How Reflections and Plans Lead to You Crushing Your Business
Happy Friday, Tribe! I am so incredibly grateful that you are here. I want to take a second to ask you a question. How are you doing? Guys, I know it. You know it. We all know it. 2020 has been a freaking roller coaster that none of us chose to ride. It’s like that insane mega-coaster at the amusement park that you find yourself on and have no idea how your friend convinced you to get there. You’re sitting there at the top of the ride, looking at the 300-foot drop and wondering, “How did I get here?!” Before promptly turning to yell at your friend to get you the hell off that thing.
Well, “How did I get here” is exactly the question we’re talking about today! The topic of self-reflection has been on my mind a lot lately, along with planning. I know as entrepreneurs, it is so easy to have the mindset of “go go go,” to continually live in a world of “doing.” Which is great, because we can get a ton of stuff done! But the problem is when we’re always in “go-mode,” it’s challenging to stop.
Right? When we are always on the go, it’s impossible to take a deep breath and process what has just happened! It turns out, taking the time to reflect leads to HUGE business success. Because once you reflect, you can plan out your next steps with insight into what works and what doesn’t! I always say success breeds success, and if we’re not picking out the successes in our business, it is tough to carry them forward!
Today, we are going to talk about how to reflect, prioritize, and plan so that you can see massive increases in your income and increase your impact to live a purpose-driven life!
How to Use Reflection to Increase Revenue
Guys, do you remember that song from the Disney movie Mulan called “Reflection” where Mulan is looking into the mirror and singing about who she is inside? Well, that’s what I want you to think about in your business. You don’t need to necessarily get all philosophical like Mulan, but it is so important to be able to regularly reflect on your business and other aspects of your life!
As I said earlier, success breeds success. If you can pinpoint the things that are working for you, you can incorporate them into your future! Look back and think about what you do once a week (or more!) that has worked for you. What was successful about today or the last couple of days? Why was it successful? Think about those things, and then ask yourself, “How can I bring that success into the future?”
That is how you can continue your success so that you don’t just have one lucky week, one lucky day, or one lucky quarter. This is how you can continue to build off your wins and move to further levels of impact in your business and your life!
But you and I both know that life isn’t all those high moments of success. There is always room for positive improvement, and it’s so important to reflect on those aspects of your life as well. As a recovering perfectionist, I know how hard it is to fail. But as I’ve said before, failing is actually a really good thing! (Go check out my episode "Evolving Into You with Jess Glazer" for more about this!) Failure is so critical because you learn from it every single day!
We are constantly making mistakes because— shocker—we’re human! Everyone does it. So let’s choose to learn from it! Let’s reflect on our past and think, “what struggles did I have? What mistakes did I make? What things am I having difficulty with?” And then let’s take those problem areas and move forward with that information!
For example, maybe you look back and think, “Wow, I’m really not connecting as much with my audience on my Instagram or email list.” Once you realize that, reflect on what you can do moving forward to fix that problem! Then, you can learn from the past and use it to scale your impact and income.
So guys — I want you to take some time and reflect on this. Ask yourself what is going really well during this first or second quarter of 2020? What do you want to bring with you moving forward into the second half of the year and beyond that will continue your success and give you even more impact?
And on the flip side, what are some things that you aren’t happy with or aren’t proud of? What can you remove from your life, your business, or your mindset that prevents you from growth? If you seriously take time to reflect on these things and write them down, you will see a massive change in your business success!
Why Planning Is Everything
Ok, so you’ve reflected on the things that breed success and decided to keep them. You’ve thought about the things that aren’t working that you want to remove. Awesome! Now what?
This is where planning comes into play. After all, what’s the point of reflection if there isn’t an action that follows? Mulan wouldn’t have gotten anything out of her reflection if she didn’t make a plan and follow through with it (I’m not saying you need to drop everything and join the army to defeat the Huns! You know what I mean).
As an entrepreneur, planning is part of the profession. Having a focus and planning each quarter just goes along with the territory. We’ve been talking about this a lot recently in my Impact to Income Academy, the signature 12-week program that I run for entrepreneurs who want to grow their impact and scale their income to live the life that they want as a result.
Last week, we talked about how we can have a calendar that guides our entire business! This way, every single month, you have a focus and a plan. Because if we don’t have that focus and plan—what on earth are we doing, am I right? If we are just going day-by-day and flying by the seat of our pants, putting out fires, we are reactive instead of proactive. Nothing happens there.
So after you reflect, make that plan for yourself. But you’re not quite done yet! Sometimes a plan can be so multifaceted, it gets overwhelming. That’s where prioritization comes in. Think about how you are going to prioritize your goals. Because its great to have big plans and big goals, but you also have to prioritize them to make them happen. I’ve found that it’s beneficial to write down your plan and prioritize what you want to do first.
Alright guys, so what is your plan? What is your target? Because if you don’t have a goal — that action right in front of you that you want to achieve — you’re not going to like where you end up! If you can’t see the target, you can’t hit the mark, right? You’re just going to be blindly throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it might stick.
Happy New Year 2.0: How To Hit the Reset Button on 2020
To incorporate this planning mindset, Pat and I sit with our calendar on New Year’s Eve every year and map out what we want the year to look like. That might sound overwhelming, but it can actually be really gratifying! But you can probably guess that this year, things did not go according to our plan — or anyone else’s on the planet for that matter.
So Pat and I decided to do something really fun. We decided to do a New Year’s Eve 2.0 — a night to sit down and bring our vision boards out again. I’m so excited about this! We are going to take a look and reflect on the first half of the year. Then, we will carry that into right now and our plans for what the next six months will bring!
We’re going to reset the year by talking about what we want to achieve in the next half of 2020 and how we are going to accomplish our goals. This way, we can have a better, stronger plan moving forward so we can celebrate the second half of the year and look for opportunities to grow!
Not gonna lie, I’m super pumped about this. It gives us time to connect, reflect, and then move forward and celebrate the second half of the year instead of considering it “a wash.” I would be willing to bet a lot of money that we will still be able to reach the goals that we set out to achieve, even though 2020 has been a cluster. Why? Because any action will be successful when it’s purposeful —when there’s a relentless drive behind it. So I have a strong feeling that we will still crush our 2020 goals because we will have a plan, purposeful action, and relentless drive.
Reflect, Plan, Take Action, Repeat
So guys, my question for you today is this—what are you bringing into the second half of this year? Do you have the time carved out in your calendar right now to reflect on 2020? It is so important to take that time to reflect. See what was working for you and continue those practices, while at the same time eliminating the things that are holding you back and not serving you.
Next, what planning are you going to do to carry out the goals you set for yourself? What are you scheduling in your calendar to move forward in the second half of this year? You can still make this year the best yet, despite the world shutting down and everything else we’ve been through. All it takes is a little reflection, planning, and drive.
You are meant to live a big life. You are meant to step into who you want to be. You are not meant to play small — YOU are made for greater things. So my challenge to you this weekend is this — do your reflection, see what success you want to bring forward, and then get out there and make a plan to crush it!
Success is meant for YOU. Not only can you reach the goals that you've set out to reach, but you can make the impact in this world that you are meant to make.
Guys, if this episode helped you at all in your life or your business, I will be so psyched to see that! Please screenshot it and tag it on your stories, because I absolutely love seeing how you are integrating the stuff you hear on the podcast and moving forward in your life! As always, tag me(@thejennkennedy) in your post, because connecting with you is the best part of my day!
I love you guys, and I’ll catch you next time!
