How To Plan Your 2024: Integrating Annual Planning with Personal Growth

Ready to unlock the secrets of a successful 2024?

Join me as we explore how to plan for 2024 and discuss the intricacies of annual planning, learning from mistakes, achieving work-life balance, and setting visionary goals. 

Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, this episode offers actionable strategies to make your upcoming year extraordinary!

Introduction (00:00)
The Importance of Annual Planning (00:57)
The Entrepreneur's Dilemma (02:10)
Annual Planning Beyond Business (03:34)
Balancing Professional and Personal Life (06:41)
Team Involvement in Annual Planning (11:17)
Mindfulness and Journaling (12:31)
Creating a Vision Statement (14:18)
Key Points of Annual Planning (15:51)

Transcript

0:00

and so if your mistakes become bigger and bigger instead of smaller and smaller or more reactive instead of more proactive you're, you're liable to lose your business which obviously none of us obviously are hoping for. So as you think about Q4 and the holiday season and, you know, November, December and what you're trajectory is for for next year. I would bucket that all as this idea of annual planning. Hey everyone, welcome to the endgame podcast where I bet you didn't know what you didn't know. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim successful entrepreneur and your endgame coach. I want to invite you to today's episode. That is the"Vision to Reality: Annual Planning and How to Integrate that for both Personal and Professional Growth. Annual planning is a especially important topic to talk about today as we kind of enter into the fourth quarter and the turn of the year and the holiday season and all the things that are often could be positive for people and one of the very positive things you as an entrepreneur should make sure you're implementing into your strategy end of year strategy, Q4 strategy, 2024 strategy or 2024 budget or pro forma. You know, there's a lot of business terms out there around what you do to look towards projecting to next year's again, strategy, growth, vision, et cetera. I would argue that that collectively could be bucketed into what's called annual planning. And so annual planning is truly a strategic meeting in which you're taking your vision for 24 and beyond, you're taking your goals. You're taking your lessons learned from the, you know, this current year and applying those to your strategy, your vision, your goals for next year in a way that you aren't doomed to repeat the past, right? So one of the most important things we do as entrepreneurs is we learn from our mistakes, or, you know, sometimes we don't even call them mistakes, we call them opportunities, or we learn from what may not have been the best situation in the past so that we aren't doomed to repeat them, right? So if you continuously make mistakes, which entrepreneurs and small businesses often do, but you don't learn from them, or take notes on them, or really heed the wisdom from that setback or, you know, again, let's call a spade a spade, a mistake that will put you in a different position and a different trajectory and a different growth strategy into the future. If you don't learn from your mistakes, you will repeat them and they sometimes will become bigger over time. And so not only may they repeat, they may become bigger. And then obviously by definition, an entrepreneur is someone who can survive their mistakes. And so if your mistakes become bigger and bigger instead of smaller and smaller, or more reactive instead of more proactive you're, you're liable to lose your business. Which obviously none of us obviously are hoping for. So as you think about Q4 and the holiday season and, you know, November, December, and what's your trajectory is for, for next year. I will bucket that all as this idea of annual planning. Annual planning is the business strategy. It is the professional vision and growth. It is all the things we talk about as an entrepreneur and as a business. But it should be blended or mixed with your professional development and your professional growth and your professional strategy. Because you know, we, we often silo them as two different things. Our business life, our personal life, our professional life, our personal life. And the reality is they're so intertwined, right? You know, just like I talk about, or you've heard me say, you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help someone else. The same principle applies to your business, which is if you're not healthy, if you're not in the right personal mindset, if you're not doing your own personal development and your relationship development with family and friends, if you're not who you need to be in a work life balance. Your work will suffer, your professional life will suffer, you will not be as resilient or as reliable in your work life, your professional life. And so taking care of and planning for your personal life is also important. The other key intertwined there is that professionally, especially as a small business or as an owner operator entrepreneur. When you go out on vacation, you're often the kind of final say, you're the key decision maker. Small business owners really struggle with the idea of vacation because you really can't ever take a vacation or you don't think you can anyway. So as you think about annual planning, I would encourage you to think about not only what does it mean, again, strategically, growth plans, business plans, financial budgets, but also Where are you taking the time for you as a vacation, as a staycation, you know, whatever that is whether they're small chunks or big chunks and how does that impact your business or better yet, how do you plan for it accordingly in annual planning? So that it won't impact your business so that it won't negatively impact your professional life so that it won't hurt your budget so that it won't hurt your, your vision and your goals professionally. So when you think about annual planning, we, you know, again, we often think about the stuff that is the business stuff. We often don't think about the stuff that is the personal stuff. And I would argue to you today, as I've argued to you in the past that those are intimately intertwined. And so whether that's just you truly personally, or as a family unit, or as a relationship unit or sphere of influence of family and friends. Planning it today and getting it on the books and having it down and known so that you can be proactive instead of reactive is critically important. So annual planning is is not just about the business, it's about the business and the people in the business which often include. You as an entrepreneur or again, often impacts and includes your family. So think about it from both a personal and professional standpoint. And so as you think about your professional growth, which you're, you know, how are you compounding interest? So to speak, as we've talked about that in the past, the butterfly effect, how are we creating a foundation and environment now where very small changes can create very large impact over time. And again, how is that? How are you Implementing that both on a professional level, but on a personal level. So as you think about annual planning and you're writing out your vision for the next year this just happens to be 2024, or you're thinking about your goals and your strategies for this upcoming year you need to also think about those same things in the aspect of your personal life. What are things that you're trying to achieve? What are the things you're trying to achieve personally that you haven't yet gotten to? For me having lost my father this past year, one of the ways I really want to uphold, one of the ways I'm going to uphold his legacy. Is that he and I were really adamant golfers when I was younger and he was younger, and I know that was really important to him and, you know, he would, he really found a lot of joy in playing golf tournaments and being a team together. And so one of the things I've recommitted to for next year as part of my annual planning is how I'm going to implement golf again. You know, that way I can both do something, a habit that I really enjoy that I've really lost. Time for, which is a poor excuse, but also do it in a way that I can uphold his legacy. And so I would also encourage you to think about time. We talked about the value of time and how precious that is, and how do you value your time as you think about your goals and strategy for the next year or two, and that includes relationships again, relationships are critically important. Who you derive energy from. We've talked about this. So there's this introvert extrovert. There's where you gain energy versus where you drain energy. And that includes relationships. And again, we've, we've had this discussion. And so as you think about annual planning, it really, as you think about your personal life, you really should include goals around relationships and friendships, not just hobbies or habits. And so, and all of that is intertwined because as you create that solid mindset foundation, you create that environment for a healthy life, a resilient mind that all comes from how you derive energy and how you hopefully do less draining of energy through your relationships or your partnerships on the business side. So as you're thinking about your strategy, think about where, where, where do you truly find purpose? Where do you truly gain energy and what is more draining? What is more frustrating. What is something that you might want to either delegate away? If it's a necessary process as part of the core infrastructure of your business, or what is something that you just want to truly cut off? Right? So there might be a business partnerships. There might be personal relationships there might be habits or hobbies that aren't actually all that purposeful anymore, aren't all that fulfilling anymore, or that you don't really derive energy from anymore. And so you might want to consider as part of your annual plan, what are you going to do about those things into next year so that at some point next year, and if not the following, hopefully. That is no longer part of your day to day so that you can now focus your energy, focus your incredibly valuable time on the things that bring you pleasure, that bring you fulfillment, that bring you purpose, and that bring you energy, that help to recharge the battery, not drain the battery. So again, thinking about annual planning. You absolutely have to be thinking about budgets. You absolutely have to be thinking about your business strategy and plan, your growth strategy and plan. But you also have to be thinking, I would argue more importantly about what does it mean and what does it, where does your energy go? Where does your time go? Where is your value spent? And what's your value proposition to yourself, to your family and to your business. So those are all really critical, important things to think about as you think about your annual planning process. I'll also encourage you to include your team. So as you think about your professional annual planning, that obviously has to include your team. There's a lot of instances where small businesses, if you are the kind of key provider, for instance, in health care and you go on vacation maybe the office shuts down and obviously that impacts your team and your team is likely not getting paid the same as you. And so when you think about annual planning that actually should involve your team, it should involve your core sphere of influence, your business team, your personal team, all of this should be made, all these decisions should be made and mapped out and planned through the lens of those units, those business units, those family units, and not just individually, because what you do individually will impact others you know, as I've already mentioned, and as you certainly already know, so really important to think about including your team as. You're as you're planning, you're doing your annual plan for the following year. One of the things I would encourage you to work towards implementing more, you know, I'm a big advocate for this is this idea of mindfulness, right? So what gets planned, gets done, what gets documented, gets measured what gets measured gets, can get adjusted. And so, yes, culture is important. Yes, personal is important. Yes, all the things I just said are important. But if you have a vision, if you're trying to stretch outside your comfort zone and put goals up there, that might be just on the edge of attainable or might even be unattainable. But if you're not putting it down and putting a business plan and strategy behind it, it is truly just a dream. And I am all for dreams. Dreams are critically important. People need to be dreamers, especially often entrepreneurs and CEOs. But a dream is just a dream and probably not a business. Unless you actually put a strategy behind it. So annual planning is also about, I would say mindfulness, but more importantly, journaling, entering, you know, you want to write this stuff down. Here is my vision personally and professionally for'24. Here are my goals that will help get me to that vision. And. Here's the timelines, or here's the strategy in which I'm going to be able to get to those goals. So it should be written down. It should be memorialized. It should be easily accessible because you know, the mind wonders, and we often forget things. No matter how old you are your mind, your memory is never as good as you always think it is on. So having it written down. Coming together as a team, as a unit, personally and professionally to develop those strategies, those goals, those visions are critically important. I'll touch on that a little bit more to say, if you don't have a vision statement as a company you don't have a vision statement as a family unit. That is something else you really need to think about, you know, this annual planning year vision statements are really the foundation through which the lens through which you do your thing, right? So if you're, if you don't have a vision statement, you're just kind of show up to work every day. You put out fires, you do your, you do your thing that you're good at, and you go home and take the work with you and all the things we've talked about. Then you don't actually know what derives, you know, what's fulfilling you, what you derive purpose from what you're actually trying to obtain. And I would say again, doing something without an end point in mind often brings people a lot of lack of fulfillment and lack of purpose, even though the journey is actually what matters, people often find the most pleasure in the journey. It's a different conversation around kind of disappointment around an end point. Once you get there the, the meats in the journey, so to speak, but the journey doesn't exist if you don't know what the end point you're trying to achieve is. So it's really important that you think about mindfulness being present, journaling, chunking it down and again, setting those again, creating a vision statement as a group putting goals against that and then putting a strategy behind it. That is how you would do annual planning on both a personal and a professional basis. And so I will leave you with the idea that as I always say, a healthy or a really great health set, a foundation of a great health set, a foundation of a great mindset creates the ability to derive energy, creates the ability to have purpose and fulfillment. And if you do all of those things, but you have no end point in mind you will actually do the opposite and lack the fulfillment. In the journey through which we're trying to get to said dream, said goal, said outcome, said end game. So I really wish everyone a happy holiday season. I hope that you work towards a really great annual plan, stretch outside your comfort zone, reach for the stars, put the vision, the goals, the strategy behind it. And I really hope to see you next year. If you like this episode, don't hesitate to actually like it. Subscribe, listen, share. I look forward to seeing you at the turn of the new year. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. I'm here to teach you how to exist today so that you may expand tomorrow and create the ultimate end game of your wildest desires. Talk to you soon.