I’ve started planning for 2020. I know there’s a whole month ahead before next year; and I’m 1,000% on board with being in the now – but there’s SO much value to planning head as well.

I want to share a little backstory for a quick min. CK Design in itself is still pretty young. It’s pushing 18 months, or a year and a half if you prefer not to talk about it like a child. Before CK Design I owned ArtByCarly, I NEVER had a strategy. I would post 5-10 posts in one day, last minute call to actions, super random content and maybe even some images that didn’t have any words with it. There was zero strategy. That might be another reason why I started to get some resentment toward that business.

Since starting CK Design, I went into it with big goals and a hard focus. I hired a business coach and I invested in membership sites and resources. Both of these helped provide, guides, action plans and community where I could ask all the questions to help me.

It has been a game changer.

At the beginning of my second business, CK Design, I would plan content for the week. After about 6 months, I started to plan for the MONTH. Now, going into the second year, I’m graduating to start planning for the year. This doesn’t mean I’m going to have every single post written out for every single year. That’s cray cray. I’m still a solopreneur – as we all know – ain’t no body got time for that sh!t.

BUT. Here’s what I AM doing. I’m writing out my big goals for 2020. Then I’m breaking that down into Quarterly goals. What can I do in three months to help me get to those goals in by the end of the year? After that I go into each quarter and break down those tasks even more. What can I do each month to get my quarterly goals?

Now that I have those tasks and action items broken down, I have literally created a blue print on they type of content I need to create in order to meet my monthly, my quarterly and my yearly goals. All I have to do is write 2-3 sentences that sum up my monthly action items to provide a small blue print on what I need to be sharing for my audience. Let me give you a super simple example here.

A few of my goals for 2020 includes turning two of my workshops into two small/mini online courses and to create one big brand builder course that’s very similar to the process I offer within my own business when doing branding projects. So how do I break this down?

1. I have it as my one yearly goal to create and launch my brand builder course.

2. I put it into what quarter I want to do this in, for me its Q4.

3. The first month of October I have notes to do 1 live video that revolves around part 1 of my Brand Discovery workbook, 2 IGTV videos that have content around understanding your business and goal setting (which also ties to part 1 of my workbook), and to start creating content for the course itself.

4. The second month of November, I created notes to finalize the course, create 2 new IGTV videos that revolve around part 2 of my workbook which is about creating an ideal client avatar and how to create content for them. I also made notes to do 1 live that revolves around part 2 of my workbook.

5. For the third month in December, the goal is to launch and DO the workshop. I’ve warmed up my audience the previous 2 months, laid some of the ground work for the course and now I get to actually do it.

Three months of action items to finish my quarterly goal and meet my year goal. With the cliff notes I have for each month, I have a blue print on the type of videos, images, words, newsletters and blog posts that I can write about to gear up for my goal.

Here’s another example. Let’s say you want to take home $130,000 for the year 2020. How do you do that? You need to make $8,833 a month or take in $2,708 a week. So for me in my business, I would be looking at what I can do to generate that extra income based on where I’m at now. How much more money do I need to make and how do I get there? That can look like doing more sales, creating referral codes, creating templates, doing shows, working on your up-sell strategy or maybe even upping your prices.

Remember that It’s okay if you don’t meet all of your goals. The point is to grow. Also remember to try to create goals that can be realistic/attainable. Happy planning!