Plan Simple with Mia Moran

We are giving away 12 days of gifts. The idea is that we create a bridge from the Winter Solstice to the New Year! We chose 12 tools, ideas, and strategies that are all about ending this year and planning next year.

Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 5 – Get clear on your vision

I find it is very hard to stick to goals, and sometimes even create them when we are not connected to our vision. I know you are probably tired from yesterday… But take the podcast on a walk. Move the energy in your body. Give yourself 15 minutes on the other side to capture your authentic vision.

If you are having any trouble, I recommend listening to Heather’s guided meditation from day 1, or going through Completing the Year with Amy Alhers from the day 3 gift. Sometimes there is just too much guck, and too much outside noise to connect with our vision. That’s ok. It's practice!

We are giving away 12 days of gifts. The idea is that we create a bridge from the Winter Solstice to the New Year! We chose 12 tools, ideas, and strategies that are all about ending this year and planning next year.

Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 5 – Slow down and make space for love

Some of you all follow my process for creating an Advent calendar each year. I do not create ours from a religious perspective, but instead from a conscious decision to slow down. It acts as a reminder each day... The thoughts that show up each day, help us do this. And on Christmas day, the thought is always something about LOVE and putting that before presents and expectations. AND I always find the way I can do that as a mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend is to connect to my heart first, so I can connect to the sacred all day long.

I hope that today, you can take the time to listen to a meditation by Julie Hannon from Inner Peace and Wellness. Take 20 minutes to connect to your heart, to love, to open up sacred space in your home. Make sure to document what comes up. I will be starting my day with this as well!

We are giving away 12 days of gifts. The idea is that we create a bridge from the Winter Solstice to the New Year! We chose 12 tools, ideas, and strategies that are all about ending this year and planning next year.

Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 4 – Your Word

I think I originally started choosing a word of the year 10ish years ago when Danielle Laporte first came out with the Desire Map. I remember Danielle sharing that her word for the year was “abundance.” I remember just considering that word seemed so scandalous and REALLY exciting at the time. Ever since then, I have chosen a word each New Year's Day.

I talk about my process on the podcast today. I talk about trying words on and seeing how they make you feel…. I wanted the word “abundance” to work for me the same year it worked for Danielle, but it was NOT my word that year!

Get on the gift list at https://plansimple.com/12gifts to get a list of possible words!

We are giving away 12 days of gifts. The idea is that we create a bridge from the Winter Solstice to the New Year! We chose 12 tools, ideas, and strategies that are all about ending this year and planning next year.

Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 3 – Complete

Amy Ahler’s has been using and teaching this tool since the late 90s! I have been doing it for about 5 years. I am so excited for you to do it this year, and next year, and the year after that. 

It is one of the most effective ways I have found to feel complete about the year and TRULY move into your desires for the next. 

My advice. Listen to the episode with Amy. Print out the workbook we made to take you through the process. Schedule some time to go through the process. It is A LOT to take in in a single day. I will be waking up extra early for the next few weeks to do my own deep work, and this is part of that process. I will walk through the steps for 3-5 mornings.

When you get into some of the goal setting gifts (coming up), it is great to have this handy to remember where you are.

We are giving away 12 days of gifts. The idea is that we create a bridge from the Winter Solstice to the New Year! We chose 12 tools, ideas, and strategies that are all about ending this year and planning next year.

Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 2 – RELATE

Vanessa Linsey  is wise, honest and really funny! She’s this amazing combo of magical and practical that is made possible by her commitment to presence. When she is not teaching about moon cycles, she is a mediator. She is also an amazing mama, who has created a literal Brady Bunch.

“When we can hold the line in the present moment, in the midst of challenges and triggers, we can further align with our healthiest and best source – providing us with our biggest potentials…. The person who triggers you most – let’s imagine this person is your best teacher.” – Vanessa Linsey

Listen to her full talk with some really actionable communication strategies! And download the printable that you will want to keep handy!

We just decided that we are going to give away 12 days of gifts. Happy Solstice!!! Today is the darkest day of the year. For me this starts a two week period of deep reflection and planning for the year ahead. I literally look forward to it starting at Thanksgiving! 

This year I thought that I would take you through some of the processes that are really meaningful to me. Each day, we will release an episode, and many of the days will have fun (and very useful) printables!

DAY 1 – RELEASE

Today I want to give you a guided meditation that the amazing Heather Dreassel @DivinelySensitive led at our last event. 

I love honoring the Solstice. For me it is a time of releasing everything that does not serve me — and it’s become that for my kids too. We each write what we are letting go of and burn it in the fire. It serves as an amazing family tradition, AND I take some alone quiet time to go even deeper. 

RELEASE. Listen to today’s prompt and Heather’s guided meditation on the Podcast. Get quiet. Write it down. Share what you are releasing.

Journaling is a path to come home to ourselves.

–Kim Marie

We have some bonus episodes of the PlanSimple Podcast with some of the speakers from our recent event Your Best Holiday Season Ever, including this episode’s guest Kim Marie. I believe there is magic in writing things down. I wanted someone who is really into the flow of journaling to share that with my audience—and journaling is what Kim Marie does. 

After an injury one year that involved surgery on my wrist, I stayed on the couch by the fire for a lot of time between Christmas and New Years. I found myself just dreaming more and getting clear on what I wanted to do. I found myself wanting to journal. And I discovered Kim Marie’s Sacred Nights journal that taps into the magic and power of this time of year. 

Kim introduces journaling as a path to come home to ourselves and talks about why we aren’t home, what it means to come home to yourself, and how to get there. 

We talk about: 

• Spiraling through cycles again and again in rebirthing ourselves
• Remembering who you are and knowing what you want and what you value, and figuring out how to show up as yourself and make a difference in the world
• What happens if we don’t look at who we really are
• Planning and capturing dreams as forms of journaling
• Journaling to process emotions or work through things + other ways to journal

BIO

Kim Marie is a Transformational Life and Leadership Mentor, guiding women to find their middle way between success at the cost of selling their Soul, and playing small at the cost of success. Through her annual Sacred Nights of Winter journal, online courses, speaking, nature retreats, her Solace monthly mentorship program, and her unique blend of archetypal, Indigenous and practical wisdom, Kim takes women on a journey to connect with their Inner Wisdom by remembering who they are, reconnecting to what they truly care about, and rebirthing into the life they re-envision for themselves. She is the mother of 2 young men, and lives in Boulder, CO. 

LINKS

• Sacred Nights of Winter Journal
• KimMarieCoaching.com
• FLOW365

Doable Changes from this episode:

• TRY DIALOGUE JOURNALING. One of Kim Marie’s favorite journaling methods. It’s a way to bring together different parts of yourself or to deal with inner conflict. Write out the conversation as if you were talking to a friend. You can ask questions, make a request. Just stay curious and put it on paper. 
• COMMIT TO JOURNALING THE SACRED NIGHTS OF WINTER. Get a copy of Kim Marie’s Sacred Nights of Winter Journal (there’s an online option, so you still have time—see link above). You’ll work with the journal for 13 days and nights, starting reflecting on the past year, envisioning the year to come, and tuning in to the messages of your Soul.
• LEAN INTO WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT YOU VALUE. This is a process that we come back to again and again, and one way to do that is to feel held in community and have a framework and coaching that help you continue to choose to lean into your values and goals. In FLOW365, we choose doable changes for all the parts of our lives again and again. Your doable change today can simply be to check it out and set yourself up for a year of leaning into your life.

Your intention will bring you back to what's important. And when we're in alignment with what's important, we feel nurtured.

–Kelley Grimes

We have some bonus episodes of the PlanSimple Podcast with some of the speakers from our recent event Your Best Holiday Season Ever, including today’s guest Kelley Grimes, who wrote The Art of Self Nurturing. I’m so excited to have her talk about self-care, not as the buzzword that it’s become or another thing on your today list, but as a non-negotiable essential. 

We talk about self-care specifically around the holidays. Kelley talks about choice and empowerment — choosing what we do for the holidays, not just doing traditions because we feel obligated. One way to do this is to declare an intention for the holidays and then use that as a lens to look at what you are choosing to do. 

Kelley recommends making a list of ways to nurture yourself. She breaks it into three parts: body, mind, and spirit, because there are different parts of ourselves that need to be nurtured. She also includes self-nurturing that can be done alone, with a partner, with family, or with others. 

We talk about: 

• Putting your intention someplace you can see it
• Writing yourself a A permission slip for self-nurturing
• How permission giving and making a commitment go hand in hand
• Specific ideas for nurturing different parts of ourselves
• That commitment to prioritizing yourself is the real act of self-nurturing, whatever you do
• Self-nurturing is an ongoing act with ripples from ourselves to others

BIO

Kelley Grimes, MSW, is a counselor, speaker, internationally bestselling author, and self-nurturing expert. She is passionate about empowering overwhelmed and exhausted individuals to live with more peace, joy, and meaning through the practice of self-nurturing. Kelley also provides professional and leadership development to organizations dedicated to making the world a better place. She is married to an artist and board game maker, has two empowered daughters, loves singing with a small women’s group, and is overjoyed to be a new grandmother. Learn more at www.CultivatingPeaceandJoy.com and download your free Self-Nurturing Starter Kit.

LINKS

• The Art of Self Nurturing book
• The Art of Self Nurturing starter kit
• FLOW365
• PlanSimple on Instagram

Doable Changes from this episode:

• CHOOSE A YEAR OF SELF-NURTURING. Leaning into your life—figuring out what you really want and making time for that is ultimate self-nurturing. Allowing yourself to be held is self-nurturing. Making space for sacred circles and calming your nervous system are self nurturing. Your doable change today could be to choose FLOW365, choose to have all of these self-nurturing acts (and more) as part of your life for a full year. That one doable step opens up support for so many more doable changes.
• SET AN INTENTION. Set your intention for the holiday season or this week or today. How do you want to feel? Declare it. Write it down and put it where you can see it. As you approach things throughout the day or week or season, ask: Does this fit with my intention? Let your intention guide your choices and how you show up.
• WRITE A PERMISSION SLIP. Permission and commitment go hand in hand, so give yourself permission for self-nurturing. THat means giving yourself permission to prioritize yourself, your needs, your intention, what matters to you. Write it out as a permission slip. And then commit to one act of self-nurturing. (And then another and then another …)

We all get caught up in the hustle, the busyness, the millions of things that need to get done. And we get pulled away from that important work that moves our business (and our lives) forward. 

–Megan Flatt

On this episode of the PlanSimple Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with Megan Flatt, founder of Focus Sessions, about getting things done 90 minutes at a time — and how this fits with the goals and planning we do in FLOW365.

Focus Sessions are hosted virtual co-working sessions to get done the important things that move you towards your goals. In FLOW365, we used to do something similar called Get It Done sessions, because it’s easy to have a plan, but get distracted.

Focus Sessions take advantage of something called social effervescence. We perform better when others around us are doing a similar thing. Add in a flow to get you focused and some accountability, and Focus Sessions really help people get things done.

We talk about: 

• The difference between physical co-working spaces and virtual co-working (and how you could use Focus Sessions in a co-working space)
• How to prepare to focus
• The power of declaring and sharing what you are going to do
• Choosing a bucket for your focus session—Deep Work, Planning & Visioning, or Clearing the Deck—and why each is important
• Creating a container to get things done — and scheduling when you will do things
• Finding what’s working and not working in our focus and productivity so that we make adjustments

BIO

Megan Flatt is the CEO of Let's Collective, a business growth strategy firm devoted to making entrepreneurship easier. She is also the founder of Focus Sessions, a virtual coworking and accountability membership to get your most important work done. Let's Collective's mission is to help small businesses scale without burning out through strategic planning, revenue focused decisions and science backed accountability.

Megan is obsessed with lattes, post-it notes and helping women make money. When not doing that, she's hanging with her husband and two kids, probably near the water, in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can catch up with Megan at letcollective.co or focus-sessions.com.

LINKS

• https://www.focus-sessions.com/
• https://plansimple.com/flow365

Doable Changes from this episode:

• CHECK OUT FLOW365. If you’re intrigued by the idea of Focus Sessions, check out FLOW365. Focus Sessions are part of this year-long program because we know it’s not enough to have a goal and a plan — you need time to do the work too. And when you can do it with other people and accountability, you’ll be even more productive.
• SCHEDULE TIME TO DO DEEP WORK. If you aren’t a FLOW365er or Focus Session member, you can still schedule time to do Deep Work. Block off 90 minutes on your calendar. Turn off notifications. Put up a do not disturb sign. Take some deep breaths to settle in. Then declare exactly what you are focusing on. Text it to a friend for some accountability. Set a timer and begin.
• CLEAR THE DECKS. When you’re overwhelmed with a to-do list that’s out of control or your desk is so chaotic you can’t think, it’s time to clear the deck. Clearing the deck clears mental space and energy for other work and may help replenish and refresh you to do your deep work and visioning. Set a timer and do a bunch of tasky items—filing, making appointments, powering through emails, declutter your desk.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein

I did not love school. 

School was actually some of the hardest days of my life. 

And then I found glimpses of a different kind of info – about entrepreneurship, food, personal development, mindfulness, productivity, spirituality, magic … 

It started somewhere near my 30th birthday with 3 books — Simplicity Parenting, Think and Grow Rich, and The Artist’s Way. They opened my worldview and I became a lifelong learner.

Fast forward 16 years … I am aware everytime I press submit on a podcast that I am adding more content into a world overflowing with content.

I have a bookshelf filled with books, some (many) unread.

I have a folder filled with eBooks.

And then there is so much learning that lives in a cloud — courses, summits, audible books, and an inbox FILLED with ideas.

Most of us accumulate more knowledge assets than we consume or implement.

These days I do a lot of teaching — in FLOW365, on summits, on other podcasts, in other peoples courses. This has made me super conscious of my capacity to learn and implement. 

Add pieces about FLOW, Monday Calls and Focus Sessions, Planning Sessions.

I make an effort to learn and implement more than I teach.

To do that, I have to make time and space for learning, growing and implementing in a way that fits in my life, so I thought I would share some of that back out…

I decide what learning season I’m in depending on what I need instead of what the world might think I need. Start by knowing what you need – what change you want to make. I have gotten good at discerning between what I need to learn and what is a shiny object. If I buy a summit, I don’t try to do it all. I look at all the talks and commit to the ones that will really support the change I am trying to make.

I have a learning budget that is more about return on time than money. This season I dived into perimenopause and a partner program for PlanSimple — two totally different topics relevant to this season. I’m hopeful that the partner program will have a good return on money, but also in time (more partners helping me fill programs means less time doing it myself). Perimenopause isn’t likely to bring me money directly, but it saves me time and helps me work through something that could derail me. Learning about food, parenting, coaching, running a podcast … all fit into different seasons for me, and that learning paid off whether or not you could see it in my bank account. 

I balance learning between different learning modalities — audio that I can walk with, coursework that I am in front of a computer to do, reading and writing. 

I keep a google sheet with all online material — name of course, link to sign-in page, username, password, expiration date. I check this spreadsheet before I buy something new, a trick I learned after buying my third Pinterest course. You may find another way to keep track of things, but I highly recommend organizing your learning material. 

I decide when I will learn the material. Sometimes I get something I cannot do immediately, and sometimes I am ready to go right away. I always decide on my own timeline, so I don’t feel behind.

Once I learn it, I decide if (and when) I want to implement new ideas. I take notes by documenting to-dos, habits, and the most important thing. Just because you paid for a class or a book, doesn’t mean you have to do it. You might find something that doesn’t resonate or that one piece makes you say Yes and the rest falls away. Or you might realize that what you learned would be better implemented in another season. Documenting each lesson when you are learning is a way to remember what I need to know when it is time to implement. I’m all for learning broadly, because we don’t know what we don’t know, but too much learning without implementing can make us feel behind or like something should be different but isn’t. 

New knowledge and action are required for change (small steps encouraged).

Let me repeat that last part — small steps encouraged. I talk a lot about doable changes because for the most part we don’t make change as a big dramatic upheaval. We do it in increments that we stick with. As you are learning, look for doable changes, small things you can implement and if you find a new process or system, look to break it down into doable bits. 

Are you excited to dive into learning again — whether it’s a summit you bought a while back, a book that just arrived on your desk, or a class that’s coming up? 

I made you a planning sheet to help keep track of your learning. You can print for each class, talk in a summit, or module in a course.

Your Best Holiday Season Ever is coming up December 3, 4 and 5!!! In three afternoons — eastern time — we are going to get relaxed, resourced and ready for the Holiday Season and 2022!

I hope you will join us. As always this event is FREE. This time it is actually live!!!! I feel like we need as close to real connection as possible right now. This means our teachers will be teaching live, and you get to interact with them and an amazing community live.

Links

• Simplicity Parenting
• Think and Grow Rich
• The Artist’s Way
• Maneuvering Menopause with Shelly Burns