom line, I’m going to pick a few areas. I’m going to pick 20 areas to innovate, right?

And by the way, this happened happened in the first quarter. Maybe you’re going to intervene on something for six months and then and then the back half, six months, you’re going to do something different in terms of innovation. But what do you want to try out? What do you want to dip your toe into? What have you been talking about with your friends or your colleagues or your virtual assistant or your team?

If you have a team about doing and just how can you dip your toe in it? How can you make a small step? All right. Finally, step five is three words, which I’ve got to have talked to in the podcast about this before. And this is something I used to do when I was in corporate. I visited it, talked about vintage earlier, and I got to give author Chris Brogan credit.

Here he comes up with three words to define his new year in the spirit of the year and you’re going to pick three years that inspire you and that are really going to juice you for the next 6 to 12 months. So whatever that looks like for you. So for me, it’s innovate, build, partner. Okay, I could have done love, patience, energy.

I’ve done a bunch of three words, right? Maybe you have multiple three words. You have one for your professional life and one for your personal life, whatever that looks like. I want it to inspire you and write down those three words and have them on your desk somewhere. I used to get them designed and framed for the year, which I loved, but write them down and by the way, during this five step process, I know I kept it on professional goals.

You could repeat this for personal for your family. You could set different goals for your kids or for your spouse. It’s pretty flexible. So hopefully this was helpful for you. Make sure you download your worksheet and you get it done. And I’m going to meet with my team and we’re going to go through this because the next piece is to come up with what’s the 90 day plan?

What is it look like? So if I’m going to do this sales copywriting course with Megan, with O’Leary, what’s the plan for it? And you can betcha that we’re coming up with the plan right now. So hopefully this process lights you up and if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss what’s coming up next.

Until then, be you and be brilliant and get it done.