Your 2018 Ultimate Planning Guide

– – Hey everyone. I hope you’re doing fabulous right now. I’m gonna give people some time to jump on this webinar, in this live video training. But if you’re just joining, please drop a line in the comments, let us know where you’re watching from.

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Okay, two Canadians in the house, beautiful. Awesome. Virginia, Betsy, nice. Nice. Cara, Missouri. She’s listening, she’s listening in. We got Terry from Austin, Texas. Beautiful. Manchester, San Antonio, Aaron. Beaufort, North California. Sorry if I’m missing a couple of you guys. We have so many people commenting in right now that they keep flying up.

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All right, hey Jess. How are ya? So if you’re just joining… Andrew’s jumping in from Australia, beautiful. Beautiful. Gary, we know you’re in Portland. If you’re just joining, drop us a line below in the comments, let us know where you’re viewing from, and we’ll just give people a little bit of time to jump in here because people are all over, maybe they’re running a little bit behind. Someone just north of London, I missed your name but they keep flying up.

Matthew from New York, beautiful. Mike’s asking what am I doing, just reading cities? No, I’m waiting for people to chime in, get in, before we start this webinar, so, giving everyone a second to jump in and let us know where they’re watching from. So, comment below.

I’m gonna grab a phone charger, so I can plug in this device because it’s gonna be a little bit of some content, it’s gonna take us some time to get through, so pull out your pen and paper and take some notes. If you’re listening at work, don’t worry. Listen in, try to give your attention to this because it’s going to be extremely valuable for 2018.

Ah thanks Kim, my dog. Yeah, that’s Riley. Hello puppy, yep. I’ll show you guys Riley again, she’s a miniature long-haired dachshund and we love her. So I’m just grabbing the phone charger. Yes it will be recorded, you can come back and view this later on the Facebook page. So don’t worry if you’re, if you’re kind of out and about right now.

If you are here with us, I’m gonna be answering questions live, so if you have some questions hang with us for a little bit, I’ll be answering questions in real time. I have the entire BestSelf Co. team’s support and I just want to give a huge shout out to them. They’re phenomenal. They’re the ones who wanted to put this together because you guys asked for it and we read your comments and there’s a lot of, hey, what can we do to make 2018 the best we can before 2018 actually gets here.

So, the team said Allen, Cathryn, we have to put this together for everyone at BestSelf Co., the customers, the fans, and give them this, so huge shout out to the team at BestSelf Co. All right, we’re eight minutes in, let’s get started. We have a lot to cover. It’s going to be great, it’s going to be good. And I’m really looking forward to it. I’m just pulling up some things here to help me stay on track and we don’t get lost.

So, using my journal for the first time in 2018. Beautiful, beautiful. All right, let’s get started. So if you’re just joining us, drop where you’re watching from. We have someone from North Carolina, Renee. From Philadelphia, thank you. Nick Nooper is watching, or Kniper, however you want to pronounce his name, I don’t even know. Lynn, new journal, beautiful, I love it. Norway, very nice. New York City, perfect.

So, what we’re going to cover on this webinar is the 10-step process to make 2018 incredible. If you also have some questions throughout the webinar, drop ’em below, I’ll try to answer ’em. I have the team on, they’re gonna ping me just in case there’s an important question that needs to be answered. So just drop a comment.

Cool, so the 10-part process, the 10-part process for setting 2018 up so you can knock it out of the park, right. The last thing that we want to do is have 2018 come in, get half way through, and then we realize, oh man, I haven’t really even started on my New Years resolutions or anything that I really wanted to hit. Now I feel behind the eight ball and then you’re, someone’s hashtagging beard. Yeah, the first beard in a couple years, so I’m glad you like it. And then you feel behind the eight ball.

What we want to do, we want to be proactive about this. We want to be proactive with our planning, with our strategy, with our implementation and with our actions and energy. And what we’ll do is, when we are proactive about it, reactive things can happen to us but they don’t knock us off course because we’ve put a plan in place and now we’re just executing on that plan. So, this really helps you streamline 2018 into a laser focus where, okay, you get sick for a week or you go on vacation, or something happens in the business that sets you back or you don’t hit that goal that you want to hit.

It’s not going to be as detrimental because you’ve already accounted for those things already. You’re being proactive about it. So, the first thing that we’re going to do, is we’re going to look backwards before we look forwards at 2018. So we’re going to look backwards at 2017 and reflect on everything that went well, everything that went good, things that brought us joy and happiness and we’re also going to reflect back on the things that didn’t go so well. The things that kinda sucked, the things that we don’t want to experience again because they didn’t give us any joy or happiness, right?

So we know, okay, let’s avoid these in 2018 and in the future, but let’s double down on the things that brought us joy and success and fulfillment and all that stuff. So, a big part of reflecting is being able to be honest with yourself and being true to really what happened, what the circumstances were and what the outcomes were for those actions that you put in. The best example that I can give you for this is football players. Now if you’re watching internationally, I’m talking about American football.

Football Americano. What most teams do is reflect after a game. And what they’ll be able to do is spot the weak spots. They’ll be able to find the holes or the gaps in the game, and now the next game that they play, they’re able to plug those holes or be able to make better the things that weren’t so good the first time.

So, every pro-athlete does this, whether they’re skiing and they have a coach or if they’re playing football, they’ll play the game, they’ll be able to see all the loose ends. They’ll be able to also see what went well. And that’s what we’re gonna do for 2017. So, if you have a Google calendar, if you have a self journal and if you’ve been using it, I highly recommend you go through your past self journals and flip day by day. Yes it’s gonna take some time, yes it’s going to be a little bit cumbersome, because you’re going through every day, but what you’ll be able to do is get extremely granular on what went well, what didn’t go so well and what you should be doing in the future.

So, what I recommend is you take out a sheet of paper, you strike three lines through it so you have four columns, and you put successes, failures, joy, and sadness. And when you start flipping through the pages or if you’re going through your Google calendar, you then see, okay, here’s what I did this week, or here’s what I did on this day and it brought me joy. So I’m gonna put that in here. Or, oh, you know what? I closed a client this day, I’m gonna put that in here, in a success and then you can figure out, okay, how did I close that client, what was the stepping stones to get there so I know the stepping stones for the future. Same with failures.

Now you go to failures or like, this did not work out well. We did this move or I tried this diet and it didn’t go so well. I’m not going to do the juice diet in 2018 because I already did it once and it’s not working out. So you put those in the failures. And then you also write in what didn’t bring you happiness, what didn’t bring you joy. So you know, okay, maybe I can’t avoid doing this because I don’t really enjoy it, but is there a way where I can limit that? Is there a way where I can reduce the amount of time that I’m spending there? Or, is there someone that I can hire that I can offload this to and now it’s their job and role to handle it. So, that’s what I recommend on the reflecting.

Realize that we need to get into the next step, which is step two, and it’s probably my favorite step of the entire process. But one thing that you will know is that the seventh step is going to come naturally to you. So the second step that we’re going to do is now that we’ve reflected, now we’re going to visualize the future.

What future do we want? What do we want for ourselves based on everything that we have known in the past that we want to occur in the future? And what we’ll do is we’ll sit down and we’ll reflect on this. And we will visualize the things that we want. What home do we want? What body do we want to have? What’s our health like? What relationships do we want? What business do we want if we’re working on a business? Am I writing a book? If so, what bookshelves are they on, is it in Barnes and Noble, is it on Amazon? Where is it? And you’ll be able to sit down and reflect or visualize where you want to go.

So what I like to do is just take a couple minutes every day, or at least for this, just take some, take out a blank sheet of paper and write down your biggest, most audacious goals. And write down, oh you know what would be awesome? Don’t worry about how you’re going to get there or where you’re going to get the resources or that you don’t know anybody in order to get you there, or that you’re trying to map it out before it’s actually there. Just go big and say okay, I want this house. I drove down this road once when I was a kid and I have no idea where it is but I just remember I fell in love with this house and I want that house. Or, you know what? I really have the book inside of me that, I really have this book inside of me that I want to get out to the world.

Don’t worry about, oh my gosh, how am I going to do that? Just put it down, like, I want this book out there, I want my name on it, blah blah blah. So, just sit down with yourself, just get really comfortable and enjoy the process. And just have fun with it. And get as crazy as you want to with this. And this is what I love to do. It’s like, yes, I want this person in my life, I want this marriage, I want this family, I want this house. I want this health, I want to run this marathon, or whatever it may be and just get really, really creative with it. And that’s the best part about it, is, it doesn’t have to be perfect, don’t be so hard on yourself, just figure out, just tell yourself you know what would be cool if I had it, this.

So now the next thing that we want to do, the third step, is to create a goal. So now that you have a list of paper, I’m just gonna catch up on some of the comments right now with the team. I might be, I don’t think we can reply to comments until afterwards so I’m sorry to the team if they’re listening. But number three, what were the four columns in number one, Jamie? The four columns were successes, failures, happiness, and sadness. So, what brought you success, failure, happiness and sadness?  Chris, yes. And also, some water.

Okay, so step three. Now that we have a list of goals written down on this paper, or I shouldn’t say goals, right now they’re dreams. What dreams do we want to have on this paper for our lives? Now we need to create goals around them. So don’t get worried, don’t get upset, or don’t figure out like, whoa this is too much. We’re going to break it down really simple for ourselves, ’cause what we found is that when you just break things down into like smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller bites, you’ll be able to take one step, one step. And, I almost like to use the analogy what’s the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So that’s what we’re going to do.

And, what we’re going to do is, now that we have all these goals written down on a piece of paper, now we’re going to say okay, when would I like to hit this goal? When would I like to hit this? Do I know when I’m going to hit this? And can I track that? So maybe you have one goal on there and you’re like whoa, that’s a big goal. You know what? Let me hit that in five years, right? Maybe you have a goal on there, you’re like, if I can push myself and do a little bit each and every day, I can hit this in three months. Put that there.

And what you’re going to do is break it down. And the way that we like to think about things is 13 weeks, one year, three years, and five years. Anything beyond five years, you’re a completely different person by that point and your goals will probably change. So, 13 weeks, one year, three years, and five years. And just write down when you want to hit those, so now it’s like, okay, I visualize the future that I want for myself, I visualize everything that I want to have and experience or partake in, in my life, and now I’m just marking off when I want those.

When you figure out when you want those, now you can figure out, okay, let’s backtrack. Which moves us on to step four, which is you take everything you want to fit in the one year, you leave three years and five years out there, but everything you want to fit in the one year, now, guess what? You have your dreams and your goals that you want to set for yourself in 2018.

So, what we’ll do from there is take the 2018 wall calendar and figure out, okay, out of all these goals that I have in the one year, and 13 weeks, when can I, where can I fit those? Where can, where will those end up in all of 2018? Is it the spring, is it the summer, is it the fall, is it the winter? Where is it going, where is it, my team’s having a lot of fun with themselves back and forth and I’m catching a glimpse of that. So where is it going to go on this calendar?

So what I recommend for you is to take a wall calendar, something that you can see at an entire glance and mark off the areas in which you want to set those goals. Ah, you know what? I missed a whole section. That’s all right. So, after you write down all of your goals and where they fall in 2018, now you’re going to take out the piece of paper that has all your goals on it. So now you know, okay, I can see from a high vision what this is all about.

Moving back a step, because I missed one, because my team was cracking me up, is when you have your goals down, when you have when you want to hit ’em by, 13 weeks, one year, sorry Renee if I’m moving too fast. So, just to recap. We reflected, we visualized, we put down our goals, and now what we’re going to do, tell your team to knock it off.

You know what, I wish I could but they’re having too much fun. It’s like, you know when you’re like a little kid and you’re running around the living room and your dad comes in and like cut it out in here! I don’t want to be that so I’m just gonna let them have fun.

So now we have our goals written down. What we want to do is put some juice behind those goals. Okay, so we have the big house, right? Or maybe it’s a small cottage, whatever it may be. So, we have the goals that we want, the house, the relationships, the experiences, the vacations, the car, the New York Times bestseller, the money in the bank, whatever it may be, the health. We’re going to write why it’s important, because what this will do, this is so critical, it seriously is.

If you do one thing out of all of this, you can put your goals on a piece of paper, write down why it’s important. Why do you want that house? Why do you want that body? Why do you want the health? Why do you want the New York Times bestseller? Why do you want the team? Why do you want to travel to this location? Why do you want this family? Why do you want to experience that? What you’ll find is that when things get tough, and they will get tough, and barriers will stand in your way, and roadblocks will happen, and speed bumps will occur and knock you off course, what you’ll find is that when you dig into your why, you’ll push through it. When you dig into your why, you’ll get through it. When you dig into your why, you’ll find any reason to complete it rather than give up.

Jamie, I wish I could ignore the chat but I got some team, I’ll do my best to ignore the chat until its over. But right now, we are on step four. So this is why. And, thank you Georgina. We want to dig into why. And you know what, maybe you want to save $20,000. Maybe you want the health that you want. Maybe you want the car or whatever. But if you dig into the why, you’ll find that there’s meaning there, that there’s something more.

So, if you want to lose the 20 pounds and get your health on track, maybe it’s because you want to spend time with your grandkids and you want to see them grow up. If you want the $20,000 in savings, maybe it’s because you’ve been saving up for a home to buy your family. And you’re going to use that as the down payment to your dream house so you can raise your kids in a house that you never had. Maybe it’s, I want the New York Times bestseller because I want to share my story and I want people to have an impact and I want them to have a positive impact. When you have those whys, it gives you meaning to push forward. Purpose, exactly Morgan. Great.

So, now after we have the whys, and I’m sorry I jumped ahead, we are going to map out 13 weeks and one year on the calendar and we’re going to put aside the three year and the five year, because we want to focus on 2018. So now we’re going to focus on 2018 and we’re going to say okay, out of the one year goals and the 13 week goals, what can I put where? When do I need them? Spring, summer, winter, fall. Where do those go? And, if I have a one year goal, maybe that’s, oh I can hit this in nine months, what do I have to do before that nine months comes that will help me knock it out of the park? Or that will help me knock it over.

So it’s easier, like stepping stones, to get there. So, some things that we can do in the one year planning process is map out, map out, so, now we have everything mapped out on the one year plan, now we’re going to go one more step. Now we’re going to arrange them in order. So. Yeah, yep. So, now we’re going to go in order with things that we have outside of the goals. So now that we can see, okay, here’s the goals that I have on 2018, here’s when I think I’m going to hit them, we need to also plan for things that we know we’re going to have.

Is a baby due? For me, my first child’s due in April. So, I know, okay, this time in April’s going to be crazy, so let me just block this out because now I need to know when, now I need to know when I need to get things done before that happens, so I have everything in place.

What about vacations? So, if you plan vacations, I highly recommend, when I was younger, and I was working at my first corporate job, HR would come to me and say Allen, the year just started, when are you going to take vacations this year? I was like 22, 21, I was like I don’t know. I don’t operate like that. I just take vacation when I want to take vacations. I want to be like flexible and nimble and this and that. But what I found after years of trial and error was that if I map out my vacations beforehand, now I can see, okay, I’m going on vacation in July, I’m going on vacation in October, so that means I need to get everything I need done before I go on vacation. Because when I’m on vacation, I want to be on vacation and not working. So let me make sure that I’m utilizing my time wisely.

Thanks Pedro. That I’m utilizing my time wisely and if I have something extremely important right after vacation, I can see that and like, okay, well maybe I should do the grunt work of all that stuff before I go on vacation because the last thing that I want to do is get back from vacation and have something extremely important that’s due after that, only be not up to the standards that I normally deliver. So that’s a great way to map out 2018. So that’s six.

So just to recap, we did reflection, that’s number one. Visualization. We’ve got some people dropping in the order here. We have write down your goals, why your goals are important, putting your one year commitments in place, and then arranging, number six, what your, the rest of your year, vacations, free time, babies, all that good stuff. Travel, conferences, that sort of thing. Now, what we want to do, is break that down even further to our first quarter.

So Q-1. Okay, what do I need to get done in this first 13 weeks? What do I need to get done to hit these 13 week goals that I have for myself or anything in between and break that down. What we want to do here is break down our goals, using the 13 week road map. And this is why I said part number seven is going to come easy for you guys. Thank you for the hearts.

If you like this so far, please give me some hearts and thumbs up. And before I get into the 13 week road map section, I’m just gonna take a breather, gonna let you guys digest this, I’m gonna drink some water, and I’m just gonna make sure my team is behaving behind the camera. Thank you guys, thank you, thank you, thank you. Ah. So one of my team members had no idea that I worked at a corporate job. Yep, it’s true. Can you believe it?

So guys, I’m going to give a quick summary. My team is actually going to put together a summary of all these steps. I’m going to share it with you at the end of this webinar. They’re putting it together as we’re going through this. So just hang out ’til the end, I’ll give you the summary. We’ll figure out a way to share it with all of you. Apparently the chat section is going a little haywire and a little crazy, but that’s a good thing. So, now we’re on step number seven.

Step number seven is planning out the 13 week road map. This is very simple. You just take out your self journal, you take out your self journal and you go through the 13 week road map section. A lot of you are very familiar with this. If you’re not, go to our website, download a pdf copy of the self journal and you’ll be able to break down your 13 weeks goals into daily action plans, or daily action steps. Why this is so critical is so you don’t get burnt out, because what’s going to happen is you’re going to be moving a million miles a minute.

Bye Anton. What’s going to be happening, is that you’re going to be moving a million miles a minute and you’re going to say okay, I got some momentum, you know what, I’m going to keep going. I’m gonna keep going, I’m gonna keep going, I’m gonna keep going. Now you’re pulling all-nighters, you’re staying up all week, all weekend, to finish projects and what happens is you crash and burn. And, what happens after that, is nothing gets completed. So what we like to do is we like to take goals and break them down into daily action steps that we can take every day that are easy for us to do, hit, and commit to every day.

So, your daily action step should be the one thing that you have to do every day to hit that goal. That you can do in one to two hours every day. Anything more than that, you’re just going to burn yourself out, and you’ll just have too much on your plate. And what we want to do is just make it extremely simple. Extremely simple so you can say, okay, I can wake up every morning, I can integrate this into my routine, and make this a habit so I do it every day and now guess what, you’re hitting your 13 week goals.

And now guess what, you’re hitting your next 13 week goal and now guess what, then you’re on vacation and you’re not worried about anything because everything’s already done and already planned for, and now December of 2018 comes by and you look back and you’re like, oh wow, I can’t believe how much I just did, because you took daily, consistent action. Exactly, Mark. But, you can only get the 20 mile march when you take that 13 week goal and 13 week road map and break it down, and that’s how you get the 20 mile march.

So moving on to step eight, which is, okay so now I know what I have to do every day and now I know where everything is in 2018, what we do at the beginning of every week, is plan out our week ahead. So, if there’s special projects or something big that’s going on, or a launch, or maybe it’s a training session, or maybe it’s a meet-up for a writing club or maybe it’s just something important that you have to do in the week, the same thing applies as our 2018 calendar. We want to look at the big picture. What’s happening? What’s going on? What’s my week look like? Or what’s my year look like with everything filled in?

We take that down one more step into weeks, now we know what the week looks like. And that’s why we created weekly action pad, this, so you could take all your tasks, write them down, what category they’re in. Is it health, is it finance, is it business, is it personal, is it hobby, is it product, you name it and you put the priority. Okay, on a scale of one to 10 or one to five, what’s the priority on this? And now you know where to put those in throughout the week so you can, yes it should be Bradley. It should be.

I’m just reading some comments here. So now you can get with the week ahead and make sure that okay, I know I have this on Tuesday, and this on Thursday and this on Friday, okay, that’s a lot of my days this week that are taken up, I know that I need to really prioritize Monday, Wednesday, and half a day on Friday. So you can hit those goals.

Also, what I like to do on the weeks, what I like to do on the weeks is batch things. So I’m a big proponent of batching stuff and making it consistent. So, if someone were to have a call with me, maybe it’s a video call, maybe it’s just a phone call, maybe it’s a vendor or maybe someone wants to do a podcast or something like that. My call days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means, okay, if we can’t talk on Tuesday or Thursday, or have a meeting on Tuesday or Thursday, it’s gotta go to the next week on Tuesday or Thursday. Because I want to be able to focus all of my attention on Mondays and Wednesdays for the things that serve me and that I can take action on. Because, meetings really don’t drive needles forward, phone calls don’t drive needles forward, what else?

Podcasts don’t really drive needles forward, but when I can get with just some space to work on the things that I need to work on in the business on Mondays and Wednesdays, I know my day’s open and I can just be creative and just map out and visualize and work on things and okay, you know what, I haven’t really had time to run this report and look at that stuff.

Today’s the day where I can run the report and look at that stuff because I don’t have calls. And the reason why I batch calls is because if I have a call the day that I’m supposed to be creative or the day that I’m actually supposed to get my hands dirty and do the work, what ends up happening is I’m like oh, well, I got an hour and a half until that call, I still haven’t eaten lunch yet. Let me eat lunch now before the call, then I can do the call and then I can get to work. Well, what happens is now I’m trying to squeeze everything around the calls and it doesn’t work. So, that’s why I’ve broken my weeks down or my days down into batching calls. Or, if you have like a call in a half hour, you’re like oh well, it’s only a half hour, how much real work am I going to get done here, let me just do this little thing instead. And then you end up just doing busy work or checking emails or something and you never push the ball forward.

So, now that we have our weeks broken down, it’s time to get into the days. And what we want to do for the days is take out the self journal spread, and this is where your days live. This is literally how Cathryn and I started. It started with the days.

If we optimize today to be the most successful, now we can make our week successful, our month successful, our year successful. So this is really, we had a blank moleskin paper and we created this framework for ourself. So the days look like this.

You want your three highest priority tasks, the three things that you have to do, it should be no more than three. If you have more than three, you have too many tasks. The big things, the big levers that you’re going to pull throughout the day, you’re going to write those down. You’re going to write down your goals. You’re going to write down your goals every day.

So maybe, and this could be anything. This could be your 13 week goal, this could be your yearly goal, this could be your five year goal, this could be your whatever goal you want. As long as you write it down, it activates your reticular activating system that helps you pick up on little nuances throughout your day and throughout your life that bring more to you. Or that pick up, like oh, I know you want to hit this goal, well here, look at this. This little thing over here that you would normally overlook, look at it now because this will help you get one step closer to your goal. And the RAS or reticular activating system, it’s in everybody, and it’s the reason why, if you buy something new, maybe like a new car, now all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. It’s not because the car became popular it’s because your reticular activating system has triggered.

Now your subconscious is picking up on it and it’s pushing your subconscious forward to your conscious reality and now you’re picking up those wavelengths. So that’s why we write our goals down every day. The next thing that we want to do is we want to have morning gratitude and evening gratitude.

Morning gratitude, I like to, so here’s what I used to do in gratitude. And if you’re just starting with writing down what you’re grateful for, don’t be so hard on yourself, just make it easy. Everyone’s like oh well, it’s really hard for me to think of something. How about, are you happy for the smart phone that you’re holding? How about the cup of coffee that you just brewed? Or the fact that this pen just writes so nicely and I just like the way that it feels in my hand. Just little things like that will help compound the gratitude that you carry throughout the day.

What I learned from Marie Forleo is because Cathryn and I have met her several times and we’re fortunate enough to have her as a mentor, is sometimes we get jaded, and what happens is we write down the same goal every day, or excuse me, the same thing we’re grateful for every day, what’s up Robo? You owe me a phone call.

Reticular activating system. We write down the same thing every day. So maybe it’s like the cup of coffee, maybe it’s your family, maybe it’s your health and you just write cup of coffee, family, health, cup of coffee, family, health. And then it sort of loses its juice, right? One way to break that is to write down one thing you’re grateful for and three reasons why.

And what this will do, this will say, okay I’m grateful for this and now I’m really grateful for it because this, this, and this. And what that will do, that will break you out of the monotony of doing it every day and help you really feel, feel the gratitude and then carry that through the rest of the day.

Now here is my favorite part of the daily spread. It’s breaking your day down into half hour segments so you’re 100% accountable for your time and where it’s going. Let me repeat myself because I love it so much. Breaking your day down into half hour segments, because it holds you accountable for your time and what you’re doing with it, because time is the number one resource that we’ll never get back. It’s non-renewable.

We may spend a dollar but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a dollar back, but you could get a dollar back. You might get $2 back. If you spend a minute you’re never going to get that minute back. Forleo, Anne. If you spend a minute, spend five minutes, spend 30 minutes, spend three hours, you’re never going to see it again. And that’s scary when you think about it. So what we like to do is take that daily spread and be completely in control of our day, our time, and where it’s spent.

So from the first thing that you wake up in the morning, you write down, okay, I’m going to spend this half hour writing out my day, planning it, and drinking a cup of coffee with my wife or my husband in the morning, or getting the kids ready for school, that’s this half hour. The second half hour is going to be, okay, I’m going to work on the first big thing or maybe I’m just meditating, and taking a shower and getting ready. Like being extremely specific with where you’re spending your time.

What I even do, is if I have a meeting, and the meeting is somewhere, not online but I need to get there, I will actually write in the amount of time that it will take me to drive there. So now, you have your day broken out, all the way from morning to the evening with meetings or calls or tasks or travel, or just daily health stuff. Maybe you want to go to the gym, you put that in. Maybe you’re going to have lunch from this time to this time, put that in. And what you’ll do and what you’ll see is how much time you’re wasting in your day. And this is awesome, seriously.

When I say this is how Cathryn and I started with the daily spread, this is how we started. We realized, we realized oh my gosh, there’s three hour chunks here and here that we aren’t doing. What can we put in that’ll help us get one step closer to our goals, one step closer to our 13 week road map, or 13 week goal that we have planned for ourself that we can now slot in here. Is it, you know, reaching out to those clients? Is it writing the next chapter? Is it outlining the book? Is it going for a run? Is it prepping your meals if you have a health goal? Is it, whatever it may be, now you can be really intentional with your time and now what you’ll do is you will,this is step nine. You will do more in a day than you used to do in a week.

And Cathryn and I used to joke. I’d go up to the city, we’d sit at our co-working space or Cathryn would come down to New Jersey and we’d sit at my co-working space, we’d both have our daily spreads open. This is before even BestSelf started. We’d both have our daily spreads open and we’d be just ticking through everything, boom boom boom boom boom. At the end of the day, we’d laugh because we’re like, we just got more done than people get done in a week. And it’s, seriously, this is so critical for your time.

Once you’re intentional with your time, and where it’s going, and how much time you’re wasting in your life and in your day, you’ll be more inclined to fill it with things that will help you hit your goal.

So now we’re on step 10. It’s been an awesome webinar. I’ve loved this, I’ve loved all the hearts, I’ve loved the comments, I love the team. Step nine was to plan out, mapping out your daily structure. Can someone pin, hey team, can someone pin step nine please? Step nine, there it is Georgina, pin. Oh man I’ve got the best team, they’re so good. They’re so good. Cool.

So, step 10 is reflecting on each of these. And I know this brings it back full circle to the beginning. What is this? I’ve been hacked. Does anyone else see this? Hey guys, is my video still live? Can someone please tell me? ‘Cause I see a purple screen. Oh no! Purple screen. Come on back, baby. Hang on guys, stay with me for a sec. I know, I know, sad faces, sad faces. Pink screen, purple screen, whatever it may be. Give me a sec. Oh man, don’t give me mad faces. I’m sorry. Technical difficulties, please. Please, roll on baby.

All right, so the last thing that I want to do here, cool. I’m gonna keep going guys, you don’t need to see me. I’m just a talking head anyway. So, there’s nothing to show. Yeah, that’s what I like, give me some love, give me some laughter. It’s all right. So what we want to do now is bring it back, full circle, to reflecting. And what we want to do is reflect on the day, we want to reflect on the week, and we want to reflect on the 13 week road map at play.

So, what we’re going to do is at the end of the day, so now we’ve planned out the day, at the end of day, okay, what went well? What didn’t go so well? What can I do tomorrow that will help me get closer? What shouldn’t I do tomorrow? What brought me joy? What brought me happiness? And this comes back to the success, failures, joy, and sadness. And we actually have that spot in the self journals specifically for this.

We call it Lessons Learned and Wins. And now we can say, okay, what worked well, what didn’t go so well. Hang with me guys. At the end of the week, we’re going to do the same thing. What didn’t go so well, what went awesome, so on and so forth. At the end of 13 weeks, now that we have a whole thing going, a whole 13 weeks, now we know, okay, did I hit my goal? If not, all right, why not? What do I need to do differently? What can I change? What should I do more of?

And now we can use that to propel ourselves into the next 13 weeks. And then the next 13 weeks. And then the next 13 weeks. And then, that’s when 2018 will come to an end and you’ll look backwards and do the reflecting and go oh my gosh, you know what? I did it. Through positive improvement, through constant reflecting, through constant action-taking, you’re able to chip away at those huge goals that you visualized for yourself in the beginning. The things that you thought, oh my gosh, if I could only do that. If I could only experience this. If I could only have that, it would be amazing. So, what I’d like for you guys, oh my gosh, I am back! Please tell me you see me, oh!

Audio’s fine. Beautiful. Cool. Regardless if you could see me or not, so Cathryn and I and the BestSelf Co. Team, we’ve just launched this thing called, oh actually, you know what? I’m going to get to the Inner Circle in a second. Let me get to some questions that people had because we had some really, really good questions come in and I want to answer them because we asked for your questions in advance and, oh where are they?

December 29th webinar questions, boom. Okay, some really good questions. Thank you so much guys for baring with me with the purple screen and thank you so much for asking these questions and I like to get these questions in advance because then the team and I, we have time to put together really solid answers for you. So we had some really good questions come in.

One from Rebecca saying, I know that I’m going to struggle with the reflecting at the end of the day. Any tips to help me? So, at the end of the day, what you want to do is make this part of your evening routine. Not your morning routine, your evening routine. So, the same way as when you go to bed, you brush your teeth, you wash your face, you make that cup of tea or you sit down on the couch with your significant other, whatever you do at the end of the night, we all have routines, you bake it into that. And it doesn’t have to be hard.

It’s just a quick, maybe you just have a little notepad, maybe you have your self journal if you use it, and you just write down three things that went well, three things that didn’t go well in the day and you bake it part of your evening routine. So that’s one quick way to help that. What I used to do, and I don’t do it so much anymore but what I used to do when I first started was, my wife and I, we would sit down on the couch and we would be watching TV, right, we’d be watching one of our shows and as we’re watching the shows, I had my self journal opened up in my lap, and we’d be watching the show and I’d be sitting there right and we’d be hanging out and, all of a sudden… I’m just making sure that everything’s good on my end.

So, I’d be sitting there and I have my self journal opened up on my lap and I’d just be like, oh, you know what went well today? Let me write that down. And then I’d sit there for like another five minutes, watching the show, and be like, oh yeah, I don’t want that to happen tomorrow. I didn’t like that so much and then I’d just like jot that down as like lessons learned. So that’s what I used to do. So, don’t be hard on yourself, don’t try to force it. Just little daily action steps.

Keeping momentum, from Louise, once I actually hit the slug of work. So how can you keep momentum once you actually have to do things is one of the questions from Louise. The best way to do that is to make little reward systems for yourself. So, you do an action, you get a reward, right? Kinda like a dog. Dog sits down, you give the dog a treat. The dog lays down, you give the dog a treat. So, that’s one way you can keep momentum going when things start getting tough is to create a habit of actually doing it.

All right, let’s get through some more questions so I can have some time to answer. Okay, so. So one question comes in and says okay, how can I maintain focus on the tasks at hand without getting distracted? It’s common, everyone does it. Especially with the cellphone, the pings, the alerts, the emails. You get distracted all the time. So one thing that we do, and I have here, I have this little thing, I got it on Amazon. And it’s a little timer. And what this is, this does the Pomodoro Technique.

So, it’s a little cube and it sits on your desk and it’s numbered five, 10, 30, 20. And what you do is, okay, you know what? I want to check email for 10 minutes but I’m only going to give myself 10 minutes because if I do more than that, it’s gonna be down the rabbit hole. And what we’re going to do is, you tip it, and now it just sets a timer for 10 minutes. And then you check email, and then when the timer goes off, you’re done. And then you flip it back over. So this is one thing that I use.

We also are in the process of creating something similar that is a little bit more beautiful, a little bit more unique and eclectic. It’s an hourglass and you’ll have that on your desk, and when you flip that over, now the sands of time are passing you by and once that’s done, now you’re done with that task. Or, maybe you’re like working on a project, maybe it’s not, what’s the name of that box? I don’t know, but thank you for using emoji. I appreciate that.

Find it up on Amazon, just like cube timer or something along those lines. You can do a search. Cool. So, I’m going to ask my team for live questions right now to help anybody who’s still on. We’ve got a lot of you guys on right now. Drop me a question and I will answer it. But what I want to do while we’re pulling up the questions, Cathryn and I are putting together what’s called the Inner Circle.

The Inner Circle is a private club and community of people like yourself who want to achieve big things in 2018. And what the Inner Circle provides is almost a unique accountability group that holds each other accountable for these huge goals that we’re setting for ourselves, so not only are we going to set these big goals but you’ll have support in setting those goals. You’ll have training videos, you’ll have webinars, you’ll have support systems, you’ll have special guests, special training, direct access, questions and answers from Cathryn and I.

We’re also going to tap into our community and pull our friends, and I’ve actually seen a bunch of amazing people watching this that I think we should pull in to the community, that you’ll get direct access to as far as their trainings or webinars or skill sets that they have, that you’ll get access to. We’ll also put together unique training just like this where we break things down, we’ll give you access to worksheets, to our team, and you’ll get access to us, so live Q and As, and that hour-glass timer that I was telling you about, that’s supposed to replace this, that looks beautiful, and it’s top-notch, we’re releasing a half dozen new products in Q1 that you’ll have first access to.

So, we give the Inner Circle a first dibs on products that haven’t even been developed or released to the world so I think that’s pretty cool. Yeah, can one of you guys drop the Inner Circle link in the chat just for somebody, please. Nick, hit it. So click the link that Nick just dropped. It’s pinned now and does the Inner Circle cost money? Yes, the Inner Circle does cost money. Yes, there is a monthly charge for it.

What products are we launching? Ooh, should I mention it? Should I mention it? Self-mastery equals Inner Circle, no. The Inner Circle’s different. The Inner Circle’s more of a VIP club where you get exclusive access to things, exclusive products. So we have a bunch of people that we’ve teamed up with that create products that we don’t necessarily create ourselves, but we think are amazing so we’ll give you deep discounts on those products. Do it, mention it, Nick’s saying. Tell us what products you’re developing.

Okay, so I mentioned the hourglass. Damn,I’m nervous, I’m nervous to mention the products in the works. But I’ll give you a hint. So, they’re not paper, they’re more premium-focused. You’re going to be able to carry ’em with you. When you pull these products out, people are going to ask you, hey, that is really, really nice. What is that? Kate’s saying come on. Don’t do it! So, our goal is to make your office environment, see you in the Inner Circle Hank.

It’s to make your office environment a beautiful place that you want to be, and help you more focused and productive and positive in your day. So, with that being said, we’re creating a whole suite of products that will help you craft an environment that’ll help you be more productive, more positive, and just more joyous in your environment. So guys, if you want to join the Inner Circle, we’re opening it up now. We would love to have you in there. It’s going to be amazing. We have big things planned for it.

The team has done nothing except focus on the Inner Circle for a good three months now, so we have a lot of things in the works, we have a lot of value that we’re going to provide. You’re very welcome, you’re very welcome. And I hope that you found some value out of this webinar, and that, where’s my white shirt? DJ! Get out of here. I told you I’m diversifying my portfolio of shirts. I just saw… Thank you guys.

Can we get a discount? Summary? Yeah, I can give a summary. Thank you for the hearts, thank you for the likes. I will give you a summary. I’m diversifying my portfolio, just not the same. Sorry. It’s been over two years of white t-shirts. I had to change it up. I walked in on Christmas and someone’s like I don’t even recognize you anymore. Who are you? I didn’t even know it was you because I didn’t see the white t-shirt. And you have a beard.

So, the recap. The recap for this webinar is reflect on 2017, visualize your future, create goals based on the visualizations and the dreams that you have, dig into the why behind those goals, strip out the longterm goals and break ’em down into one year, so focus on the one year goals, then, arrange those goals in order.

So, okay if I want to hit this in 2018, what should I be doing first in order to hit that? Put in vacation time, put in conferences, put in travel, put in babies, put in all that stuff that’ll throw you for a loop. Now we want to break that down even further into a 13 week road map. Then, we create a weekly action plan.

So we did the three month goal, now it’s the weekly plan, where is everything gonna go. Pro tip, batch your calls, batch your, yes, BestSelf t-shirts, comin’. Inner Circle people will have access first. We already have them in stock, I’m super excited about ’em, t-shirts and hoodies, yes. So join the Inner Circle if you want first dibs on those.

Then we plan out the perfect day to maximize our time and not waste any of our time, then we rinse and repeat the reflecting. So we reflect in the day, we reflect in the week, we reflect in the 13 weeks, and then we’ll be able to reflect in the year ahead. So, that’s it. I thank you, everyone.

It’s been an incredible hour here with all of you. I loved all the support, and I loved the interaction. Even with the purple and pink screen you hung in there with me, I love it.

Thank you, Dominic. Thank you to the BestSelf Co. Team for providing a bunch of support. And,and, yeah, just thank you so much guys. I really appreciate it. More webinars like this coming on different topics, different subjects, and, yeah. Please just have an amazing time. Enjoy your new year. Everyone be safe, happy, and healthy and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do on New Years Eve. Enjoy times with friends and family and loved ones and yep, that’s it guys.

Take care, I’ll talk to everyone later. Bye.