Freedom Lifestyle

How I Plan My 90 Day Business & Life Sprints (SOLO)

Sam Laliberte Season 6 Episode 99

My dreams create goals which create milestones which create tasks.

In this solo episode, Sam teaches how breaking down tasks into manageable sprints reduces procrastination and helps maintain momentum, bringing you closer to your larger vision ✨

Key Takeaways: 

  • gain clarity on what your 90 day could be 
  • learn to set realistic goals that fit your lifestyle
  • understand the difference between dreams and goals
  • using the SMART framework to measure our success
  • resources for planning and tracking daily, weekly, quarterly sprints

Resources: 

About the show:

Sam Laliberte -  entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.

Speaker 1:

Hello Freedom Seekers. You are listening to a new episode of the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast, where we feature relatable stories of everyday freedom seekers who have ditched conventional office life in pursuit of a life that is flexible and on their own terms, and today we're switching things up. You have a solo episode today with just me. So if you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that when I come on here with a solo episode just like this, I'm here to serve. I'm really here to give you actionable advice and valuable takeaways, and this one is going to be no different. So grab a journal or, if you're out for a walk, make sure you have your note-taking app ready, because today we're going to dive into how I set and achieve goals within a 90-day time frame, and you can apply this to your personal life. You can apply this to your professional life or, in my case, I really hope you find a way to blend both of those worlds together. Earlier this year, I launched a new mastermind slash coaching program called your Next 90 Days, and this experience has really forced me to perfect this style of working, the concept of working in quarters in 90-day sprints and really brush up on what I see as roadblocks that get in the way from achieving this work style and being successful in these types of sprints. So I've been observing my clients now for the last three months and I'm really excited to share these insights. What I have planned for you is we're going to talk about why you should set goals and work in 90 day sprints how to actually decide what your 90 day goal should be. I'm going to unpack, step-by-step, my own personal process and I've included some little case studies here so we can get very specific, with examples of goals I had last quarter and what I'm focusing on in the three months that are upcoming. I'll share with you resources that I love to help implement this and, of course, an offer to come, get unlimited coaching from me and work together for 90 days, and I'll join you on the ride towards making your dreams happen. Sound good, amazing.

Speaker 1:

So, first, why should we work in 90 day spreads? Why am I so passionate about this? When I really reflect on when I started to operate my business in this way, it was when I was working back at Boss Babe and they came out with their 90 day planner in 2019. They don't actually offer this anymore, sadly, but when they came out with it, I bought a year's supply right away and it has really been a beacon for me when I think about an entire year and I've since adapted their process to what works for me and what works for my own clients.

Speaker 1:

But really breaking your year into four 90 day sprints, four quarters, is beneficial for so many reasons, but really what I want to highlight that resonates the most for me and for so many of the entrepreneurs I coach is that one. It helps you set much more realistic expectations for yourself and your business because you're often setting smaller, more defined goals that are project-based. So when you think about a year and a year's horizon, you might be thinking about bigger dreams, bigger visions for the year, big level-up moments that you want to make happen, and it can be hard to get a sense for what you can achieve in a 12 month period. There's so many unknowns, especially if you have a freedom lifestyle and you have a lot of flexibility in your life and you're moving around a lot and your work is changing, often because you're doing freelance or contract work or who knows what's around the corner in your exciting life. It's super hard to plan an entire year when you don't really know what's coming.

Speaker 1:

When you look at a 90 day horizon, most of us have a pretty good idea of what's coming up over the next 90 days. And now, when you set your goal, you set goals that you know you can achieve based on what you have going on in your life. So, for example, if I'm going to be traveling a lot and I'm going to be changing time zones and moving around and living in a suitcase, that is not going to be the time for me to be launching an offer that involves a lot of calls. The last thing I want to be navigating while I'm on the road is figuring out strong internet and Wi Fi. And okay, you're in this time zone, I'm in this time zone. The next week, I'm in this time zone. That's just not gonna work. I'm not gonna be able to show up the way I wanna show up. However, it's an amazing time for me to do more asynchronous work and projects and focus on revenue streams where I don't always have to be live with a person. So maybe that's gonna be a time where I am really focused on launching a new season of my podcast or doing a campaign around one of my courses. I know what's coming up, so I can be much more realistic about what that goal should be. I also think it's a really good way for you to pulse check.

Speaker 1:

Are you saying yes to the things that matter? When you have a big dream for your life and then you go to work towards it and you say, oh well, I've said yes to all of these other things, so I can't possibly work on my dream, it really gets you to ask yourself well, wait a minute. Am I spending my time on the things that are going to get me closer to my goal when I look at the end of the year? Am I working towards the things that are going to make me feel really satisfied at the end of it? Or did I accidentally just say yes to a bunch of things that are a little bit of a distraction and sometimes that can happen and I think that that process of being like, okay, this is what I have in the next 90 days, there's no way I can work towards my dream on that forces you to have a really strong look in the mirror of am I okay with that? Are you okay with that? Are you okay with carrying over your dreams and your goals and your visions and all the things you want to make happen in your life and all the ways you want to level up. Are you willing to sacrifice that for whatever you've said? Yes, you, and sometimes it is.

Speaker 1:

You know, last year was a really big travel year for me. I'm so excited of the memories I made. Travel year for me. I'm so excited of the memories I made. I went to Burning man. I went on my honeymoon Okay, fabulous. I was happy to make that trade-off and stay stagnant in some areas of my life and coast a little bit.

Speaker 1:

But when I was planning this year, I knew that when I started the year, that wasn't going to be the type of year I was going to have. I wanted to really make moves on some of these bigger dreams of mine. So it's in a tricky little way. It really serves as an opportunity for you to make sure that you are spending your time on the right things, and three months is a good enough horizon where you're like two months from now. I said yes to a bunch of these things. Every single weekend already of the summer month is booked. I don't like how that feels. What can I get myself out of? What can I change now to make space for the thing that's going to matter.

Speaker 1:

What's great about a 90 day period as well, though, is that it's a long enough time horizon that you can adapt along the way. So, let's say, you encounter some type of setback or some changes in your circumstances, you can kind of adjust your plan and course correct without feeling like you're starting from scratch. I'll give you a really good example for this. So a dream I have for this year, so a big goal for the entire year, is to make public speaking one of my main revenue streams, and I'm more specific than that. I have a dollar figure associated with this, which I'll talk to more, coming up about setting smart goals and specific goals and goals that we can track, but, for now, understand this idea that I had a big goal of making public speaking a meaningful revenue stream for me, and so, when I thought about the first 90 days of this year, I really planned to have Q1 be about outreach and building relationships, and I was thinking that maybe by month three, by March, I would have paid speaking opportunities, that I would be delivering my workshops on a paid basis, and that dollar figure I was trying to achieve I'd be well on my way towards that. So I had a number of actionable goals and needle moving tasks, which we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1:

In order for me to get to that, I had to hire an outreach manager to help me with this. I hired somebody else to help me build a bunch of lists so I could see different organizations that might be a good fit for me to speak to and pitch one of my workshops to. I had to really refine what my workshop topics are. What are the key takeaways? What are the titles? I had to get clear on my pricing so that this was something that could scale. If I was really going to double down on this revenue stream, well then I needed to create a lot of systems, and so I did that.

Speaker 1:

I really spent January focused on that, and by the end of January I was actually starting the outreach process, actually contacting organizations and pitching myself as a speaker, and very early on I realized that there was a significant amount of organizations who were really excited for me to come speak to their audiences and speak to their communities. However, they wanted me to do it for free. They weren't hiring speakers, they were typically bringing in experts that could come deliver some value, but then had something to sell, something that they could monetize by converting the attendees in the audience to then buy that program for them. And I didn't really have anything to sell that was related to the topics that I was speaking about, and it was feeling like this was coming up more and more and I then realized, okay, these are organizations I'm really excited to speak to. How can I make this work? Well, I need to create something that I can sell from stage and I need to create something that aligns with the workshop topics that I'm excited to speak about, that they want me to come speak to their audience to. Well, I need something to sell. That way, I can say yes to these free things and still have a dollar value associated with public speaking, and that can be towards my annual goal of speaking. I felt okay with that. That felt aligned for me.

Speaker 1:

But I now needed to go create an offer. I needed to spend the next two months basically designing what a program could be a course, an offer, a coaching program. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but something I could sell from stage. So, because I was working in a 90 day timeframe, I still was able to course correct throughout that. So, yes, it was all about outreach and building relationships and I wanted to start booking speaking gigs, but there was still enough time for me to say, okay, I need to pause on the outreach now and I need to go create something and go create a program. So that's what I did and that's how I ended up creating the your Next 90 Day Mastermind program. It was all so. I had something to sell from stage and I did that, said yes to those opportunities and then by the end of month three, I was now speaking on stages. In this case these were virtual stages. I was in Costa Rica at the time and I was selling my program to their audience at the end of it.

Speaker 1:

So really great example about how this 90 day approach can encourage creativity, can give you a sense of freedom and flexibility. There's enough time to experiment, to try new approaches, but not so much time that you feel overwhelmed by the pressure of a much bigger long-term commitment which, when that comes, when you have, like this big, big goal and a big long-term project that's going to take 12 plus months, things can often get put off, things can often get delayed If there's a timeframe that's so far out 12 plus months things can often get put off. Things can often get delayed. If there's a timeframe that's so far out, we can tend to focus on things that need to be done right now, and unless you're figuring out how to create things to do right now that lead to that bigger goal, you're not going to be able to do it. You're not going to be able to maintain a sustainable pace. Which brings me to the second thing that I love so much about working in 90 day sprints is that it reduces procrastination and it reduces overwhelm.

Speaker 1:

I would say the most common challenge I've seen from entrepreneurs that I've coached and I know some people who are listening to this might be like okay, well, I don't even know what my goal should be, and don't worry, we're going to be talking about how you can identify what your 90 day goal is and get clear on that and feel really confident and feel inspired by that. But for the most part clients who come to me, they have their dream, they know what their goal is and they have tried to go make that happen and try to realize that on their own, but they haven't been successful. The reality is that they've tried and not necessarily failed at pursuing their goals, but they've spent a lot of time and haven't necessarily had the traction that they're hoping for. And so then they come to me to have me help them on that journey and figure out what's going wrong, what's not working, what are they doing that could be improved and how could they have a different approach to going after their dream. And when I really unpack what's going on for a lot of them, it's almost always that they've been quitting too early. They are talented, they are capable, they have set a realistic goal and dream for themselves, but sometimes they get a bit distracted by other things that come up in their life, things that are typically easier, things that are less uncomfortable to do, that they know they can do well. So, even though they want to have this big level up, they put it off and another opportunity comes that OK, well, that's easy, I've done that before. They do that. They get distracted. They continue to avoid the meaningful actions that will actually help them unlock their real dreams.

Speaker 1:

And a perfect example of this is probably one of my favorite clients, shout out, april. You're going to hear from her at the end of today's episode. She had a dream of becoming a voice actress and building a new revenue stream as a voice actor doing voiceover work. And I can just imagine, right. You know, when you've got a good voice, I bet people her entire life have been telling her hey, you should really monetize that voice, you should be a voice actor. Have you ever thought about voice acting? And it's been on her mind for a really long time. And you talk to April and within 30 seconds you're like, oh yeah, she's got a killer voice and let's get that woman on a mic.

Speaker 1:

But where do you even start If you don't know anybody that has done voice acting, if you don't understand anything about the industry? You're not in these worlds, you have no connections in this space how do you even really know where to start? And that can feel overwhelming, that can feel uncertain and that can lead you to doing nothing, that can lead you to just stick in the lane that you know really well. And so when we worked together, we started by really figuring out you know what is this big, large dream and make it meaningful. And we're going to come back to that Like what is the emotion behind this? Yes, cool, you've got a great voice and you want to monetize it, but there's always something more at the root of that, and we really need to uncover what difference achieving this would make to somebody. And so once we do that, well, let's break down all of the tasks and all of the actions we think that someone would need to take in order to get closer and closer to this goal, and let's tick them off one by one, week by week, day by day, and just get closer and closer to securing that first paid speaking gig as a voiceover actor.

Speaker 1:

I often tell people you don't need to know the exact path that's going to get you towards your dream or your goal. You just have to continuously know what your next best step is. You just have to continuously be like okay, this is the next thing, I'm trying, this is the next step. I continuously have momentum. I'm continuously making progress. I don't necessarily know the next 15 steps I need to take, but I've got one or two that I'm working on every single week, and you can work at that sustainable pace. I want you to think about how this could apply for a dream you have and I'm getting very specific with her example, because this is what we're talking about If you have a big dream of becoming a voiceover actress.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, let's break that down. So it was. You know, an example of something that she had to do Homework. I gave her Research three websites that hire voiceover actors. Create a profile on these websites. Talk to five people on these websites who are doing this. Buy your first microphone. Build a portfolio by finding samples of voice recordings or things that you've done where you've recorded your voice. Create new voice recordings. See if any friends need a voice actor and do free work for them. Determine what your price is going to be.

Speaker 1:

These are all little tasks and little homework that, when she looked at her list of okay, these are the things Sam wants me to be working on today, this week, she knows how to do that. You can do that. You might not know how to become a voice actress, but when you break down these small tasks and often they're giving you more information along the way when you complete one of these tasks, when you take that action, you start to create a reaction. Right, you get fed more opportunity, more insights and more ideas. You're learning as you go and a lot of the time, like she knows what to do. It's all within all of us. It's just a matter of breaking it down so it feels less overwhelming. And when you have it in a 90 day sprint and you break it down from, okay, like these are the big needle moving outcomes and milestones that I want to have this month and now in order to hit those milestones. Here are specific tasks that I need to do this week and then broken down to today.

Speaker 1:

It's also just so satisfying checking things off your list when you get so specific. You just repeatedly have that dopamine hit of accomplishment and progress by check. Did it again, check, I did that. And of course, in the program I use some fun software. You know you can literally digitally check it off and I can see when something's done and we can really measure that outcome and the progress towards the goal done. And we can really measure that outcome and the progress towards the goal. And I know maybe I oversimplified it for you, maybe I made it sound so easy. I understand it's not that easy. Okay, we're going to break that process down even further.

Speaker 1:

But what about somebody who doesn't even know what their goals should be? I mentioned when I'm working with a new client we really try to understand the emotion behind their dream, giving it meaning, understanding how a goal they might have fits into a bigger vision for their life. Rarely does someone who comes to me for podcast coaching just want to launch a podcast for the sake of launching a podcast. Okay, it's going to be part of a bigger dream of either they finally want to work for themselves or they want to make an impact in the world and they want to get this information out there that they think is just so valuable and they must share it with the world and build community around this, or they've always wanted to be a professional speaker and get paid to have conversations and talk to people. You got to get to the root of what your dreams are and have them really be meaningful and then create goals around that, and I really do think those are different.

Speaker 1:

A goal is something that I would really consider much more project-based, specific, right. A smart goal, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely. That's what a goal is, and that is something you can work towards in a 90-day period. But a dream is something bigger than that. It's a bit more intangible. It should be rooted in emotion. It should be rooted in a vision that you have for your life, like something that, if it truly came true, would be a full body, yes, a full body excitement, a full body rush of emotions. When you think about it, you can't help but just smile and get equally excited as you are scared. It's a dream. That you have A goal is something that is clearly time bound. It's specific. You can measure it. Ideally it's pursued in a 90 day period and it contributes to your dream. It contributes to making that dream a reality.

Speaker 1:

But you have to start with the dream. You have to start with the emotion. You have to make it meaningful to you, not only because that makes the conversation so much more special and so much more enriching from a coach-coachee relationship, but it's also really what needs to happen in order for you to tap into deep motivation and resilience on days where either things aren't going well or days where you just don't feel like doing it. If it's a goal with no emotion, if there's no meaning behind it, it's not leading towards a bigger dream of yours. You're going to delay it. You're going to do the easy thing. You're going to put it off. You're going to feed into stories that our brain tricks you with to help us stay small, to help us stay safe. You're not going to feed into stories that our brain tricks you with to help us stay small, to help us stay safe, you're not going to be able to consistently make progress and move towards it, because that's just not how life works.

Speaker 1:

When I get on the calls, I have weekly coaching calls with my clients, one-on-ones. It's unlimited coaching. I don't even know what I'm going to get. Some days they're up, some days they're down, and same. Honestly, it's unlimited coaching. I don't even know what I'm going to get. Some days they're up, some days they're down, and same. Honestly, it's a roller coaster. And yes, people always say, yes, it's such an entrepreneurial ride and you're on this roller coaster ride. I mean, it's the ride of life.

Speaker 1:

People who are not entrepreneurs also deal with these peaks and troughs, these unexpected valleys of their life of I'm so high, I'm winning. This is amazing to like. I don't know. This sucks, life sucks. Why do I even try? This is really hard. Blah meh Happens to all of us, and so, by creating meaning behind our dreams, it helps us tap into more resilience, and so that's the first thing we do.

Speaker 1:

And then, because I have very entrepreneurial clients, pretty much everybody I work with is an entrepreneur, an aspiring entrepreneur of some kind, a side hustler we need to write down all of the things you want to do, because what is an entrepreneur really great at? They're really great at generating new ideas. They're really great at having a lot of creative pursuits, a lot of projects that they either want to do or feel like they should do campaigns they want to run, revenue streams they want to launch. Typically, you have too many goals, and when you have too many goals, it's really hard to make meaningful progress on a bunch of them, and so a lot of it is about focusing. But until you just give someone the space to just write it all down literally everything that comes to mind, we'll put a timer on, we'll play some funky music.

Speaker 1:

Tell me all the things that you want to do. Okay, you want to create a course. You want to have a mastermind program. Okay, you want to be a public speaker. You want to have this coaching. You want to get this certification. Okay, you want to go to this event. You want to get this training. You want to write this book. Okay, you want to get into voiceover acting. You want to do this. And now we do personal goals. Okay, well, I want to be meditating every single day. I want to be doing 10,000 steps. I want to be traveling more. I want to be working less.

Speaker 1:

I want to get more daylight. I want to reduce my caffeine. I want to increase my protein. I want to start seeing a naturopath. I want to go to the gym more often. I want to take up a new hobby. I want to get better at this existing hobby.

Speaker 1:

We are typically at least the people I attract, because we tend to attract like people that are similar to you, are ambitious. We have a lot of things that we want to do. Life is a gift. We want to seize the moment. We want to take advantage of life as much as possible, and I freaking love that. Same Again, same.

Speaker 1:

However, we can't do it all at once, or else we won't make progress on anything. So the next thing we do is we just write down all of the different things you want to do, because, unless you do it, you feel like you need to keep it in your mind so that you don't forget. You feel like you need to have it in there in case like, oh crap, this popped up in my mind again. I am not making progress on that Shit. I should be doing that. Oh, like I'm not doing that. Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

Until you write everything out, all of these ideas are just living rent-free in your mind, pinging you as reminders unexpectedly here and there, and you're scared that you're going to lose sight of these dreams or these ideas. So when they randomly pop up in your mind, they just trigger all of these immediate feelings of oh crap, I'm not doing enough. There's this sense of urgency, this unnecessary urgency, and so we've got to brain dump all of the ideas, whatever time horizon works for you. Some people it's very easy for them to look into the future and think of projects that they want to do. That could take five to 10 years. Some people are more short term and have ideas that they think they want to accomplish this year or within the next five years. Whatever that time horizon is, we dump them all down and then we get very ruthless through a process of eliminating which ones cannot happen right now. I believe that they can all happen, but they just can't all happen right now. So what do we want to do first?

Speaker 1:

So, once you have all of your ideas and you're trying to determine and get clear on what your 90-day goal should be, there's usually two paths. You can make it either super strategic what is a low-hanging fruit goal Like? What is something that's easy to achieve, that's going to get you closer to a dream based on what is timely and important for you right now. So an example of this could be a lot of clients want to create a new revenue stream so that they can quit their job or so that they have money and cashflow to invest in another, bigger idea, and so sometimes it's about okay, of all these ideas, what is the quickest one that is going to make you money?

Speaker 1:

Out of all these ideas, what do you think can start generating revenue within 90 days, and maybe we'll pick a goal based on that so that in the next quarter, we have revenue coming in so that you can take the leap to quit your job, or so that you have extra money to invest in the thing that you want to do that you can focus on next quarter. So it could be strategic, right, or it could just be like of all these ideas, what feels the most exciting to start with right now? What is the thing? Full body yes, I referenced that before. Feel it. What excites? You Pick, pick one, but we can't pick them all, and that is, I think, probably the biggest value I give to my clients is helping them stay focused on it. It's a great way for me to continually sell my services and get them to join for another 90 days, because it's just like such an obvious sell. It's like, okay, let's stay focused on what we said we would do this quarter and then over the next 90 days. This sounds like a perfect thing to focus on. Absolutely, I can help you with this, but for now we're going to stay focused on what we said we were going to do. There's room for adaptability, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

But something that I implemented in the program that I think is quite clever is, if you hit your goal that you set within 90 days, I give you a $200 incentive. So I actually give you $200 back what you paid to be in the program. I actually give it back to you at the end of 90 days only if you hit your goal. And I let you set your goal, as long as it's specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely, you get to pick it and I'll give you your money back if you hit it. So let's use that smart frame in terms of setting a goal to the goal I mentioned before about monetizing my public speaking revenue channels and having that be more meaningful, so specific, I knew what counted right. I have multiple revenue streams, but I wanted one particular revenue stream to be the one that was more meaningful, so, speaking versus a freelance offer that I have, for example, measurable I made it quantifiable, so I had a dollar amount associated that I wanted to hit by the end of the year. Attainable I basically looked at what I made last year for my public speaking business and added 25%, so I wanted to grow by 25%.

Speaker 1:

And then relevant yes, this is all part of a much bigger dream for me. I gave it relevance, I gave it meaning. I have a much bigger dream of serving people with my own stories and my own experience and not just keeping it for myself. I've been doing this on the podcast for years now, but I really want to take this content, these stories, this inspiration to bigger audiences, to different audiences, and really empower people and inspire people with my own journey and everything I've learned from speaking with hundreds of freedom seekers now on the podcast. So it's relevant to me. And then timely I gave myself until the end of 2024 to achieve it.

Speaker 1:

So that is an example of what a SMART goal is Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. So your goal has got to be that, and then we break it down. So then you have your 90 day goal, but within that 90 day goal, you want to have important metrics or milestones that'll really matter on your path towards that. And then, from those, you have specific tasks that you take every day towards that goal, or every week towards that goal okay, towards hitting that metric. And ideally this is all tying back to one big dream, one big dream that is part of your big dreams for the year. It might not be fully realized in the entire year, it might take multiple years, but remember, it's rooted and it's connected to a bigger dream of yours. And then it's broken down into a 90-day sprint and from there, in order to achieve that 90-day sprint, there are a couple key milestones, wins that you'd want to achieve on the path to hitting that.

Speaker 1:

So an example for me last quarter I launched my new brand that Jared and I worked on together called Conscious Giddies, and we knew that we wanted to, in Q2, in that three month period, get ready to launch the brand. Going into the quarter, nobody knew about the brand but us. We were in stealth mode. We had spent Q1 getting clear on what the brand was going to be and taking some action towards getting ready to make it a reality. I had to quit certain job opportunities things that I really loved doing to make space for the new brand. We leveled up in many ways. We had many jam co-creation weekends where we dreamt up together and got super clear. We spent Q1 really figuring out what the brand was going to be, what the vision, what the mission was and how we were going to create space in our life for it. And then Q2 was all about actually launching the brand. And so when I think about, okay, what would I need to do to launch a brand? That's the 90 day goal.

Speaker 1:

I had specific metrics that I knew counted towards okay, that would be a launch. So one of them was having branding for it visual look and feel of the brand, things like a logo, fonts, colors, all of that. Another thing I wanted for the brand was to have a website, have a place where people could go, that they could learn about it. They could ideally sign up for something and join our email list. That was a big another metric that matter. So have a branding kit, have a website. Example was have a physical launch event, an in-person experience where people interact with the brand, where they learn about the brand and they understand what it's all about. Okay, and then a fourth one I had was very specific, related to the brand, was get my breathwork certification. So this was kind of related to the launch plan. I knew that for the launch event, we wanted to run a workshop and in order for me to run that workshop, I needed to get a new type of certification. So I am now a certified breathwork instructor, which is super cool, and I'm recording this at the final few weeks of Q2. We just had our launch event last weekend at Squamish Vegan Festival and I'm just like so proud. We just had our launch event last weekend at Squamish Vegan Festival and I'm just like so proud.

Speaker 1:

It all came about in the way it did, but it didn't just happen. We were very intentional about OK, we're launching this quarter after spending Q1 dreaming it up, and this is all leading into a bigger dream that Jared and I have, which is to create our own nonprofit, to create a brand together that is improving the world, making the world better, that is serving others. That's part of our big dream, our mission, our legacy we want to make. So in Q1, we got clear on what it was. Q2, we launched the brand. So those were examples of the milestones, the wins.

Speaker 1:

We wanted to have to launch it, the metrics that mattered, and then you write down all of the tasks that we needed to do. So in order for us to get a branding kit, we needed a designer. One week was about reaching out to our dream designer. There's this amazing, talented designer named Abril who we loved her work. We wanted to work with her. We wanted to reach out to her first and she did say yes, we knew she would just kill it with the vibe. We've seen her work that she's done. That was similar to what we wanted to create with Conscious Kitties, and she was our dream designer for this particular project. And so a task was reach out to her. A task was, you know, schedule a call with her to share our vision. A task was create a mood board of different images and colors we like so that we can send her something to see what we mean. Another task was give her feedback on the first round of edits. Right, these are things that we like, broke down on a week by week and then day by day basis For my breathwork certification.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, find a school that can train you on breathwork, enroll in the training. Add a daily calendar invite with a time block to work on the material Schedule, my practice assessment Schedule, a time to practice with friends right? These are all of the things that we had to keep doing. Okay, for the launch event. Well, now we have the brand. We got the brand down in month one, month two. Okay, what are we giving away? How are people gonna interact with the brand? Get stickers, business cards printed? Okay, let's break it down further. Find a supplier, get the files from the designer, approve the designs, pick up the order.

Speaker 1:

Do you see how granular I'm getting? Every single week, on Sunday, when I made my weekly plan, I basically came up with probably five to seven big things that I wanted to happen that week. And then every single day, the night before actually, I always create my task list the night before I would look at the weekly goal and I would make tasks that were relevant to what I needed to achieve that week. So every day when I woke up, I knew what I was working on. I knew I was doing things that were meaningful, that were related to my 90 day goal, that were connected to a bigger dream of mine. I didn't question what I was doing and I was doing tasks that were so granular I knew they were achievable. If I would have just said, like, launch a new brand, and I just said that was my goal, there's no way I would have done that last quarter, because there's just so many things. It was so uncertain. I had no idea that when the designs came back we were going to want to create stickers for them, or I had no idea that it was going to be even a breathwork workshop that I wanted to run, like that came from stuff I was doing in Q1.

Speaker 1:

All of the tasks were building on each other and you just start the first couple actions. You have the reactions from the world, from your inner world, that make you confident in what your next steps are, and you just keep going at a sustainable and meaningful pace. Some resources I love to do this. So I talked about how I always make my tasks the night before. I absolutely love the productivity journal by intelligent minds. I'll include a link. I do have a discount code for them. I'm affiliated with them. I'm obsessed with them. How could I not be? They're the creators of the 5-Minute Journal, which I love. I used for years and I would still use the Boss Babe Planner, but they don't have it anymore. So this is my next best thing and it's really, really good. It has a section for you to create your weekly goals and then, of course, your daily. Always create my goals the night before. It also has like a calendar for the hours in each day.

Speaker 1:

So every night before bed I start by looking at what have I committed to tomorrow, what are the coaching calls I have, what are the fitness classes I'm attending, what are the fun things I'm doing, and I put them in and I see what the space is. And then I make sure I set myself up for success. If it's a day like yesterday, where I literally did four outdoor activities, it was such a special day. I went mountain biking, I went slacklining, I played pickleball, I went to F45, my favorite gym, my favorite workout class that's not gonna be a day where I'm really productive. So I set goals based on that. But today, where I knew I had the whole afternoon was open, this was a perfect time for me to record a solo episode like this. So the night before, what do I have going? And then I set goals that I can achieve tomorrow that are related to the week, and if it's getting towards the end of the week and the weekend's coming and I look back and I'm like crap, I haven't done any of the things that I said I would do this week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do have an honest look at myself and I say what's got to give? Is there something you have planned this weekend that you need to change, that you need to do something differently? Do you need to sleep less? Ideally not, but I guess that's always an option. Wake up earlier, go to bed later. I try not to do that. I try to eliminate rather than just like tap into my personal time or my health, but sometimes that has to happen. So the productivity journal is amazing.

Speaker 1:

I also love notion. That is where I go digitally to put all my tasks in. So I do like writing things down in my journal, but I actually duplicate that way. Whenever I'm out for a walk and I have an idea, I can just put it in the notion app and then it immediately syncs with the notion app on my computer so I can just go back and forth between those. I think a lot of things that people say is, oh, when I'm out like I didn't have my journal or I didn't have this task list, I didn't have access to this. You need to set yourself up for success by having different tools that work with each other. That's going to be so helpful, and it is science-backed that writing things down and checking things off physically creates a much stronger dopamine feedback loop, where you feel much more motivated to do more of that, to want to hit your goals even more. So I think it's important that you figure out a way to do both, and then, yeah, you can get help from me. So here's a blueprint for you to do this on your own.

Speaker 1:

A new quarter is coming. Seriously, take this, follow this process, please. I would love nothing more than to see you do this and excel at this, and for this episode to be a resource for you. If you want some support, if you want unlimited coaching and access to me, if you want me to come on this ride with you, if you want to work alongside a community of other dreamers who are also working towards your goal, then come join the mastermind. I offer a free 20 minute call with anybody who wants to just chat with me about their goal, get some immediate feedback on it, get some clarity on what things they should be working on. Is this reasonable? Is this realistic? Pick my brain for free. I rarely offer this, but I do for this program, so I'll include a link in the show notes to book a 20 minute call with me If you want to chat about it. I would absolutely love to help you make this dream a reality.

Speaker 1:

Most people in the program are launching a brand new offer in 90 days, or they already have something and they want to grow it, so come into the call with that in mind. Everyone in the program also sets a personal goal. So, yes, most of us are entrepreneurs wanting to grow in some way, but we also set a goal that's related to what is the type of person that I want to be or that I need to be in order to hit this goal, in order to step into that next level, and so when we're having our conversations, I like to take a holistic approach. The group meets once a month together and we have a group call. That's much more like mindset coaching and group accountability and helping unblock each other and support each other. So I'm so proud of it I think almost everybody who joined the first cohort is coming back for the second cohort and I'm pumped about that. We're going to end with a note from April. You can hear what she has to say. And until next time, freedom seekers, enjoy your freedom.

Speaker 2:

Hi, I'm April and I've been a client of Sam's for just over two years. She helped me create my podcast and I'm on my third season, yay. Recently I had been thinking about getting into voice acting and I hadn't really talked to her about it and then she came to me with this idea of a three-month program with access to her at any time. A three-month program with access to her at any time and focusing on whether it was a project or product that could come to fruition within that 90-day time frame and give real support. And so I was all in and she's now offered to extend that 90-day program and I'm going to stay with it because it's been so helpful to me. I've pushed through a lot of fears you never know how things are going to work out but you got to try them right. Sam is extremely supportive, she's straightforward and honest and she will work hard for you, so I highly, highly recommend Sam.

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