Stop Winging It: Planning Your Best Business Year Yet
Today we're diving deep into why winging it in business is a recipe for disaster (we've been there and it sucks) and how how our planning days and goal-setting sessions have saved our asses and actually helped us achieve some pretty epic shit. Get ready for real talk about what actually works - from figuring out what resources you've got, to building habits that don't make you want to cry, and preparing for the inevitable "oh f*ck" moments. We break down why checking in every 90 days is crucial, and how to avoid the classic traps like burning out, losing your mojo, or letting your goals collect dust in a drawer. Plus, we're hooking you up with our 2025 Business Planning Workbook that'll help you get your shit together without sacrificing your entire life to your business.
Number of fucks given in this episode: 14
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Emily: Welcome to Fuck Around and Find Out, a podcast for finding your way through owning your own business. I'm Emily.
Christine: I'm Christine. And
Rah: I'm Rah. Insert banter here.
Emily: Oh, you're literally
Rah: reading the script. Okay. Got it. Excellent. Got it. You got to do it with a bold voice.
Emily: Didn't I put bold around there or something?
It's italicized. Oh yes.
Rah: I'll do it on an angle. Yeah. I'll just talk like this, cock
Emily: my hand to the side.
Rah: How you doing,
Emily: Em? Good guys. Welcome. Welcome to the several, one of the early episodes of 2025, I think this is episode number three for the year. Something like that. Um, and we're here today to pick everyone's brains and make you all think about the importance of planning.
Planning, planning, planning. This is not my
Rah: strong point, not going to lie. And goals and objectives.
Emily: Um, so everyone who has listened to me before will know that I'm a mad planner. I am a typical organizer. I like to have things in my brain so I can start working on them and I'm not very good with spontaneity and I like to have some idea of what the fuck's going on.
Cause then I can prepare for it. Um, but I also typically a bit closeted ADHD and do the opposite of that a lot of the time too. But planning for business, I think is one of the utmost important things
Christine: you can do. There is that quote, fail to plan, you're planning to fail.
Emily: Exactly right. And I think this is what we wanted to talk about.
So we have just been running a planning session. So we're going to bring to you some of the tips and bits and pieces we have pulled out from that, um, to talk about today and make people think about their business. So obviously brand new year means the ability to reset and reset. Charge and all that stuff.
New you, me. Yeah. You know, do, do you, whatever works for you. But it gives you the opportunity to almost, you know, I say this bit tongue in cheek, but blank. Slate it a little bit because you, you do start afresh. It's a new year. You can work on what's going on. Yes. We obviously have things that linger from the previous year that come across, but it's a new year.
Israel said, new you. Yep. Asra said near you. Mm-hmm . You can do whatever the hell you want. Um, and you can change it up however you want. But the key to life and business. is planning. Plan yourself. Plan yourself around it all. Yep. Um, so one of the things that we do every year is obviously sit down and plan.
And our previous episode you, or two, you would have heard us say about how our last 2024 wouldn't have been what it would have been if we hadn't started it off with a good planning day. That's right. Especially for Chris and I, we, we sat down, we really did a bit of a plan, a brainstorm of what we wanted to get through.
And I reckon if we were to look at that now, we would have ticked a lot of those boxes. I
Christine: agree.
Emily: Um, and they were, it was really a bit of a blueprint for us for success in a sense. I mean, life does happen and things get in the way, but we tend to look at it from a yearly perspective and then review every three months, every quarter, quarter, quarter, 90 days, maybe you got to recess and realign because the world happens to us all.
So we're here today to talk about planning. Um, And the way in which we go about planning as well. So my favorite thing is, um, letting your subconscious work about it, but my question to everyone is, how do you run a business if you haven't got a plan? What are you doing? What's your goals? Where do you want to be?
I'm going to wing it.
Rah: Exactly. Fly by the seat of your pants. I
Emily: mean, that works for a small period of time. I know, but if you want to grow
Christine: it, you want to grow. Yeah.
Rah: And without having goals, plans, you know, some, some form of an idea, even if it's just dot points,
Christine: even if it, you know, it's reflecting on what didn't go so fantastic and what did from the year before to work out.
You know
Emily: what, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again. Exactly. Oh, I am so insane. But yeah. So, you know, it's, it's having a plan in place, having measurable goals, as you said, which is trigger word right there, um, to set yourself goals because they're both, yeah, they're triggering, which way you want to go.
Yeah. Um, but you need to have an idea of have you, have you succeeded? And I know. Yeah. I don't, I very much but against the word failure. I'm not a failure person. There is no such thing. Learning lessons. Exactly right. There is absolutely no such thing. Um, I think it's the worst word to get into people's heads.
No one fails. Things just, you reset. That's all you do. Well, that's right. You just get back up again. And do a
Christine: different thing. You know, I often say, you know, there is not one recipe only in this world for chocolate cake. There's millions of them. And you interpret it your own way. That is different ways to get an end result.
And if you're
Emily: Nigella Lawson, you just, you know, go nuts and just whatever floats your boat. You don't call it a goal. You call it a micro wabe. Ooh. Yeah. Micro wabe. Micro wabe. So, you know, I don't like that, but success is also very measurable based on what your own definition of success is. There is no one definition and that's something, and I've spent a lot of my life rejigging my mindset to understand that what I have done is not someone else's definition of success, but it doesn't mean it's not mine.
Christine: No, that's right. And also your definitions of success can change as you grow and change in your business does. So what was success in 2022 is different to 23, 24. Absolutely. And obviously. And it's so
Emily: fine for your business to change and move. Like our business changed. We made a big decision in our business in 2024, the beginning after our planning day in 2024 to pivot the way in which we were going to, it was, it was a small thing on the grand scheme, but it was a mindset shift for us and a behavioral and a, um, Uh, communication change for us and how, and how we were going to address our business and what we were going to describe, how we were going to consider ourselves.
And that was, I think, the starting point, a small thing, but a huge thing in the end, because it helped us create clarity around who we wanted to be. Yes. And that was, you know, we've been in business coming up two years, even though we've had our own individuals for a long, a lot longer than that, but it was a definite changing point, I think, for us with our business.
Again, came out of a planning day, which is fabulous. So you know, we talk about goal setting and our favorite little thing with goal setting is um,
Christine: SMART. Oh my God.
Emily: Smart goals. Take me back
Rah: to our corporate days. Yeah. Specific,
Christine: measurable. Attainable. Attainable. Achievable. Yep. Relevant. Relevant. Time bound.
Yes.
Emily: So, I mean, look, I'm a bit of a butter of the trends as much as I love to plan. I also think like the concept of HR, the process of KPIs, and I fucking hate all that stuff. I think they're often done as a measure of to fail people, not to actually help them succeed. I think, especially in a corporate setting, a lot of the times they're, yeah, they are, and they're actually designed to fuck you over.
I don't think they're there to help. It's there in case you need to be performance managed. Exactly right. It's a fail safe. And I hate that. personally, but, and so, you know, we use the smart goal word, but it does come in handy when you are trying to, um, work your way backwards from, if you want to achieve, I want to earn X amount of money.
Yep. You know, we listened to our lovely accountant. Absolutely. Who I believe is probably coming up. It'd be the, I think after this
Rah: episode. Sometime soon. Yep.
Emily: Hey David. And. You know, he has a perfect formula for working backwards from where you want to be, but working backwards, not forwards. Yeah, um, and it's the same kind of concept, you know, you know where you want to go and then you've got to break that down through your SMART goals to work out how to get there and where to go, but having a goal is key because then you plan around your goal.
Yeah, that's how you work, um, and when it comes to planning, I think it's also, you know, you've got to have multiple goals in your business. So for someone like. Juniper Road and probably Rah Gardiner, um, we are both service based businesses, right? So we, we don't have products. We are, it's our skill sets that is our product.
So for us, the ultimate goal is obviously make money and to keep afloat and to make sure we all can take a salary of some kind, eat, you know, put food on the table. Um, but we need to build business in order to do that. And in order to do that. Okay, that's the goal, right? So Chris and I can't be doing 60 hours a week of client work and build business.
No, we can't. Because that's not how it works. And that was the first thing I learned when I started. Yeah. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. I can't just be doing. Yeah. No. There's a difference between working in your business and working on your business.
Christine: And planning is all about. On your business and a
Emily: little bit,
Christine: a little bit in, but,
Emily: but you need to allow for the ability.
Like when we're looking at our days, we need to allow for the fact that we need to have a CEO day. Yes. We need a day to be able to work on the business and not be caught in the weeds. We need time to allow us to go and network and to go and do the outward socialization part of that gives us a lot of potential clients that shows us to the right audiences and clients.
So we need to plan that into our process as well. But also, given that Chris has got an almost 18 year old, I have tiny people, um, in comparison and school pickups and, and their requirements and home life requirements, we also got to work around that. That's right. And we also, at some point or another, as we've discovered from our previous episodes, Christmas holidays is not a break.
Nope. Nope. If by any means, it's like a baby break.
Christine: So, so part of the planning is planning to take a break from business.
Emily: So that's where our lovely planning comes into place, and that's where the importance of it. Um, so, you know, how does one plan? Well, firstly, I think you should jump on our website and go and, uh, get our lovely workbook, the Women in Business Collective 2025 Business Plan.
Very warm off the press. Um, this will help give you some guides and some tools. Anyone that attended our biz planning day recently will have received one as part of that. We have several topics that we cover to help you work through, um, last year, what worked and didn't work for last year. What were your top five goals for this year, setting your goals, getting your team and support goals.
Which build a stronger support network and team dynamic goals for better collaboration, boundaries, and work life balance. Always a huge one. Oh yeah. Creating healthy boundaries to maintain a balanced personal and professional life. One of the things I love to do if you have the ability to sit down and do it, a hundred things to do.
Create a list of a hundred things you aim to achieve.
Christine: Love that. Or
Emily: experience in 2025. And what to do when everything's settled. Sucks. Um, so a few of these topics we will talk about in previous, in upcoming episodes, but you know, we go through all of these in our, in our guide. Great ways to start, jump on the website, download that and work through it.
It'll help give you some direction and clarity with how we work and what we're talking about here. But planning, planning, planning, where do you even start? What are you looking at? You got to factor in what did we look at when we started? School holidays. Yep. Yep. For Chris, she's got HSC this year. Yeah. So that was a big one.
One of the key dates for HSC. What is your life dates? Where do you start with that? Things that you have no way of being away from. Yep. You've got to be part of it. Absolutely. Do that first. What is your goal and how do you want to achieve that and what is your time frames for achieving that goal? One of our goals for last year was get an office.
Yes. We did that. You did. We have different thoughts on that. We have incredibly different thoughts on that. Trial and error. Trial and error. Absolutely. We're analyzing. If you
Rah: didn't try, you'd be wondering if that's the winning ticket. Well,
Christine: yeah. Exactly. So, so we can put plan, we're going to talk about the plan around, you know,
Emily: backtrack that one.
Um, but you know, we got to work on it and I, I tend to do planning and coincide it with a bit of content planning at the same time is how I like to work because it does, um, method. You look at a three month period of time, you look at the key dates that are coming up, you look at what you've got on your calendar coming up.
You've got to work out what you can work within that section as well. Um, and go from there. Um, and then it's just making sure you're following up with it is, is the, is the key reassessing. That's why we say 30 to 30, no, sorry, 90 days, three months, every quarter, check back in, see how you're tracking. Yep.
Where you are, Oh, your goals completely changed. Have you decided to completely pivot your business? Totally fine. You do that. You just got to rework it back into your goals. Exactly. You got to rework it back into your plan and keep your time frame going. Are there any major events that you want to go to at some point in this year?
Have you put them into your plan? Have you put them into your budget? Because that's what leads on from this is your financial budget. Yep. Yep. As well. Yep. To work all those bad boys out. Have you budgeted for it? Have you planned for it? Have you set your goals for it?
Rah: And the other thing is. And I'm not very good at following it, but I do have time blocked out for it in my diary.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. To
Rah: work on it.
Emily: And it depends on the person with how that works. You know, I'm shockingly bad at it, but I think I'm going to go a little bit. Different this year. Down that path. I know I've taught Chris how to do it last year. I'm going to, at least for certain things, I need to do it just to try and remind myself to do it.
You know, like, One of the things for me that I've just been talking to these guys at Nauseum about is my now desire to do journaling this year and really track behaviors and habits and sleep patterns and really try and encourage myself to exercise and walk and do those little mindset shifts in order for me to be able to focus more on me this year, um, and my health and my wellbeing.
And so I'm going to put some journaling time in my diary every day. So I remember to do that. As well, but you know, my plan has changed drastically from last year because I don't have to go to do school drop off anymore. We've got one drop off instead of two. My littlest one is starting kindy this year, so that's a big change for me and my plan and my ability to be flexible is astronomically changed.
Probably a bit more painful at the end of the day. But it's more freer in the morning. I just need to make myself a morning person now. Flip that gin up. Um, but it means that I've, my plan from last year is completely different. What I am able to do is different again. But yeah, it's, it's the key to life.
Christine: Oh my god, yeah, absolutely. And as you say Em, it's about reassessing it every 90 So days because that's the kings jump up and change and, you know, yeah, that's,
Emily: that's the really big key is, is the reassessment. It's you can sit down and go through it all and plan it, but you need to actually make sure you're still tracking.
Well,
Christine: that's right. And some things you put in place. You think, you know, yes, you're a morning person. You think you're going to get up and flip into that really quickly. Uh, yeah, no, you know what, after 90 days I realized, no, that doesn't work. So I need to change it because. Yeah. I cannot get up at 5. 30 a. m.
or something like that. Well, I used to be that person, um, at 5. 30 or through, well, um, you know, juggling full time work and school, drop off and pick up and daycare and everything. So 5. 30 was my alarm clock. I don't do that, you know, slowly changing the body clock from 5. 30. But, um, but that's the thing you've got to actually, you know, things you put in place that you think are going to answer something.
Don't work out. So you've got to work out another way. And that's also, yeah, the realistic
Emily: part comes into play with the SMART goals. But, and that's what the SMART, the point of it, right? It's actually about reframing, um, how you talk about it as well. And then like, I'm just reading something here that says, research in neuroscience shows that goals tied to emotional significance have a much higher chance of being achieved.
This is because emotion creates a stronger neural connection. neural connection and motivates action, even when motivation is low. And their example is instead of setting a goal to lose 20 kilos, try and frame it as, I have, I want to have the energy to play with my kids without getting winded. Yep. You know, so shifting that mentality, shifting the wording in your brain can do such big things.
Oh, totally. And that's where it goes down the path of like steps to actually plan with your goal. Step one is usually reverse engineer. Yeah. Like we said before, you started the end goal and you work backwards. What is it you want to achieve? What do you need to do? What's the timeframe? You break it backwards and then you end up with your starting point.
Yeah.
Christine: And if it's not a, You know, and that way you work out, yes, it's not achievable in that timeframe, but it's achievable in a different one or no, I've got to reassess what actually I want the end goal to be.
Emily: And it's pretty normal. If the timeframe
Christine: is important. It's
Emily: pretty normal to have quick wins, low hanging fruit.
You can jump on that straight away and then you work your bigger ones. That's why I always start my to do list with something I've already done.
Rah: Yeah. Love it. Because the act of ticking that box. Yeah. But that's
Emily: also what your brain needs. Yes. Your brain
Rah: needs that
Emily: to kind of make it, like I, like we were talking about it before, I start my morning a lot of the time, weirdly, with doing lining.
And most people hate ironing, but I find it weirdly cathartic, and I feel like I've actually I sweat too much to enjoy it. It's very warm, I won't lie. Yeah. Especially at the moment. And no air conditioning in my house. Don't iron. Um, it's, the satisfaction for me is having it clear, clean, crisp, clothed, put away, and it's done.
That task is done, and I don't have to think about it again, but I already feel like I've achieved something today. So it sets my mind in the right place. Which is why I clean a lot first thing in the morning. Yeah. It's weird. Um, the next part step is resource assessment. Do you have everything you need to achieve this goal?
Yeah, you'll need. This includes time, money, skill, support. And you've got to be brutally honest. If you're wanting to learn a new skill, you've got to factor in time for it. If you're wanting to hit X amount of money, but you don't have capacity, you need to look at outsourcing. If you're. You know, let's look at it from a business perspective from our individual services businesses.
One of the things I know you're struggling with Rah is capacity and looking at, do you need to make that decision whether you need to outsource or not? Yep. We've got the team behind us and we need to make that decision on which ones, which things we need to outsource. Put to our team versus keep with us.
Christine: And then there's that thing about, you know, not just, what can you do to not just do that straight swap of time for money? How, what are your services? How can you package and price so that you aren't just, you know, doing that swap, which takes a lot of time.
Emily: It does, but it also leads into the bigger conversation of, are you priced correctly to pay your people correctly?
Because we know if that's something that's a hot topic for all of us, is people deserve to be paid what they deserve to be paid. And if we haven't priced ourselves properly, that's our fault, not theirs. Oh, absolutely. And for a long time, we've had some
Christine: work we can't give to somebody else because it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, Legacy type work.
Um, and then when you look at the new stuff, well, we know in our head, it's going to be somebody in the team doing it. So this is how we're going to go in and quote for it. And it's not ripping people off. No, it's being remunerated properly.
Emily: Exactly. The step three is then habit integration. Identify daily habits that will allow you to move forward towards your goal.
They are system, achieved through systems, not through willpower. Oh my God. Systems over power.
Christine: Absolutely. So what
Emily: are the little behavioural things you can do every day, which for me again, I was talking about journaling, it's a daily thing. Yep. Because they say it takes what, three weeks to really get a proper routine?
Well,
Christine: 28 days. So what's, if anyone's had struggles with, um, forming habits, um, if you take a, get a copy of James Clear's Atomic Habits, um, to really help doing some personal and business goals. But generally the rule of thumb is. It's 28 days to form a new habit, but obviously you then really need to keep going.
So that 90 day thing is really doing three lots of that to ingrain it.
Emily: And so that's important. And the next step is obstacle anticipation. Um, it is very crucial and is often overlooked. What could go wrong? What might prevent you from achieving this goal and, you know, what's your backup plan? Yep.
Rah: Yes. So basically like what teachers have to do with excursions and things, let's do the risk assessment.
Yes.
Emily: Yeah. A SWOT analysis on this. Yeah. You know, when we've got an episode coming up about what to do when shit hits the fan. Yeah. Um, which we've all fucking been there for. Yeah. And it's just that backup plan. It's what, what would stop you. And it's okay timelines don't often meet up to what they gotta be, but you just gotta have a way to pivot.
Yep. Yep. As we love to say, good old friend, and then it's project progress tracking. How are you measuring your goal? How are you working through your list? Is it a journal? Is it an app? Is it a regular check in with an accountability partner? You know, it's consistency is key when it comes to tracking and it's when it comes to goals and planning.
So, you know, Chris and I have the ability to be each other's accountability partners, but we also use a. Project management tool that we have to track all of the things that we've got on the table. It keeps us very heavily updated. We've also got a lovely OVM. And remind
Christine: us, because things can, things fall out of your head.
Yeah, shit happens. Life happens. Everything
Emily: gets too difficult. And you need to kind of keep yourself accountable. Yep. So, and for those that are solo, there are a lot of accountability places through networking groups out there that are really good. Maybe it could be something we should look at doing as well for people, um, to keep you just on ball.
So everyone knows better at it when we feel like we're responsible. I've got multiple
Rah: accountability. Yeah, options. So I've got my Monday huddles with my 1111 crew and I've got fortnightly with, um, yeah, a bunch of mates through the freelance jungle, which is one of my networks that I'm in. And even if they do, you know, divert and end up being a bit more of a social thing, having that conversation with people who get it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. It helps. And it helps sometimes brainstorming clarity. Yeah. Exactly. And there's nothing like a deadline. Yeah. So now I block every Monday morning because I've got, you know, two and a bit hours from the time I make my coffee to try and get my shit done that I said I would get done.
Christine: And but some tasks actually work well when you've got a tight deadline. And I know that has a lot to do with your mindset around about the task, but sometimes you do a better job and other things. And that's what I saw
Rah: for the years that I was working in magazine publishing, um, there were two, three magazines in my department that released printed mags monthly.
And that deadline, everyone pulled out all the stops. And then the week after everyone was dead because they had worked their asses off. That's the burnout. Like you need to avoid the burnout. Yeah. But no matter how many, So we did it every 11 months of the year because in December you push out two mags because the printer shut down in January, um, and you know, be the same cycle, but no matter how much you would plan and go, not this time I'm getting everything done.
Christine: You never did. It never does. No.
Emily: Yeah. So that leads us to the next common thing that happens with goal setting is, you know, pitfalls. Yeah. What are the common pitfalls and solutions? And the first one is burnout. Overwhelmed. You know, you're not being, you're not able to achieve it all. It feels like too much.
Your list is too long. How are you going to do it? I'm too tired. And that's where the quarter at a time planning comes into play because you look at it three months at a time. And yeah, okay. There'll be things at the end of the year you'll get to go, fuck, I didn't do that. That's okay. Roll it to the next year.
You know, you, you work on what you can work on and you also be kind to yourself as you do this as well. Cause we are human and things happen, life happens and sometimes shit you can't factor in happens. And
Christine: then you talk about, you know, rolling things over, like in, in life and business as well. There are those, those quarterly, six monthly annual, but they're those two, five and 10 year plans.
Like, I mean, none of us, we hope to be in business. For a long time, but really there's not a lot of people who may or may not do the five and the ten year planning. I'm not thinking about ten years down the track to be honest. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I can't think that far ahead.
But, you know. I just haven't clicked on that I grew up already. Adulting? What's that? But there are things that Em and I should be thinking about in 10 years time because you know, my God, I might want to be on the world cruise around the world, drinking martinis around the place in 10 think you should.
We'll be totally alone. We'll get our OBO to run our business and Yeah. Um, but there's, you know, that kind of thing. You need to think about it. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. The next one is loss of motivation, which is often what happens too and it ties quite heavily into the analysis. On a daily basis. Oh yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
That's where using this habit stacking and environmental design comes in. So it's your habits and your accountability and it's your tracking tools and that kind of stuff. Which, and then another one is lack of accountability. So if you don't, if you don't have someone to keep you accountable, then it becomes.
Yep. Harder and harder to keep stuff going. And if anyone listening
Rah: is in accountability, buddy, let us know because we can create chats. We've got happy to do it ourselves and we're also going to
Emily: refer you to other places that we know that do it. Like there's so many out there.
Rah: Yeah.
Emily: Um, so it's really important goals, setting and planning.
It doesn't have to sound as serious as it is. And like we said, we've got our wonderful guide that people can download totally. Um, and yeah. Use as a plan, as a, as a guide to walk through your planning. Um, and it'll also help you think about things in ways you might not have thought about, um, and get your way through.
But three months at a time, we're also working on a content calendar, just going over it all. Um, have it all there, have it all at it and have it somewhere where you can look at it regularly as well is key as well. Yep. Absolutely. Um, but plan, plan for your business. Yep. You gotta, you gotta have a plan.
Christine: Got to plan to succeed.
And try and like, yeah, make money
Emily: is usually like make it a tangible goal and how you'll actually feel so, um, like successful in yourself for having achieved something when you do it. Like it's a, it's a big motivational push. I'm like, you know, I'm like, fuck yeah, I got this shit all over it. I'm a big girl and you'll, and you'll geek
Rah: out over the most nerdy things.
Oh yeah. I'm like. Hugely. I paid myself super for the first time at the end of last year, and the whole process of working out how to actually put the money in the account was, you know, fucking annoying. But now that I worked it out and then I was just like,
Christine: yeah. Oh yeah. And that's a big thing. And to say goodbye to that
Rah: money until I turn 90 or whatever age I'll be able to retire at at this point.
I'm just like,
Emily: Oh shit. I know. And, but you know, for Chris and I being able to pay a salary, we like, we survived, we've survived January. Yeah. I can't say it. We're not that far ahead yet. Yeah. But we've, we have survived the off season for us, which is a huge thing and normally can't. Yeah. No. Yeah. Because of the timing of it all.
Like to be able to just be able to take an income is. Wonderful. Yeah. I mean, we'd,
Christine: we'd all like more, everybody would like more, and there's room for, well, this is, and this is part of our goal setting, isn't it? Like, it's part of the planning.
Emily: If you'd talked to us about this a year ago, we were not where we are now.
Yeah. So we've, we've put things in play and my biggest thing for everyone, and I think it is for me, and I'm sure everyone is very, very similar, saying things out loud, putting it to the universe, putting it on paper, putting it wherever you put it. But having it written down somewhere, to me, it's in my mind, it's in my subconscious, it mulls.
Christine: And it's out in the universe and it manifests, and you know, you don't have to be too woohoo, because I'm not a woohoo y person, but there is this thing about manifesting, you know?
Rah: I mean, look at our journey over the last I can't tell you how many parking spots are manifested over Christmas. It was great.
Me too. Shout out to Elizabeth Eleanor.
Emily: She taught me about manifesting. But even like, you look at the fact that we just randomly decided to do a podcast. Look how much we've manifested by putting it out there. And we were going to just do a single season to see how it goes and we are. 2025 later. Yep. We pulled together a conference in what?
Like three weeks? Yeah. Felt like it. Because we decided it over dinner one night. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to the
Rah: buffet at the start. Yeah, that's a great buffet. I said, but how good would that be
Emily: when you have people to keep you accountable, when you have the motivation behind you and when you have a plan,
Christine: things come together.
Oh my God, the world oyster,
Rah: then it's a maze balls. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I loved about my planning sort of days on the couch in front of Netflix. Over the break was looking back on the year as well and then going,
Emily: Oh, I was looking at your posts about your statistics that you pulled together. They were really interesting.
And I was like, I don't have the energy to sit there and do that for me, but for our business, but I was like, I want to try and like set that up for next year. Because I think it would be a really interesting. Yeah. To really kind of make you go, well, fuck yeah, I did some stuff. No wonder I'm tired. Yeah, exactly.
I feel like it takes the sting off the burnout a little bit. Yeah, it does. You have actually achieved some stuff. Yeah. Like. Yep. In, you know, the, in the, and it's more tangible seeing the numbers and the figures. Yep. Exactly. Like us looking at our podcast results for 2024. Yeah. That was really exciting.
That was incredibly exciting. To see that tangible data. Yep. To see how we have performed and a lot better than I think I
Rah: expected us to do it as well. That was quite nice. Yeah. And even if it's in the unfortunate situation where it's not quite as great as you were hoping when you started to look for the stats.
Emily: You've got a benchmark.
Rah: You've got something. You have a place to start. Okay, so, you know, calm your farm a bit. Don't be quite so, you know, big sky with your numbers. Just,
Emily: I bet it's be more realistic, but that's the thing too. It gives you some perspective. So perspective is really important and it gives you the ability to go, all right, well, this wasn't what I wanted.
This is where I was. And now I've got someone to work from. You've got a starting point to work from, you know, how to measure and keep yourself accountable based off those original numbers.
Rah: And I used to hate looking backwards because all I would see would be. The things that didn't get done, the money I didn't earn, and when I was an employee, it'd be all the projects we didn't finish, or all the overdue tasks in Asana, like, holy shit.
Emily: But it's also, you want, like, most of it, we're human beings, right? Yep. And I think there's something to, again, my biggest pet peeve with corporate businesses is the fact that they forget that their employees are people. And people need to have a break. People need to breathe. People have been through a lot.
And the end of the year is always a shit show. A lot of these companies either don't wind down, really at all, or they are still pushing people right up until the 24th of December. And then we all, you know, crave and desperately need Christmas break. And then we all sit here like we are now going, well, fuck, that wasn't much of a break.
Yeah. And we haven't rested and you've got going home for another break after we've done this. Yeah. Like, you know, you've got people who are just so tired. Yeah. That need to breathe. Um, one or two days of not hitting targets is not going to kill your life. Yeah. Oh God, no. No. Look after your people first and then the rest will follow.
If you take your breaks. It's so important. Yeah.
Rah: It's like the rabbit in the
Emily: hair race thing. Oh God. Yes. I keep seeing all these videos on how to maximize your annual leave for 2024. Oh yeah. You should find something to link them in. Yeah. Um, there's like ways I think. Annual leave? I don't know what that is.
For those that can take it. Yeah. For paid
Christine: annual leave. Yeah.
Emily: Over Easter, because Easter and Anzac Day are really close together this time. You could take like four or five days and end up with 10. Yep. Off. Like there's ways to maximize for those that have the luxury of leave. Yeah. Don't know what that is.
Our version of leave is just not doing client work. It's just,
Christine: it's, it's different really, isn't it? And we will have a version of leave for um, this year sorted goal, make a goal. Yeah, absolutely. I'm reminded like with goal setting and, and big sky thinking and you know, and you talked about. Goals that you look back and go, Oh, I didn't get to that.
And, and whatever. And yeah, you got to celebrate the stuff that you have obviously ticked off your, your planning and everything, but there's always going to be those things that you, you don't get done, but it's not because you didn't have the energy or what it's that something else actually took over.
Yeah. I worked in my last job. paid gig in a university and I worked for the Dean and she was at the end of her seven year tenure and she talked about her goal. She had the list that she started seven years prior and she said the amazing amount of stuff that wasn't ticked off, but that's because other stuff came up and it's the time.
Everything has a time. Um, so really it is about looking at, you know, if you didn't get it achieved, there's reasons. Yeah.
Rah: Hmm. And those changes or pivots, how many times have I said pivots? You should probably do a pivot count. Um, the pivots that you have to make in any business like yourself or as an employee, they all become factors into your planning in the future.
That's
Emily: why you have the backup plan, right? The plan B, what happens if. Yep. You know, you've got enough of a, you need your systems and processes and settings to be in a way that's AMSR, um, to be, you need to have them in place in order to allow for the worst case scenario, right? Like if someone drops off the earth, or, you know, if, if you get so like, look at me last year, I was so fucking sick last year.
I don't think I've, it's the sickest year I think I've ever had in my life. I don't think I had a very, the numbers of months I was not sick were, On one hand, I could count them and that fucked me over something fierce. And but the fact that we have the infrastructure within our business to compensate In theory.
We do. We'll hone it. We'll hone it. It's an internal process, right? It never stops. It's constantly changing. But having, if we had nothing, we would have been farmed. And if I was a solo person like you, I would, we'd be farmed. What do you do? Yeah. You know, you're going to have some kind of plan in place. And at least with your situation, you've got people like us who you go, fuck, I need some help.
Can you help me please? And we can step in. You know, you having those relationships in place is really important, but having an idea for it. It's just least in the back of your head. Mm. You need some kind of plan. Something, something you, I mean, look, if, if you're like me and a, a mother of small children, I have to know what's going on in six weeks in advance.
Yeah. At any given point of time. Yeah. Otherwise, I just can't talk , you know, when I have a friend, a few friends and like, you wanna catch up? I'm like, oh, I'll be free in April. Yep, yep. Just lock me in then. Yeah. Yep. That's otherwise, oh, sorry. They've been given to half my April school holidays. It's not going to work.
Yeah. It's the never ending, never ending thing. You need to have an idea in your brain. Yeah,
Christine: absolutely. Planning. Totally important. Get on it.
Rah: People planning plan. Cool. So download the book and we'll check in. Just do it. Yeah. In the six month mark and see how you're going. Exactly. We will. And. Yeah, if you want accountability buddies or advices to your goals or, you know, how you're planning yourself out.
Yeah,
Emily: hit us up. Yeah. Please reach out. We've got, we do know a wonderful, um, range of business coaches that we can see out with people. We do know some amazing, um, OBMs, online business managers, for those that don't know, if you need some help managing everything, we've got some people we can hit up. Yeah.
Accountability. Take the work off your plate. Yeah. And it's not, uh. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's nothing too scary about outsourcing. You can need an extra hand.
Rah: Yeah. And that whole a problem shared is a problem. Solved. Solved, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm . Oh yeah, sorry. Yeah. So, you know, no offense, I'm not gonna do the work for you, but I can help you come up with a smarter way to get around it.
Emily: Yeah. We've always got smarter ways for stuff.
Rah: Yeah. And just talking to someone else about it can make all the difference.
Emily: I was the queen of gaming, the algorithms, of life, as well as socials. How many
Christine: times have you had a problem and you've talked to somebody and they actually haven't given you the solution, but in the, in the process of talking about it, you've come up with it.
Oh my god. Yes. I've had times where
Emily: I've called our wonderful graphic designer and gone. Oh, fuck. Why didn't I think of that? It's so goddamn obvious, but I was so deep in the weeds that I couldn't see the bigger picture at that point in time. Sometimes it's a perspective shift. It's a huge shift. I had a
Rah: manager back in 1998.
Christ, I'm of age and he came from super corporate, shut up, super corporate world and he moved into this sort of smallish business and he had always kept like a, now would be like a pop fig type thing, like some sort of toy, squishy thing, whatever, stress ball, whatever, something. Yeah. Something on his desk.
And he said he'd picked it up, um, from IBM. I think it was. Yeah. And all the developers back in the nineties would talk through their problems, sometimes internally, sometimes out loud to whatever this inanimate object was on their desk to problem solve.
Emily: Wow. Well, you're putting it out there. You're putting it in a different context.
Your internal monologue. You can get bogged in your own head. Yes. So brainstorming of people. There's a lot of overthinkers out there that get to the point of panic and almost like freeze. So yeah. Having that external about like chat. Yeah. Again, like you said, it could be to the wall, it could be to an object, it could be to your health and well being, for the good of yourself.
My director of well being,
Christine: absolutely. I talk out loud to my
Emily: animals all the time. You know, getting it out there, it does work wonders. And everyone laughs at me when I, anyone who knows me knows that I can talk underwater. But this is why I like to brainstorm a lot. It helps you think. It's like me typing helps me think as well.
Yeah. I need to put it out there to people into the world. And my husband loves it. Cause sometimes it'll be like 11 o'clock at night. I'd be like, let's have a chat. Just like, um, uh, Mr. Sun and air over there does the same thing to you. I'm that person too. But I'm like, I need to process all these thoughts in my brain right now.
I need you to listen to me. Yeah. She cops it on both sides. Chris gets me calling her when I'm walking and stuff, but it's my thinking time, she's like trying to do work. And I'm like, no, no, you listen to me while I walk. See, Den and I only communicate via memes when we hold our phones up
Rah: to each other and go, look at this one.
It's you.
Emily: My husband likes to talk to me about mechanical things, and I look at him like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like our air conditioning currently, he keeps being like, the compressor. Oh yeah, it's always the compressor. What? And why are you telling me this? And, okay. And then I get a text, it didn't work.
Yeah. I didn't think it was going to work. But I don't really know what you were doing, and I didn't want to ask, because then you were going to keep telling me, and I didn't want to listen, you know, like, go talk to your boyfriend about that. He's got his best mate. Yeah. But it's, you know, you process it out loud.
Yeah. It's how you work through. That's right. Work through things. So accountability is often where that falls back into. If you've
Rah: got a problem, I'll solve it. You've got the hook on a deejay that holds it.
We'll have to get the rights on that before I put that in the episode, but yeah,
Christine: okay. Well, thanks for hanging out. Great. We'll be back at the Bella Vista hotel podcast
Emily: studio January is almost over by the time anyone listens to this podcast. Yes. Which means all of us are pretty much gearing up to start our whole world.
We're already one twelfth through the year, baby! Which is scary considering school doesn't go back to bloody second week of February, so most of us haven't even got a goddamn routine going yet.
Rah: And at least you're not in the area where you have heat week, where the schools have an extra week of school holidays.
What? My nephew has an extra week and they get what they call heat week.
Emily: What is it? Because it's too hot? Because it's so hot out in Western New South Wales. They get an extra week. I mean, this year, this year, they're actually going back a week later than they were last year.
Rah: Yeah. So he's getting an extra week.
Emily: Oh, dear Lord.
Rah: Yay, having kids. Woohoo! His poor mother. Yes. Thoughts and prayers.
Emily: It's
Rah: all Aunty Rah's got. It's all I
Emily: got. Yep. Thanks for joining us, Gay, in
Rah: all the tangents. Woohoo! Peace out. All right. Plan yourself. Thanks.
