#318: Ready for a Breakthrough Year? Set Yourself Up for Success in 2025

Well, hello there, health coaches. Here we are. It's December and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you're in the US as I am, I actually hosted Thanksgiving this year. It went great. My cousin brought the newest member of our family, little Jacob who's four months old and very, very easygoing baby. So I got to kiss some baby cheeks. I was very excited and everything was great. My Turkey was super juicy. I brined that sucker over 48 hours and I made my favorite pumpkin cheesecake, which is to die for. By the way, if you love to cook like I do and you want any of those recipes like hit me up on Instagram or something, I can send you the recipes that I was using. They're just stuff I have found online over the years, but I swear by these recipes now. This episode today is brought to you by Practice Better, which I've used and recommended for years.
Practice Better handles all your billing, scheduling, client notes, private sessions, online programs, you name it. It does it all beautifully and professionally. Think of it as a complete practice management tool. Plus at the end of the year, if you've been using Practice Better, you can get all sorts of helpful metrics instead of just guessing at how your year went. You can sign up for a free trial and save 30% off your first three months at healthcoachpower.com/pb. And over here, Dave saying that he hosted too. I bet we had a lot of health coaches hosting because not all of us, but a lot of us like to cook, right? Well, that all went down my house was a mess, upside down all the guests, all the food, et cetera. And then the very next day I took my boys to go get a Christmas tree, which is now balanced very precariously in my living room in an old tree stand because guests who forgot to buy a new tree stand.

Anyway, we're doing what we can with that. The stockings are up. It's like boom, we are right into Christmas, which means it's time to seriously start planning for 2025. Now listen, I started planning for next year, like way back in the summer, if you can believe it, but back then it was just broad strokes looking at 2025, and I think as your coaching business matures and you get more experience, you'll find that you can start planning earlier and earlier as well. But this my friends, this is the time of year when you really want to get down to brass tax. So if you've felt a little unsure of what to do, a little ungrounded in your health coaching business, it's time to stop winging it. Okay? It's time to start making it happen with a clear plan from the get go. And today I'll share how I go about doing this every year, and then in a couple of weeks I'm going to lead through the same exact process.

I'm even going to give you the exact planning spreadsheet that I use, which I've never done before, inside a free workshop to make 2025 your most successful year yet. So you can go ahead and register for that now. Why not? It's totally free. You'll get my spreadsheet already laid out for you and ready to use. Go to healthcoachpower.com/2025 to sign up and we'll hopefully see you there. Now for today, I want to share two main planning strategies that have helped me go from Total Health Coach Newbie in 2009 to running a multi six figure business I have today. The first strategy is more heart-based. It's more right brained, intuitive. If you love vision boars and that sort of thing, this is going to come very easily to you. You're going to like it. The second strategy is more about left brain kind of thinking.
If you're more of a type A person like I am, this is going to be right up your alley. We're going to talk about both of those, but I do think it's not one or the other. Using both is the sweet spot. So let's start by checking in with the facts. I like to look at how much I've earned in the current year. That's a fact. I like to look at a list or I'll talk about in a minute a spreadsheet of various promotions, launches, activities. What did I do this year? You should be asking yourself, right? Just the facts. Here's what happened, and we don't have to make any judgements about it. It's just information at this point. Now, it's very, very easy for me to do this because last December I created that planning spreadsheet for myself. So what I do is I just glance that over.

If you didn't do that last year, then you might be looking back in your calendar or in your notes to kind of remind yourself, I mean, gosh, what did I do last January? It was a long time ago. So what actually went down in your business? And with those facts in mind, I like to check in with myself, right? What's in my heart about this? What is my intuition telling me? So for example, what I'm seeing on paper, or not really paper, but what I'm seeing in pixels on the screen this year is that we were a little bit less profitable in my business than the previous year. Now, if I were a business person wearing a suit on Wall Street, I would take that as a very, very bad thing. Here's the great news, though, I'm not, not that I don't think you're that either.

You're probably not. I'm just a human being doing the I can. I am a mom with two kids to raise. I'm a person like you who prioritizes my self-care. So when I see that this year was actually less profitable than the previous, my intuition is telling me I'm hearing it right now. It's like celebratory because it's saying to me, you worked a lot less this year. And that's true. In fact, if I broke it down hour by hour compared to the year before, I earned more this year. But yeah, I just worked way fewer hours. So instead of saying, I'm just going to work my tail off, I'm going to burn it to the ground, I am going to, my mother would always say, you're burning the candle at both ends, right? I tend to be that person. This year I chose to outsource more.

I chose to hire help. Of course, that cost me more, but I chose to get my morning workout in religiously. I chose to go to bed by 11:00 PM every night. Yes, I chose to take several weeks of vacation. So I'm pretty happy with that outcome because I know that in previous years, I was working far, far too much, and that's really easy to do when you run your own business. So for me anyway, 2024 was a year of boundary setting. I feel really good about that, and that's something that I know I want to move forward with as a non-negotiable. So you're going to look at the facts in your business and then feel it first. Feel it before you start putting your brain on it. My intuition is also saying to me, there were certain activities from this year I really, really enjoyed. I fully enjoyed my fast trackers this year, and I love doing some of the live workshops that we held this year, like workshop success.

So being live with my groups, I always find that so invigorating. Similarly, you want to make sure that what you're doing in your business is working for you. And I don't just mean financially. Is it aligned with what you want to be doing? How does it feel? Is it feeding your soul? I believe that yes, we have to look at the numbers. I want you to stay in business. I don't want you to have to go back to corporate America or whatever. I want you to be able to continue health coaching, but when you lean into what lights you up, that's the magic combination for a success. If it's just numbers and Wall Street suits, you're going to feel empty. You're going to lack motivation. We didn't get into health coaching because we wanted to feel empty and lack motivation. On the other hand, if you go all heart and soul all the time, you're probably going to end up working for free a lot and going broke and needing to get that quote, real job to pay your bills.

All right? So we're going to do a little bit of both. And once I've done that gut check on how I'm feeling about the year, this is what really made me light up. This is what I'm excited about. Maybe there were some things I was not so excited about. I need to be mentally note that now I'm ready to shift into a more planning mindset. I'm ready to create a new planning spreadsheet for the new year. So I just want to pause and ask you guys, whether you're here with me live, or if you're listening to this on podcast later, do you do any type of spreadsheet, Trello, board post-it note situation? Are you already starting to plan for 2025? And what does that look like for you? How are you going about it? I'm going to be walking you through what I have found to be the most efficient way in that free workshop.

Later this month, we're going to be creating a planning spreadsheet with all the promotions, launches, and earning opportunities that you might want to go after next year. And this way, you have it all spelled out in the beginning of the year. You can see the big bird's eye view, and then it's all broken down by month. And then as each month passes, what I do in my business is I actually go in and update each month, each activity with actual numbers, with earnings, with notes about what went well and why I think it went so well or what didn't go so well and why I think it didn't go so well, and any changes that need to be made for next time. Like I said in December, you're trying to think back to January. You're like, I don't remember what the heck happened in January.

So it's really important that I make those notes to myself along the way. PS, I do the same exact thing with my Thanksgiving menu after Thanksgiving's over that evening, or the next day I take, because I have the same kind of thing. I have a plan for my menu and I make notes. This was the exact right amount of cranberry sauce. Next time, double the gravy recipe, things like that. So next year can same thing. You can look back and go, oh yeah, oh, that's right. That cake does take 20 minutes longer to bake than it says in the recipe, right? So you're doing the same thing with all your business activities. Dave saying, yes, he uses a spreadsheet and a whiteboard. Fantastic. I mean, there's so many different tools you can do this with. It's not the technology that matters, but I do think it's the planning upfront, the as you go editing, updating note taking and the reflection at the end, that really matters.

So I know it might sound kind of scary or overwhelming to plan for an entire year, like, oh my God, but just know that your plan is not set in stone. I have never stuck to one of my plans like 100% and did exactly what I thought I was going to do because that's not realistic. But it does act as a guide that helps keep me on track month after month. I mean, how many times are you just like, what am I doing right now? I mean, I have that thought sometimes when I just walk downstairs into my basement and go, wait, what am I doing right now? Why am I here? And it happens in business too. Wait, oh my gosh, it's almost next month, or it's almost whatever season. What am I doing right now? You can always refer back to your spreadsheet and go, oh yeah, that's right.

I already figured this out. Oh, that's right. That's what I wanted to do. So it gives you this guide to follow. Would that feel good, do you think if you had something to follow, something to keep you on track and just not having to wonder, what am I doing next? I find it incredibly grounding. So the second strategy is all about taking a close look at exactly what happened over the last year, like I mentioned, right? We want to look at those notes about what worked and what didn't. The wins, the fails. There's always a mix of both, and that is going to inform the planning spreadsheet for next year, or the planning Trello board, or the planning whiteboard or the post-it notes or however you want to do it. So for example, maybe this year you were one of the many coaches who were part of our fast track program, and with that, you ran your first five day jumpstart.

You used all of our done for you materials, and maybe it was really great, it was your first time, you're very happy. Repeat that. Definitely double down on what worked. Do it pretty much the same way. Do it at the same time of year. Figure out all the things that made that really successful for you. Do it again. You might even decide, alright, I'm going to do it again at the same time of year and I'm going to do it again six months later or whatever. Really lean into the things that were like, yes, this was a success. The energy was flowing in the right direction. People signed up, you made money, whatever. Double down on that. Now, some things you're not going to want to double down on. Maybe last year you tried offering a summertime coaching program, and unsurprisingly, that didn't go over very well because everybody's on vacation.

Nobody's trying to start a coaching program in July. Nobody signed up. That's okay. It happens. It happens to the best of us. This is how you learn from year to year, what works and what doesn't. So if that were the case in your business, you'd have to think, do I want to ditch this entirely? Or what would happen if I try it again next year? And I did exactly the same thing, but I did it in the fall. That would make a big difference. I'm telling you that. I'm pretty sure that would make a pretty big difference because in the fall, people are ready to get down to business again, and it's a better time typically to promote something like a whole coaching program. And then you could think, all right, well, if I'm going to do it in the fall, what would happen if I did a lot more list building in the first half of the year?

If you have the first six, seven months of the year just to list build by the time the fall comes around, first of all, people are back from vacations. They're ready to participate. Second of all, you would have a much bigger list to offer the program to. You got to think about that. Now. You can't wait until the fall and go, oh, I wish I did more list building. Oh, this promotion didn't work last year. I only have a mailing list of 20. What if you had a mailing list of 120 by next fall or 520? This is what you want to plan to make happen. And this is basically the dance that I do every year evaluating past efforts and deciding, am I going to do this again because it went so very well, and that's always a happy moment, and then I happily put it into my spreadsheet for next year.

Or am I going to try this again, but change a few important variables so that it can work better? Or am I going to ditch this promotion or ditch this activity entirely? This was terrible. I hated it. And I usually plan for at least one major focus for each month, like a major promotion or an activity, something that I'm going to put the bulk of my energy toward for that month. Sometimes I'm promoting a paid program. Sometimes I'm offering a list building event. But just having that one thing, it helps my brain anyway, rather than thinking about 20 things at once. I know, okay, this month, here's where we're headed. Now remember, I'm 15 years into my business. So if you're like, oh my gosh, every month I need to have a promotion, you do not, especially if you're new to health coaching. Maybe you consider one major activity every other month or once per quarter.

You're still working a full-time job elsewhere. Your calendar is going to look different than someone who is working full-time as a health coach. But whatever you do, make sure to both offer your paid services and put time against that and free list building activities. Because like I said, it's going to be very hard to sell your services without a substantial mailing list, and you want to work that all into your calendar from the get go. So again, I'm going to be helping you with all of this. I'm going to be available to answer your questions and provide guidance as we go through the nitty gritty of planning next year in my free 2025 planning event for health coaches. This is always one of my most popular events. We've been doing this at the end of the year for the past, oh gosh, several years now.

So make sure to sign up for free. It's at healthcoachpower.com/2025. And there's one last question to ask, especially when you feel unsure or hesitant or scared. That's all totally normal, by the way. And the way to deal with those feelings is to ask and make this part of your planning. What sort of support will I need next year for everything that you want to do? How are you going to make that happen? What sort of support is going to become necessary? So I know at one point in my business, the answer was, I need to hire a VA that stands for virtual assistant, by the way, I needed help with admin tasks that were just sucking up my whole day. Maybe it's time for you to hire someone like that. It might mean joining a program like FastTrack to get the marketing plan and the materials needed to sell private coaching more effectively to offer a five day jumpstart program that might be the kind of support that you need in your business this year.

It might mean getting dedicated childcare for one or two days a week. Oh my gosh, when my kids were small, that made all the difference for me being able to make progress in my business. And my oldest son, he really did start with just one day of daycare per week. Those hours were gold. But again, don't wait until you're in the thick of it and feeling overwhelmed. That would be a very hard time to start looking for daycare. Start now. Start looking ahead and planning for the support that's going to be necessary for you to build the business that you want. So I hope to see you later this December for our free planning workshop. Everyone take good care Until then. And by the way, this episode is sponsored by That Clean Life, which many coaches in our community and I myself have through the years that Clean Life makes it easy for you to provide recipe books and help clients meal plan for themselves. And there's tons of great recipes that fit every dietary style, every dietary restriction, and they're adding new recipes to their database every month. So for all of my listeners, everyone in our Health Coach Power Community, you can save 20% off your first four months when you join at healthcoachpower.com/tcl. See you next time, everybody.