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Are you ready to ditch the cycle of failed New Year’s resolutions and embrace a planning process that truly works? In this episode of LeadWell with Jacqui, we focus on intentional planning and goal setting to help you align with your values and create meaningful change.
Discover:
- Why reflection is the key first step in effective planning
- How to use the Circle of Intention to map out your priorities
- The power of the Be-Do-Have framework to guide your actions and outcomes
Whether you’re mapping out personal or professional goals, this episode offers practical tools to help you plan with purpose and achieve your vision for the year ahead.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to today's episode of Leadwell with Jacqui where we talk about planning. I am recording this at the beginning of a new year and I want to talk specifically about planning rather than New Year's resolutions and I want to do that for a reason. 80 % of New Year's resolutions fail. The majority fail by I think it's around half fail by February and those that fail the majority have already failed by the 12th of January. So if you are listening to this early in the new year or at any point in life where you are wanting to set some intentions and plan and set some goals for you to achieve in the coming whatever time period I have some framework, some structures, some way that you are able to do this at any juncture. But I want to make clear that we are talking about planning and goal setting rather than an extreme resolution where we want to burn everything down and start again because we know that that isn't how our brains work. Now, I have an episode on reflection. It is not a part one, part two situation. However, I encourage you to listen to the episode on reflection first because when we go through the act of reflecting, we are data mining. are assessing behaviors, experiences, decisions that have worked versus those that haven't worked so that we're able to learn from them and then take those learnings into our planning stage. A lot of the time we have this action bias where we get swept away and we want to always be forward-facing or forward-focusing what's the next big thing. That energy is not a bad thing.
Behaviour is not inherently bad but we could be missing really critical data which will inform those plans, inform those decisions. If you work in business it is very unlikely that you would create a strategy without first spending some time assessing what is working and what is not working and what problem you're trying to solve. It is the same thing here.
So one of the reasons that we love to plan and one of the reasons that planning and creating these goals is helpful is because it taps into that goal oriented action reward dopamine process that occurs within our brain. It feels really good to tick things off the list. It feels really good to reflect on goals and see that we have moved towards them or even to achieve them. It feels good because we get a release of dopamine which consolidates that behavior and so we want more of that but we get it when we plan. So let's plan first.
Now I have, and we're just going to kind of dive in, friends. I do suggest that you have pen and paper with you or whatever digital fancy pants way that you write things down. That can be really helpful as we go through what these exercises are. But if you happen to be out and about when you're listening to this, you can obviously always come back to it.
Still listen because it may well plant the seed for you to start thinking about what you want to incorporate into your plans for the following year for example and then when you have time try to dedicate a lone uninterrupted time to actually map out what those plans might look like.
So I’ve got two main models that I want to share with you today. Similar to how we went through with the reflection episode, we start pretty broad and expansive, and then we become more granular and more specific so that we don't miss anything.
Where we start is, circle of intention. So get your piece of paper or whatever, write your values in the middle.
Again, if you haven't gone through the process of determining what your core values are, there's a free worksheet on my website, or you can Google different exercises to do that. It is one of the most profound things that you can do. And I really encourage you to start there. Figure out what's important to you, because if you don't know what's important to you, how will you make decisions that align? So, when you know what your values are, write them in the middle of the page.
Now, we're going to create a bit of a wheel or spider web, whatever. So in the larger circle or from that small middle circle, we want to create wedges, slices of a pizza if you will, or like the spokes of a wheel. We want to create sections and what goes into those sections is a facet of your life. So the standard ones that we look at here are family, work or career, health, social, so like friends, spirituality or faith, environment, so that could be like your physical environment.
Anything that feels like an important component of your overall life. If you Google Wheel of Life, you'll get templates. There's millions of them. We might even put one together. So what we want to do is we want our values in the middle because they're really important and need to be active and a part of each of the wedges.
In each wedge, write down your intention. You might have a few, make sure you identify which one is the most important one for the year. So for example, if I look at my family as a wedge, my intention might be, “I am active and present in my children's life,” [or] “I am available to support, care and show empathy for my family and friends.”
Something along those lines. Maybe it's “I allow my family to support me.” Ooh, that's a hard one. That might be one of mine this year actually. Because I'm not very good at that. Spirituality or faith might be something like, “I know that life is happening for me, not to me.” [Or] “I know that I'm part of something greater.”
If you have a more formal faith, perhaps it's something more specifically aligned to your God, for example. So we're staying quite broad here, intentionally.
So when you start to write those intentions, you might start to see that some of those areas of life, the present day or the current state is a little further away from the intention. So if my health intention was to eat a balanced diet, I might look at that and go, yeah, I'm probably, you know, like 80% there. I love a good 80-20 rule. And so maybe that's not a key focus for 2025 or whatever the following year is. But if I was to look at that intention and say, I think my diet's maybe 20 % there, that would be a good indicator that that is one of the areas of my life that I'm going to focus on for my goal setting. That is something that I want to work on. So another layer that you could do before you do your intention, and I'm sorry, I'm saying this in a roundabout way, but you can look at that wheel and each of those areas of your life and give them a score out of 10. How am I tracking? Maybe my career is going gangbusters and I'm very happy with how it currently is. I might give it nine out of ten. Maybe my health hasn't been great this year and upon reflection that's driven some particular challenges. Maybe I give my health a 3 out of 10 and then when I set my intentions I'm setting them with the lens of what would it take to get that score higher. And it's going to make that easier and it's going to make it easier to prioritise which of those pieces of life pie I want to focus on.
You may also like to add some broad intentions to that middle circle where you've written your values. So my, my top two core values, which I've shared before, are authenticity and whole heartedness. Sometimes I think I could lean into my authenticity a little more because I will sort of commit to things and say yes to things that I'm not really feeling. And maybe that's wholeheartedness as well. And so this is literally just coming to me off the cuff, by the way, welcome to my own reflective practice. And so I think I would be keen this time around to set an intention in the middle where my core values sit, around using those values and incorporating those values before I make a decision. So slowing down my decision processes, slowing down my commitments to others to allow for a little bit more considered thought.
Anyway, you're always, you guys are always along on the self therapy journey that I'm on. So we want to set those intentions. So we've got a score for each of those life facets and then we have an intention or maybe a couple of intentions and then we've prioritised them. So which ones do we really want to drill down on? Do I really want this year to see more focus in my career? Do I want this year to see more focus on my health? Whatever.
When you read back over those intentions, they should be emotive. They should be motivating. You should read them and go, yes, fuck, I want that. That is what I want. And the reason that that is the case is we really want to be tapping into some intrinsic motivation here. We need to be emotionally driven to achieve these intentions because then it will come from self, we'll be more motivated to take the steps and overcome the challenges that we need to in order to achieve them. So once we've done that process, we can move into this model, this planning model. It's not an original Jacqui Butler or it's not a Jacqui Butler original. It's a really common model called Be-Do-Have.
And you know I love linear process and that's what this is. It's what are we, who do I want to be? What do I want to be? How do I want to be? And then what do I have to do to be that? And then what will I have? What will be the indicator that I'm on the right track? So we want to start from the inside out again so that we're leaning on that intrinsic motivation of what I want to be, which is highly emotive. Before we're focusing on external factors, which might be what do I have?
So most of the time when we're setting goals, we start with what we have, which is the end result. And that can result in misaligned goals. So, I actually have come to this myself at the beginning of this year when I was doing my goal setting. I have been following this model for years, but for some reason this year I just got kind of swept away, I had a newborn and whatever (excuses), but I had done a lot of goal setting in terms of my business around how many clients I would have, my revenue and turnover would be.
I started with the have, that's the outcome, and in the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year, so around October, I caught myself and went, shit, one, I've achieved those goals, great. And two, I'm really burnt out and I feel exhausted and actually what I thought I wanted is not what I want because I didn't start with how I want to be first and so I didn't have those cues. I was just focused on the numbers. I was focused on the end goal. So don't be like me, do better than me and start with “Be” first.
So “Be” is really about the qualities that you want to embody. So in my example, instead of starting with the “Have” (how many clients and how much turnover I'd like), had I started with “Be”, I would have led with, “I want to be a fucking good coach. I want to be a person that supports and holds space for other people to be the best versions of themselves. I want to be empathetic and compassionate toward others and also to myself. That is how I want to be.” And that is how I wanted to be a year ago, but I didn't start there and I didn't think about that. Ironically, that's still what I want to be.
I also want to be a really good podcaster. Here I am doing my best. So that leads us to the next step, is “Do.” This is where we define what actions, what behaviors our “Be” requires of us. So what practices, what habits, what types of decisions will align with this identity? So for me, being an excellent coach means what I will do is connect with people who are ready and focus on quality and transformation, and make sure really that I am incorporating enough self-care that I'm able to hold space for people. That is what I need to do.
That is what I do need to do, going forward. If I want to be a cracking podcaster, what I need to do is start a podcast and learn from feedback, and continue to grow and progress and iterate. If my “Be” is, “I want to be the healthiest version of myself,” then what I need to “Do” is eat a balanced diet and make sure that I move my body and incorporate rest as intentionally as I can.
So once we know what we want to “Be” and then we know what we need to “Do”, then we can start to look at the “Have”. And these are the outcomes that we would anticipate when we are being who and how we want to be, when we are doing what we need to be doing, then what would we have as a result?
So if I want to be a really good coach and what I need to do is find people who are ready for that expansion, then what I have is successful coaching engagements. And what I might also have is word of mouth. I might have the right number of clients. I might even articulate what that number is here, but I'm making sure that I'm doing and being first, as priority. If I want to be an epic podcaster – epic, such a millennial word – if I want to be an epic podcaster and what I need to do is start a podcast and seek feedback and grow and develop then what I might have is a certain number of downloads. I might have a certain number of subscribers or followers and feel free to share this episode with people so that you can help me along on that journey. So you can see that the difference in how I show up and align towards this goal is very different. If I'd have started with, “I want a podcast that has a million downloads,” but I didn't start with, that's who I want to be, and that's what I'm going to do, then I could very easily set a goal that doesn't actually align with me. So that's the difference. Same as if I start my goal setting with, I wanna lose five kilos, without realising that what I wanna be is the healthiest version of myself and that what I wanna do is have a balanced diet and move my body and rest then I might not achieve my five kilo loss in the healthiest way. I might not even be aligned to it. I might wanna lose five kilos, but I still wanna eat the same and I still wanna move my body the same. I don't wanna change anything, but I just wanna lose five kilos. And then I'm setting myself up for success, sorry, I'm setting myself up for failure. Start with “Be.” How and who do you want to be? Then, figure out what you need to “Do” to embody that. And then, only then, start to look at and anticipate what outcome you might “Have” as a result. And that will be a success metric, maybe not the only success metric, you might put a few down.
So we started with that circle of intention. You might go, “Okay well, I realised when I did the circle of intention, that my health is where I want to focus on.” So that's where you start, you wrote that intention – that should really inform the “Be” part and you might wordsmith a little, and then you've got your “Be”, then your how, so what you might need to “Do” and then what you “Have” as a result.
What I suggest is doing two different timeframes for this. So start, within six months, what will I Be, Do, Have? In the past, I've done this for every wedge on my wheel. So in terms of my health, what will I Be, Do, Have? In six months, what will I Be, Do, Have in 12 months? In terms of my career, what will I Be, Do, Have in six months? What will I Be, Do, Have in 12 months? In terms of my family, you get the gist. I won't go through it over and over. And so the idea is that you're really setting these intentions and being specific with what areas you want to focus on and what changes you want to make.
So I wouldn't suggest doing every facet of your life. That's a lot. What I found and by doing every facet of my life is great. I'm already on track for certain ones. I need to make some changes and tweaks on others. So this can be a really helpful process to go through to really establish the type of person that you choose to be and how you want to show up and how you can live aligned to your values. I encourage you again, make sure that you do your reflection, then set your planning or your goals and making sure that you are establishing at what juncture over the year will you be reflecting and checking on them.
Don't set and forget, don't set them and leave them for 12 months because then it's too late to change. Monthly or quarterly reviews will help you to be able to iterate over time where you do need to make changes or identify when you've gone off track.
I hope this has been incredibly helpful. Please comment any questions or any experiences that you've had. If you go through this process, please feel free to share with others this episode. I would love to hear any feedback you have as well. So happy new year. If you're listening to this at the beginning of the year, I've got a good feeling about this one. Enjoy. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time.
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