Your Best Year Yet

This week it's all abut my annual practice called...My Best Year Yet

My concern as we near the end of January is that many of us are fatigued, Omicron has really knocked the wind out of many of us and we're feeling so much uncertainty. The danger is that you'll press pause because who knows what's going to happen and who has the energy to plan anyway? This Musings is a super easy, simple effective way to plan that I've been doing for years. I'm not suggesting iife won't happen (as I explain in the video) but it's all about making sure we're intentional about what we want out of this year. And maybe even having (no matter what covid brings), our best year yet.

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Transcript

Hey, and welcome to the first Musings of 2022.

Now I don't know about you, but this is not where I expected to be in 2022. We did not expect Omnicron to spoil the party when it came to suddenly feeling like everyone we know is either in isolation for COVID, or has COVID. And certainly the impact on businesses and employees needing to isolate is just feels overwhelming.

And I know the start of a new year for many people is that clean slate and yes, thank God that last year's behind us. And what we could be tempted to do with so much uncertainty and with so much fatigue is to go, you know what, I'm done. I'm just gonna put my head in the sand and kind of tread water and hope. And what we know particularly for our finances is that hope is not a strategy.

So I wanted to share with you something that I do every single year called your Best Year Yet.

And it's something that I've done regardless of what's happening in my life. And what I promise you is that you may not have technically your best year yet. Certainly when I've done it, we've still experienced my husband and I, cancer. We still experienced trauma. We've experienced loss and grief and awful things, but it was still our best year yet because of how we came through it together. And we would come through it intentionally and we would come through at least going, you know what? That was a $hitshow that year, but at least this happened and this happened and this happened and we felt like we had some control.

So if you are looking for something, if you're looking for a way of doing goals differently, if you are looking for a way to set up your year differently, my gift to you is to talk to you about this concept called the Best Year Yet and how you do it.

And if you love this little mini idea, jump onto the Uncensored Money Podcast. The first one for this year where I go into detail.

So first of all, we're not just looking at finances. The idea is you look at your whole wheel of life, everything from relationships to health, to fun, to career, to love, to spirituality, to personal development, to giving back and more. And I like to section, I like to write those things down on a piece of paper and then underneath write, what would it look like for that area of my life to have the best year.

I want you to be really specific and I want it to be something that you could go back and measure it. Like you're doing a KPI on yourself. So for example, for relationships or for love, uh, hubby and I put down that we wanted to have twice a month dates that we each needed to organize.

So it's really clear every single month I have to organize a date and he has to organize a date. Now, is that romantic? Hell, yes, it's romantic. Is it spontaneous? Well, he can be spontaneous about the dates. He doesn't need to tell me, and he can also do extra, but we've both committed that relationship's important to us. So that's something we are doing to set us up for success.

Financially we've got things in place where we wanna get a renovation done at home and we wanna buy an investment property for his business to be in because he travels a lot for work and he feels like there's a lot of wasted opportunity there. So he wants to have a passive, uh, asset, which is something that I'm committed to helping him with. So they're two financial goals for this year.

I have a giving back goal where I wanna give a 100k to charity this year and 50k to a particular charity. And so there will be different things. And you can hear, I want them to be specific and I want them to be measurable so that when you finish the year, you can look back and know.

Now I keep these on an Anylist app on my phone that I share with hubby. And that way they're front of mind. They're on an app that we can easily get to, rather than just in our head or on a scrap of paper. And it means that at the end of the year, or for me every single month, you can look at them and go, how are we going?

We add to that something called Communication Sunday, where every Sunday, we just look at how we are going and say, so how are we working this week?

How are we tracking? And what do we wanna add? So it's that beautiful way of making sure you're not just talking about it, but you're actually doing it.

You might wonder why doing a whole wheel of life 'Best Year Yet' would be great for your finances. And obviously finances is one of the things you would look at in that. The thing is we don't operate in silos as people. You know, if my relationship, if my love life, if my spirituality, one of those silos is wonky or is depleted, what I know is that will eke out and it will affect those other parts of my life.

And if you think about it, if you are something's going on with your relationship, does that affect your finances because of how you've pressed pause or because you're stressed or you're sabotaging, or you looking for a dopamine hit.

Same with our health. Health for me is a big one. If my health is suffering, that's when other parts of my life can be suffering. So actually me prioritizing my health is really important for my finances. Um, so for me, it's two strengths sessions a week and 150 minutes of intensive or moderate exercise. That's actually really important for my finances, for my relationships, for my love life, for my career.

So it's realizing that we don't operate in silos and what's important as well is it's not going to be perfect, especially if you've never done this before. Uh, you might get to March and go, oh, I really sucked at that. So pick yourself up and keep going. Don't look for perfection, look for progress. And absofreakinglutely what I don't want you to do is rely on hope.

I want you to have this plan. I want you to, regardless of how many variants we're gonna see this year, regardless of what life throws your way, I want you to be intentional, intentional about this year being the best year yet.

If you know, for the financial silo, you need help make sure you check out the My Financial Adulting Plan. The doors close on the first of Feb. They're open sneakily for waitlisters now, and they're open on Sunday for everyone else. So let me be that thing that will help move you forward in 2022. Have a great week, everyone.