Planning for Every Season with Intention & Balance
(goal planning beyond the new year!)
Your planning and goal setting isn’t just for the start of the year. If you tend to set your goals in January (or March - the true start to the year) and then forget about them until December, you are far less likely to achieve those goals than if you regularly plan and organise your time throughout the year…
Of course, planning is far more than your productivity. Planning is a way to create a life and lifestyle you love, one that is balanced, full of rest, playfulness, personal fulfilment.
Planning isn’t just about achieving goals, as great as we think that will feel, the actual reward and fulfilment we feel from achieving a goal is relatively short lived.
What IS important is creating a life that nourishes us, that makes you feel good each and every day so that you can enjoy the journey to those goals with health, vitality, balance, and intention.
Here we believe in Seasonal and intentional planning & living, setting goals with intention, and slow productivity over hustle.
Using planning as a tool to create a life that is seasonal, meaningful & sustainable.
(beacause what the point in arriving at your goals if you are just a husk of a human when you get there, too sick and burnt out to be able to enjoy it and celebrate your achievements?!)
This is not your usual goal setting & planning.
SEASONAL, SUSTAINABLE PLANNING FOR SETTING GOALS FOR YOUR HEALTH & HAPPINESS
Working seasonally and intentionally doesn’t mean doing less, or achieving less. This is a way of planning & living that asks you to change how you view ‘work’ and ‘success’. Slow productivity choosing quality over quantity, really honing in on the things that are important, and choosing tasks and activities that matter over busy work and trying to multitask, or cram everything into a day.
Slow and intentional productivity recognises that your health is just as important (if not more so) than the goals you achieve and the quantity of tasks you can tick off.
I’ve learnt a lot in my now 10 years of transitioning into and living a slower and seasonal lifestyle as I healed my health and chronic illness, and the past two years of using this seasonal, cyclical and more intentional way of planning.
The things that are really important in life are:
*Our health and ability to feel good each day. Regular self care for mind, body, and Spirit. Remembering to incorporate playfulness, creativity, and joy into our lives. Taking time for yourself to be alone with your thoughts & enjoy your own company. The connections & relationships we create with others. Some kind of relationship with nature and the great outdoors. Getting clear on what success looks like for you and what you want for your life.
The experiences that really leave us feeling fulfilled are the ones that connect with our hearts & our true desires (not material possessions or what society tells us success looks like). Keep these in mind as we begin to work through the different stages of this seasonal and intentional goal setting process…
HOW THE SEASONAL PLANNING METHOD CAME ABOUT
Back in 2020, after finishing the year exhausted, depleted and struggling with multiple injuries I realised two things:
Although I’d been making sure to schedule in regular self care I hadn’t actually given myself any real holiday or time off all year!
The way I was planning and trying to work just wasn’t in alignment with my slower and more intentional way of life. Although seasonal living doesn’t mean doing less, it does mean slowing down and following natures cues to live & be in sync with the rhythms of nature, a cyclical process that supports wellbeing, as well as many physical and mental health benefits… and modern planners just don’t align with this way of thinking or being. But what if there WAS a way to set goals, plan + make my dreams happen in a more intentional and sustainable way? What if I could prioritise health, wellbeing and happiness AND achieve my goals for the year? These were the questions I asked myself in December last year.
A SEASONAL & INTENTIONAL PLANNING SYSTEM
Once I’d realised what my way of planning and goal setting was missing I set out to create a method that did work for me. One that was aligned with the rhythms of nature and the seasons. Nature is always our greatest teacher. She is wise and resourceful and we need only look to natures plants, animals, and the night sky to find a guide for sustainable planning. The plants and animals instinctively know what to do each season, but humans have forgotten, lost that knowledge Our natural seasonal nature has been lost to societal conditioning. If inflammation is the cause of all illness, and stress in the biggest cause of inflammation in the body, then why do we perpetuate the thing that’s making us sick?… Our societal conditioning is causing more and more nervous system dysfunction, and the stress we face on a daily basis just perpetuates this cycle of toxic ‘productivity’ and feeling like we must be busy all the time to see ourselves as successful.
Seasonal living (and this seasonal way of planning) pushes us away from that hustle mentality and back to a way of being that creates a whole new mindset, space and intention around the things we prioritise each day; whether that’s work, personal goals, creative pursuits or just organising your (and your family’s) personal life. I’ve been using this process for the past year and a half now and I love it so much I’ve decided to share it and create a workbook so you can use this method too!…
**
HOW TO PLAN WITH INTENTION IN TUNE WITH THE RHYTHMS OF NATURE
As there are four seasons in a year (and four financial quarters) it makes sense to break down goals into quarters. In this way you can also better adapt your routines to the needs of your body & the energy within each season.
Working with your goals looks something like:
Set goals at the Start of the year
Plan steps to be completed, review and reassess previous quarter & make adjustments each quarter
Take your quarter goals & break them down monthly into a step by step process & smaller, more achievable goals with work building momentum through the spring and summer, and beginning to wind down through autumn for a down season of rest, recouperation, review & planning through the Winter.
Goal setting can feel a little intimidating if you’re just getting started; a bit like looking at a blank canvas as an artist and immediately getting stuck on what you want to create...
But the beauty of this mapping and planning process is that
*1. It isn’t just about your big goals and dreams that you want to achieve this year/in the future, it’s also about how you want the year to feel, and the things you want to focus on and create more of in your life. Whether that is meaningful relationships, more freedom and travel, creating space and peace, more creativity, or moving location. 2. These things are completely personal to you. You get to decide what success looks like, and once you’ve defined your version of success, you can quit the comparison to anyone else and stay completely focused in your own lane, creating your ideal life. 3. This whole planning process allows you the freedom and creativity to shift, realign, and even redirect at any time throughout the year if you feel things aren’t going to plan, your focuses and wants/needs change, or you realise the goals you set at the beginning of the year are no longer aligned with where you’re going and aren’t making you feel the way you thought they would.
This is all about intuition, your inner knowing, and a heart centred way of moving forward and living.
I have never believed in New Year's Resolutions, I truly believe that you can begin again, turn over onto a fresh page, or decide to adopt new habits and practices to improve yourself at any time. We don’t need to wait until the start of a new year to change and grow into who we want to be.*
Heres how to start….
REVIEW & REFLECT The best planning and goals setting sessions begin with taking time to reflect over your year past, celebrate the wins, grieve the losses and things that didn’t happen or come to fruition as you’d hoped, and to analyse where things went wrong and can be improved. Get clear on the things you want/need to leave behind or change. The things that fill your heart and feed your energy, and what your version of success looks & feels like.
*WITH INTENTION When you understand all of these things you can move on to your intentions for the year ahead. Intentions are the values and beliefs you hold that all your goals and actions drive you towards. Whether it is choosing your Word of the Year, focusing on how you want the year to feel, or what you want to focus on in each area of your life, before you think about or set any goals, you want to first set your Intention or theme for the year. This will be the compass by which you navigate your way through the year and how you approach your goals, and each day. You can choose to distill these intentions even further by choosing a Word for your year that sums up your intentions and acts as a reminder and overarching theme for 2024. But that can feel too restricting to some, which is often why I prefer setting Intentions instead. The intentions you set now will be your guiding light for the rest of your year and all the decisions and actions you take. Choose words or phrases that fill you with excitement and maybe a little fear and apprehension. What word or sentence do you feel sums up the path you want to follow? What word/sentence makes you feel hopeful, excited, and driven to keep moving forward?
SETTING GOALS Once you have covered these first two stages and have a clear idea of the intentions you have and how you want the year to feel you can spend some time daydreaming, brainstorming, and getting creative about what goals, dreams, and plans you want to bring to life for the next year. While we cannot predict what the year ahead will hold, we can definitely start the year with intention, courage, determination, and hope. Because it is often our mindset and view of the world that creates our realities, not the day-to-day things we experience. If you get stuck, start with the things you definitely know are happening in 2024, and the things you would like to happen. Take your time, spread the process over a week or two, and let the daydreaming and downtime you have feed your imagination - let the ideas for your goals and ideas for the year come naturally, don’t force it.
TAKING THE NEXT STEPS
Whether they are work goals, travel, better habits, or how you want to feel, once you’ve set your goals, that’s when the real work begins.
Using planning and productivity in mind means setting and maintaining boundaries, prioritising rest, focusing not just on your goals, but how you feel day to day, the routines and habits you adopt, and adopting the beliefs and mindset that your health & wellbeing are just as important as the big life goals you have.
That means listening to your body and what it needs, regularly checking in with yourself & where you are going, being honest with yourself AND being able to deal with the guilt your ego will try to saddle you with for taking time off for yourself and doing fun things instead of always being busy — it takes time to adapt and adjust to a new way of thinking about productivity. But hopefully the benefits you will see within yourself; your improved energy, passion, health, vitality.. will all propel you forward and keep you motivated to stay the course.
Be kind to yourself, be gently, and forgive yourself for slipping back into old habits once in a while.
We are all human after all.
That is regular reviewing is there; to help get back on track when things go amis.
The review and reflect process I created and included for each week and month in the Seasonal Life Planner was created for exactly this purpose.
Setting and reviewing goals regularly is so important for maintaining clarity and productivity in our work and personal lives.
Without it, we can find that a week, or month, or even 3 months have gone by, and we have nothing to show for our work, feel like we’ve been running around like a headless chicken without actually achieving anything, and end up wasting energy and getting stressed because we aren’t actually focusing on the things that matter.
Yes, you can be living slowly, seasonally, and intentionally, but without having a process that helps you stay on track, you can still end up stressed, overwhelmed, and chasing around in circles.
By taking the time to reassess our priorities and progress each week & each month, we can ensure that our efforts are aligned with our larger ambitions.
In the fast-paced world of work, it's easy to become entrenched in day-to-day tasks and lose sight of the bigger picture. Regular goal setting and review offer us the opportunity to recalibrate and refocus.
No matter how busy you are, it’s always beneficial to take a step back to move forward… that next step forward is only productive if it’s taking you in the right direction!
When it comes to productivity, there's a lot of merit in the idea of taking a step back to move forward. Pausing to review our goals allows us to assess what's working and what's not, and to make necessary adjustments. This process ensures that our efforts are being channelled effectively, which can ultimately lead to better outcomes.
Not to mention, checking in with how you’re feeling, if you are finding balance between work and play, and whether the work you are doing is contributing to the rest of your life and making you happy
Creating balance & prioritising rest, and time for your creativity & fun is a part of what makes a health human, it is part of the productivity cycle too.
Remember that!
*If you want a more detailed planning process and a seasonal, cyclical way of planning, tracking, and reviewing your plans as you move through the Year — A way of planning that supports your body’s natural & seasonal rhythms — then you can find my whole goal setting and planning systems in the Seasonal Alchemy Guide & Life Planner.
SEASONAL ALCHEMY GUIDE & LIFE PLANNER
Enter the Seasonal and Intentional planning method and Seasonal Alchemy. Seasonal Planning is a method that helps you lean into the natural cycle of the seasons & help you make the most of your body’s natural flow of energy, creativity, and focus. THE SEASONAL PLANNING SYSTEM The underlying thread of this process is rebuilding a connection with nature, getting to deeply know your own cycles and needs throughout the month, and taking action with intention & balance so that your daily life supports & nurtures both your health, and your ambitions and goals.
If you want to work and live with purpose and impact, thrive in all areas of your life, and build a beautiful and fulfilling way of life that supports your health & vitality, as well as your personal and work lives YOU'VE FOUND YOUR NEW FAVORITE PLANNER The Seasonal Alchemy process and Yearly planner have been created just for that purpose.
Imagine a life where you effortlessly flow with the energy of each season, finding balance and alignment along the way. By reconnecting with the cycles and patterns of nature we can reconnect more deeply with ourselves.
Focus on intentional and considered action and let the rest fall away. Focus on what is important to YOU. What would your body need to feel good? What does your mind need? Start each season by looking at the energy and focus areas of that season, and building your routine and to-do list from there. Taking your cues from nature. And making sure to focus on your health & wellbeing…*
If you’d like to learn more about the seasonal planning process & go deeper into creating a life built on a connection with nature and your cycles you can still shop the Seasonal Alchemy Workbook & Life planner with 20% off for a limited time only.
xo Emily
