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It's the end of the year and we're all kind of… well, looking REALLY forward to next year.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking BACK to take stock, look at what REALLY happened, celebrate our wins and learn from our missed opportunities.

In this episode, we'll break down exactly how to assess your year so you can make the next one even better.

Ready to review your year? Grab this handy download to guide you through the process – and let us know what you find out!

Alyson Lex 0:01
know if you're like me, and you set some goals and then forget them, which if you are, we've had some amazing episodes about that, and we're going to talk about it more on our next episode. But reviewing your year and figuring out how to strategize for the next year is kind of a big deal. So on today's episode, we're going to talk all about that. Before we dive in, I would love to ask you subscribe to the podcast, don't miss next next week's episode. And if it feels right to you, please feel free to leave us an honest review. We'd love to hear feedback. But now we're gonna dive in and Jenny, I want to hear from you. Do you set goals and forget them each year? Or do you actually stick to things? Like me?

Unknown Speaker 0:48
This is a rhetorical question.

Unknown Speaker 0:51
Well, oh,

Jennie Wright 0:52
so I set some I set goals, I absolutely set goals. And then I give myself permission to occasionally not do about 25% of them.

Alyson Lex 1:04
I like that that's exactly what I'm gonna say I do from now on.

Jennie Wright 1:06
Yeah, because you set all these lofty goals, and then you're and you're just like, Oh, damn, this isn't gonna work. But I'm getting more into the goal setting as I go. And we did have a really great episode on goal setting. I believe it was Episode 20. No, it was bonus episode with August Crenshaw,

Alyson Lex 1:24
that's right is one of our business building blocks. Yeah,

Jennie Wright 1:26
one of every business building blocks. And so go check that one out. But I'm definitely feeling more that I have to go set. Because as I get more advanced and busier and what I'm doing in my own business, that goal setting is almost an imperative at this point, or I'm not going to hit the goals.

Alyson Lex 1:45
And I think one of the things that I've always done wrong, and I see a lot of other people do wrong, is we create these goals that actually don't have anything to do with what we've already done. And I know that's why today, we wanted to go ahead and talk about kind of your year in review, if you will, mm, reviewing your year, what that looks like what you should focus on. And I'm really excited to dive into this content. Because I think it's going to be a bit of a game changer, especially as we kind of close things out, settle back a little bit for the holiday, and all that stuff. So why should we review our year? Talk to me, Oh, geez. I'm like, I'm kind of interviewing you today. I don't know. You're better at this than me. So I'm asking you all the questions I really want to know, wow,

Unknown Speaker 2:37
this just the

Jennie Wright 2:38
this just podcast podcast just changed format and two seconds. Okay. Actually, the this is really, it's really interesting. And because it's a special holiday today, it is the holidays right now. And Happy Holidays to everybody who's listening, whatever it is that you celebrate, we wish you safe and happy holidays and all the ways that you can possibly do this during this crazy time. But you're gonna have to repeat that question for me. Funny enough.

Alyson Lex 3:07
So how about I just answer it. So reviewing your year, why you do it. The thing that really makes a difference for me is it allows me to set more reasonable goals for the following year. For instance, if I managed to do $5,000 months, every month in 2020, which you know, that's not the actual number, but a lot of people do. They're like, yeah, $5,000 months, it's not really reasonable for me to say, I'm going to hit a $40,000 a month in January through December of 21. No, so really setting something reasonable. But also, by taking stock of what you've already done. You then can make plans more accordingly with how you're going to achieve your goals the following year. So

Jennie Wright 3:58
I'm actually ready to answer that question now.

Alyson Lex 4:00
Now, now that I've answered it, she's ready. I'm ready to piggyback on here.

Unknown Speaker 4:05
Yes, sir.

Alyson Lex 4:06
Let's do it. Yay.

Jennie Wright 4:08
Um, the other thing that I think that we should review our year regularly is a little bit for me a little bit more than just Hey, did I have a 5000? You know, I've been hitting five k every month and now I want to hit the 14th or something, which is unrealistic unless you're planning a really big launch. I think the other thing that we need to think about is where the gaps were. I did not expect in 2020 that I actually I did not expect 2020 in totality but I absolutely did not expect in 2020 it's okay to have a giggle. I I did not expect good back. That was I was actually very good. mean that there but I did not expect that in 2020 that I would have to have some things that happened in my life. I didn't expect that. I will Wouldn't be moving again. And that happened during a pandemic. don't recommend during

Alyson Lex 5:07
the launch,

Jennie Wright 5:08
during a launch of God, yeah, as I was right it was during the launch, it was when we were launching the podcast, super fun. And during a pandemic, which meant that we couldn't have anybody come in and help us move, which meant we did it all ourselves, yay, us. But on top of that, I, you know, I didn't expect half the stuff. So when I look at 2021, I almost have to look at my results from 2020. And think about what happened in the moment. And this is one of the reasons I don't know about you, but I keep a calendar. And I write silly stuff in my calendar of when things kind of happened, like, you know, moved, had surgery. You know, silly stuff like that, that really does impact your year. And then I can go back and go, why was that month so poopy? Oh, because I forgot that we were actually launching. All I remember, and my brain is moving. But you remember the launch? Because you were doing like 99% of the frickin lion's share of the work of the

Alyson Lex 6:05
moving? Yeah. So it didn't affect me as much. What affected you? Well, it affected me the same way that it did with you. Yeah. And I think I really liked that aspect of kind of reviewing everything and kind of giving yourself some asterisks. Yes. Right. This happened. It's I've not been shy about it. But for most of 2020, I have been dealing with a major depressive and anxiety episode. Yeah, we just talked about that this morning. We did just talk about that this morning. And I've been pushing through and I've been kind of a trooper about it. But I haven't been on my game the way that I would be otherwise. And so by looking at not just the business side, but looking at the personal stuff, you can say, What happened here? Yeah, either good or bad. Yeah. And how did that affect? What results I was able to get in my business, and why. And I think that and we'll talk about this more on our next episode. But it allows you to kind of almost build in some additional stuff for eventualities that may happen like that. I know that my own personal mental health cycle, I'm probably good for about a year and a half to two years before another major depressive episode hits, barring a second global pandemic, because nobody saw that one coming. But I can take this opportunity now to build in additional support, additional self care, additional XYZ, so that when not if, when another major depressive episode happens, I'm covered. I have the systems and things in place. And so I know we'll talk about that more in our next episode,

Jennie Wright 7:50
we totally will. And I think we should Asterix this particular spot to actually say that we should talk about even changing your business because you're making a real dial change in your business that will support you going forward more than the current style that your business has been made up of.

Alyson Lex 8:10
Absolutely. And so that's something that might need to be on the radar as well. And so, all of these things when it comes to your year and review, it's not just the tactics, it's the life. Yeah, because there's that quote, that an entrepreneur is the only person that will work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 Yeah, and it's so true, or what is it? I'm live like, live now like no one else will so later you can live like no one else can. And they're meant to be motivational and I understand the heart of it. But it is really hard to live in the now when you're feeling so overwhelmed and so over stretched and so overextended and, and all of these things. So what happened in your year, personally, professionally, relationships, what have you? That was good.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
Mm hmm.

Alyson Lex 9:07
What happened? That wasn't?

Jennie Wright 9:09
Yeah, and it's okay to have that honest look at it. And we don't want you to, we don't want you to bash yourself. Poop happens, it happens to everybody all the time. And it's how you deal with it and how you move on from it and how you learn from it. And, you know, that's, that's what we want you to focus on. And we're actually we're actually creating a template for this. So if you head on over to the page for this particular episode, and I believe this is Episode 27. Then if you head on over to System to THRIVE, comm forward slash to seven, the numerals to seven, you can grab our rerun a review, template download, this is going to help you take a look at the year. This is an unbiased look at how it went the good, the bad, and all the things so that you can actually You know, have a really good perspective and plan for the next year and go ain't gonna do that again or definitely doing that, because that worked.

Alyson Lex 10:09
I love the whole judgment free zone. Yeah, we spend a lot of time really harshly judging ourselves. And let's stop that. Okay, so for this year and review, judgment free,

Unknown Speaker 10:21
yeah.

Alyson Lex 10:23
Step one is you're going to go month by month, you're gonna list out what you launched, list out what you did collect information on your income, if you don't have that readily available. I'll let you guess which one of us doesn't have it readily available, and which one of us does

Jennie Wright 10:40
click of a button, my dear?

Alyson Lex 10:41
Yeah, no click of a checking all my accounts and adding things up. But get all of your information together, and list it out, and then begin to figure out either using your memory using your data using actually a good mix of both. Figure out which ones were successful for you. And then you can begin to dive into why.

Jennie Wright 11:11
And if you're lucky to have a big bestie, like I do, who actually knows pretty much how everything has been going, she'll remind me that I did really, really well in this spot. And she'll be really honest and say, dude, this just, you know, this was not a good thing, right? I forget. And you and I had this conversation recently, I forget all the stuff that I have accomplished this year, or that you've accomplished this year, even in the you know, even how you've been feeling for the past, gosh, nine months, you were still able to launch a little side business with me launch a podcast, right? Take on a brand new I you know, look into your business, do all these kinds of things. You accomplished a lot.

Alyson Lex 11:55
I did. I did. And I you know, I did meet some of my goals. So I set really kind of audacious goals. But they're audacious, like, I have x number of podcasts that I want to appear on as a guest. For my visibility, I have a certain amount of list growth, I have a certain amount of revenue. And I'm able to say yes, I met that goal. And that's also really important. Give yourself a pat on the back. If you have a revenue goal of who's going to pick around number of $100,000. If that's your revenue goal, and you made it to 98. Awesome, still a win, total win, right? Especially when you look at your previous year. And you see how far you've come. So your year in review is not just self contained? No, it's how have I grown? And so that's really important to include as well. Where did I start? How have I grown, look at your month, over month numbers? Did you do $1,000 a month in January, but $5,000 a month starting in May, that's a growth, that's a win. So in the template that we're going to give you, we're going to have a place for you to list your wins. And then we're going to have a place for you to list your opportunities. We're not going to call them losses, we're not going to call them failures. Because they're not you learn something, you discovered something, you practice something, you tried something Mm hmm. And now it's an opportunity to move forward. So where are the opportunities,

Jennie Wright 13:31
I think it's also to great to mention in there the personal growth that you've had. So we're going to include a little spot for the personal growth, because maybe, even though you may not have hit your income goal in one month, or you may not have hit your goal of how many podcasts you want to be on. Maybe that's when you started doing something for yourself care, like your self care. Or maybe that's when you started a new workout routine, or yoga, or you started doing walks with the dog like something and that had, you know, a benefit to your business. Because I always think that your your self care is very much tied to your success. So be working out or whatever the case is. I know I struggle and I suffer if I can't get in my regular like walks out in nature.

Alyson Lex 14:14
Oh my goodness, you just yesterday you got overwhelmed and you're like I'm done going for a long walk. I'll see you in an hour and a half. Yep. And you came back in your head was more clear. And so and also growth, personal growth as it directly relates to your business. Like for me, one of my wins this year, is that I'm showing up one video a lot more than I was the year before. Thank you to this podcast, which as of this moment that we're talking about this, we haven't really used those videos as much. But I'm there and they're recorded and I'm comfortable. And so it allows me to say wow, this is actually now an asset that I have in my business moving forward. Is my comfort level and my ability on video. So we're going to help you kind of figure out all of those things that you can take with you into next year, knowing you have actual, not tangible, but actual assets and actual benefits and things that you can bring to next year to help you grow even more, but also to help you plan. And I know I just said Jenny's favorite four letter word, plan.

Jennie Wright 15:33
Yep. And that leads us to talking about your overall year review, which is really important. Want you to start looking at things like your social media numbers, write them down? where you are right now, like, how many followers how many, you know, how much visibility? Are you getting? Whatever initiatives you had, list them all out? And then you can I love doing this, this is a little personal thing of mine. But I love looking back, like my last year, when I did my little review, and be like, wow, I only had so many followers on my such and such. And now I have such and such. Wow, that's like a huge increase, like, you know, whatever, because I don't do percentages because math and Jenny aren't friends.

Alyson Lex 16:09
But hashtag writer for a reason over Exactly. I

Jennie Wright 16:13
don't even I mean, sorry, Mr. Soto grade 11. Math teacher, I'm so sorry. But I want you to review your entire year. And I want you to include that information. what went well? What could use some additional improvement? And what results to these initiatives give you so what paid out? Was it regularly posting on Instagram, and having a good call to action, you know, link in my bio kind of stuff in the link in your bio went to the lead magnet, therefore, you grew your list in that year by X amount of people to your new lead magnet, that's a great return. And then you can look at the next year and go How can I make it even better? Right, but you can't do that. Unless you know and quite honestly, if you're like me, January is pretty freakin fuzzy right now. March, April, a lot of may too. So you know, if it's written down,

Alyson Lex 17:05
then it's easier to make the list. Oh my god, see,

Jennie Wright 17:08
I missed an entire month. That's how bad it is. Because I mean, it's just a mind brain is like Alison's just giggling over there. I can't remember it. I don't know. And I need you know, I can't rely on my own memory to tell me because I'm focused so hard on what I'm doing right now. And I can't ask Alison to keep telling me what happened. She just reminded me I missed a whole frickin 28 days, you know, 29 if it's a leap year, but I I need to have these numbers myself. And this will help you This will help you so much. Don't look at it as work. Look, it is fun. I actually think this is something really cool to do over the holidays. Just kind of like go Yeah, man, I did. I did good this year, I you know, I accomplished some stuff. And I think that's great. I think I love that.

Alyson Lex 17:57
Another thing that it's going to do is it's gonna show you the holes in your data. So some of these numbers may not exist for you. You may say, you know what I've been posting every day on Instagram with a link in my bio, and I have no idea if it's working. And that's going to get written down in the opportunity area. Right, I now have an opportunity to create a system to track this better, whether that's a dedicated Instagram landing page, or a tag or whatever, I'm going to do something to track this so that I can measure it. And it's going to give you that wind list the list that you can take with you into next year. So if you head to System to thrive.com slash two, seven, the number two and the number seven, you'll get our little template workbook thingamajig that we're putting together for you to walk you through this process in a more system oriented way. Because right now we're just kind of having fun, we're talking about it. We're really relaxed. We're going to keep this super short, because it is a holiday. And

Jennie Wright 19:11
yeah, it's amazing to do that this week. Exactly. And we're gonna have more fun with it next week. Next week's episode is actually awesome, because we're gonna be talking about how to take the data and turn it into plans that make 2021 successful. So come back and see us one week from today when we drop the next episode that's actually going to be on New Year's Eve. It's so good.

Alyson Lex 19:33
So he's excited to get out of 2020.

Jennie Wright 19:36
incredibly excited to get out it's one. All right. So thank you so much for being on and listening to this particular episode. And if you haven't already, please do go and check us out and hit that subscribe button wherever it is that you're listening to podcasts. We would love to have you not miss an episode. We dropped three a week. A Monday quick tip, sometimes even during the week. We offer an extra like an extra episode with a special guest. And then you have Allison and I coming out on Thursdays. And that is going to be how we're going to be for 2021. We're super excited about that. So please do check that out, as well as leave us an honest review if that feels good to you. Thanks so much for being here. And we'll be back soon answering another big question.