Although the official start of Fall is a few weeks away, here in Maine, you can feel the crispness in the air. The gardens are bursting with their final harvest and trees are showing signs of turning. Days are noticeably shorter. What a beautiful celebration of Summer as we take in all that the Earth has provided. As we move through Fall, we prepare to go inward.
For me, September feels like the start of the new year, an exhale of the year past as I prepare for this coming year. I always carve out time to reflect and plan during this long weekend. I use a quarterly planner that gives me the flexibility to start a quarter at the beginning of September. This helps me to finish the year strong and move into the new calendar year with clarity. As I reflect on my past year, I look at my routines, my progress on my goals (personal, family and business) and what I want to accomplish moving forward. With each season, my focus changes. Fall and Spring are a time for us to tend to our home on a deeper level. We declutter and check our list of home to-dos to determine what projects we can tackle in the next few months. Winter brings solitude for study and projects that keep me cozy, next to the fire. Summer is in the garden, on the trail or at the beach. If you are feeling like a fresh start is in order, looking for clarity and want to finish the year strong, take some time to look at the last few months of the year and make a plan. As Elenor Roosevelt said, “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” Download my basic Clarity Plan to kick off your New Year - no matter when it starts…or restarts. Use this a jumping off point to start planning and acting on your future. Focus on morning and evening routines and rituals. This signals that it is time to start and end our day. Having a routine or ritual brings consistency and predictability. This structure allows us to find flow in our days. Focus on goal setting. Writing our goals down helps solidify what we really want to work towards. This allows us to organize our thoughts so that we feel less chaos in moving forward. Use the space on the worksheet to record no more than 2-3 yearly goals per section. You can then detail each goal out on another sheet, creating tasks and timelines to support that goal. Use the Notes section for to-dos, inspirational quotes, timelines and tracking progress. Just get started and start now. It is never too late to make a plan.
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