620 - Your 5-step Strategic Plan for an Expansive 2025

Welcome to the Next Level Life podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some kick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets on what it takes to rise and thrive. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I want to talk to you about the five step strategic plan that if you really want to have a growth year. So there are different types of years that you can experience from a maintenance year where you're not really intentionally wanting to grow, but you just want to maintain your current level of income or current level of success. There are definitely systems and processes years where you're literally building out the systems behind the scenes and the processes in order for you to have a growth year. Then there's obviously having growth years. So I have a big belief that you need to intentionally have a plan and go in with the intention of wanting to grow. Otherwise it can be challenging to create a growth year or two or sometimes quite dysregulating when you do have a level of success come through because you don't have actually anything set up or you have no intention around it. So you haven't really planned for it. So today I want to talk to you about this on the podcast. I've been working on this with my clients behind the scenes, so I've been doing this with my next level mastermind. Ladies recently had our online retreat day which was so beautiful. Honestly, I had the best day and it's we had the beautiful Joey Hill come in and run a breathwork session and it was such a beautiful, expansive breathwork session that was all about staying, stepping into our 2025 vision and releasing 2024. It was just absolutely magical. I even had some beautiful breakthroughs and some real epiphanies drop in which is going to shape my 2025. And then we also talked about our word. So what word we had chosen for 2024, how that panned out and then choosing our word for 2025. Now I haven't actually chosen my word for 20, 25. So I'm going to think I want to speak about this in the new year, because for me, I just find every single year this happens. I try to push it or I try to think about, like, hey, what's my word going to be in December? And it just doesn't happen. I have to wait until I've had a break for it to drop in in the beginning of January. So I'm not going to push it. I'm not going to expect it. I know what type of year I want to have, but the word has not come to me just yet. Last year, my word was embodied, and that word really came to me in January. It was you. You are going to step into this next version of yourself. Success wise, body wise, confidence wise, belief wise. Like, that was my intention. That embodied belief. And oh my gosh, what a year it was. Honestly, I feel like that is exactly what happened. It transpired in such a magical way. I wrote my book in the process of the year as well, and that has definitely been an expansion in its own. And because the book is about imposter syndrome, I really lived it. Like, I literally had these moments and experiences which were really challenging me to be like, hey, this is what you're teaching in the book. Are you going to put it into practice? And I did and saw incredible outcomes. And I had moments where I was like, oh, I'm not. Don't feel like I belong here. I don't feel like I know enough here. I don't feel like I'm good enough here. Like all the imposter syndrome stuff, but yet I still, like, experienced it. Like, I was like, oh, this is going to be so good for the book. And it was so interesting when I did that. I embraced it, which is what I teach you in the book, to embrace the fear, to. To transmute the fear, and then work with it for your expansion. And it was absolutely an expansive year for me. And so much of that has come to the second half of the year. I think that's one of the things that we often have happen. I don't know if you've experienced this, but maybe you said a word at the beginning of the year and then nothing kind of happened for a couple of months. And I was saying this within the Mastermind day last week, where sometimes we set that word. And what actually happens is that our year is setting us up to prepare for us to step into that word. So. So it's actually like removing things. It's presenting challenges and obstacles for you in Order for you to grow, to be prepared for this next level of success or whatever that word is. And sometimes it doesn't seem like it shows up in the way that we'd asked for, but it's actually what you need it in order for you to have that word. So whatever your word was, I want you to think back to the beginning of 2024 and what word you chose. And I want you to ask yourself, like, how did it play out? How did it play out for you? Was it actually the universe taking things away or giving you challenges in order for you to level up? Maybe to sh your mindset about something to cause you to level up in a way that you didn't think was possible? Like, how did it show up for you? Because sometimes we say, like, oh, I want to have abundance. And so we have this word abundance. But what actually happens is these challenges or these experiences that literally cause you to address what's going on for you, abundance wise and what's actually causing the lack of abundance. Right. So I really want you to think about how that played out for you, because I honestly have such a big belief. I'm going to do a whole nother podcast on this around everything happening for you. And when we embrace life like that, it can be a beautiful experience of what life has to offer. And yeah, like, I feel like that's what this year has definitely been about. And so 2025, like, if you really want to have a year where it is a big growth year for you, I have a big belief that you need to have that intention and go in it with a really great plan. So today I want to talk about the strategy of that. And so I'm doing this also tomorrow with my unstoppable sales ladies. We're going to be mapping out 2025 and really planning out what that's going to look like for them in the new year. And I love doing this type of work. I love planning. I love sitting with all the thoughts and all the ideas and all the expansion plans and really bringing it to life. And for me, this is going to be on a whole new level next year because I have literally planned that my whole year. I have a big flip chart in my office and I have that mapped out across the year of every single month. What's happening in each month, what we're focusing on, what the purpose of with my business is it like, what are we launching? What are we promoting? What are we. What value are we adding to our audience? And I say our because I think about My team with me doing this and like, what events I'm attending, what events I'm speaking at, what events I want to run. Like, I'm so excited I have an event coming and I can't wait to tell you about it. But I can't tell you about it yet. I really want to just lock everything in first and then really like wow you with what is going to happen next year. So for me, I really want to plan out the year ahead and so I'm going to go with you through with what I do and then I want to take my clients through. So grab a pen and paper because it's definitely something you will most likely want to take notes for. So first step in the five steps is your goals. You have to be clear on what you want to create. So get super clear on what your goals are. Plan out your vision for the, for the business. Plan out your vision for your life for next year. Now, sometimes we need to go further in advance in order to do this. So you might need to actually think like five years down the track and then reverse engineer it. But we need to reverse engineer it from somewhere. So reverse engineer from either five years and then break it down to the one year or if that's too hard, do two years. Like, you should at least be able to think two years in advance of like how old you will be if you've got kids, how old your kids will be, what will be happening? Where do you want to be living? What do you want to be experiencing? What do you want your business to do? What income do your business need to be making in order for you to have the life that you really want to live? Like, map it all out and get super clear. Now one of the things that, where people go wrong is literally this first step. And I know it seems so simple to be like, yeah, write your goals down. But if your goals are vague, it is very hard to make a strategic plan. Your goals need to be measurable, they need to be specific, they need to have a timeline around them. Use the smart acronym, right? Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. If you're not using that acronym, I feel like it doesn't really get clear enough. And then the extra two things that I always add on is the emotional side. So I find that the smart thing is very masculine and we're missing out the emotional intuition kind of side. And so I always add er, so smarter. And this is just my way of thinking about this. So smarter is E is emotional. So are you emotionally connected to this goal. So what is your why behind it? You need to have a why. If you're not emotionally connected to that goal, you most likely write in that goal down because you think you should or you have to. And it's actually not something that you want to take action towards. So make sure it's connected emotionally. And then the R stands for readiness. How committed are you to that goal? And so I always score, like, between a 0 to a 10, 10 being fully committed. It's going to happen to, you know, an eight being kind of like, yeah, I'm almost there to five, being kind of one foot in, one foot out, and zero, obviously, or one being, like, not committed at all. If you don't know your commitment level, then it's going to be very hard to determine whether you're actually going to take action on it. So figure out what your commitment level is. And even if you need to ask yourself, okay, what would have to happen for me to make it a 10 out of 10, that will help you show shift what you need to shift. Because you need to either figure out, is it a mindset block? Is it a fear block? Is it something that you're telling yourself that can't happen? Do you not have a knowledge? Is there a knowledge gap happening there? Because sometimes that readiness thing is we're not feeling ready, and that's where we're focusing on the wrong thing. It's not about being feeling ready. It's about taking the next step towards what you want to achieve. The other thing I want to highlight here is that the goals that we're setting here is the intention is to create goals that we're going to be so proud of ourselves, of who we become in the process of achieving those goals. So this is where people go wrong. They set goals, and then they. If they don't hit them, they beat themselves up. They judge themselves. They think that they're failures. But that's not the purpose of goals. Goals are not necessarily set to be achieved. And I know that kind of sounds ridiculous because it's like, well, of course they are, Christine. Of course they want to achieve our goals. Yes, I know you do. Yes, we should want to achieve our goals. We need to be ready and committed for them. But life happens, and sometimes other forms of magic comes in, and it's about shooting for the moon and landing on the stars. Like, I just love that old quote. So if you think about it like that, that you want to set the goal and you want to measure it and you want to learn from when you, whether you've achieved it, whether you haven't achieved it, and you most likely going to learn more lessons when you don't achieve the goal and it's more about like what you're aiming and striving for and who you'll become in the process of achieving those goals. So when you shift your mindset to that, it's less about like, oh, but if I don't hit that, I'm going to be disappointed in myself. And I did a whole other episode on this around self disappointment and it's a useless emotion and it doesn't serve us. And we've got to recognize that we get to make whatever our life experiences gives us, we get to choose meaning around that. So we want to look at that and go, okay, what's the meaning around me and not achieving that goal? Is it because I wasn't ready for it? Is it because I didn't learn the lesson? Is it because I didn't actually implement what I said I was going to implement? Is it because I didn't prioritize it? Like there's so many lessons with it. But never, ever, ever should it be, well, I'm shit or I'm failing at this or I suck at this, never that, never the judgment, it does not serve us. So that's the intention of goals. So that's step one. Step two is your plan, so your plan to actually achieve it. So what I normally do next is actually I highlight what are the main things that I would need to prioritize in order for me to hit that goal. And so I nut out like what those priorities are. Like I reverse engineer the goal from one year down to six months, down to three months. And then I have usually that a monthly priority. So we have our monthly priorities, we work out our non negotiables because sometimes there's elements there when we need to get really clear on what is actually going to serve us to say yes to and what do we need to say no to. So what are your non negotiables? And then lastly, what are the behaviors that you need to lean into that you need to prioritize, that you need to be doing on a regular basis consistently in order for you to achieve that goal? If you determine those things and just focus on building the habit with those behaviors, the goal will be an absolute foregone conclusion. But this is some of the work that a lot of people don't do. They don't sit down and go, oh, but if I actually did this weekly, what would happen and they get stuck, they have this, they set the goal and they don't actually know how they're going to achieve that goal. And, and majority of it it's because they're not highlighting what the behaviors are and what the non negotiables and priorities are. So if you're six month and your three month goal, I then want you to highlight what are the main priorities that you've got to focus on and then what are the behaviors you need to be doing on a consistent basis in order to achieve that and then what are your non negotiables? Because if you don't have your non negotiables then we can often be like, what are those, those tumbleweeds in the wind, right? It's just literally at the mercy of the wind. We're literally just rolling around, ending, being bumped around by other people's emotions, other people's goals, what's happening in the world, what's happening on social media. Like we're literally just the tumbleweed in the wind. So if you don't want to be that and you want to have real intention and you want to not get caught up in all the things and you want to have that focus to actually achieve your goals, this is what needs to happen. Get super clear on those non negotiables. Okay, step three, step three is all about the how. So we want to go, okay, now that we've set those goals, how are we going to do this? This is where we get a little bit more strategic. So I would write down exactly then the sales that would need to happen within your business in order for you to achieve those goals. Write down to how many of each offer you would need to sell per month, per quarter, whatever works out for you, depending on how often you sell and the length of service that you have. And so we want to write out as much detail as possible with this. So do you have a sales system in place? If not, then we want to consider maybe it might be time for a sales system because otherwise if you don't know where your sales are going to come from, then you're literally leaving your income up to chance. And we don't want to do that because that's not actually taking control of your goals. So we want to go, okay, what are my sales systems? What am I going to be focusing on? How do I sell in my business? This is what I teach in unstoppable sales. If you don't have a sales system, then it can be. Sometimes you get stuck in the fear and the Confusion of, like, well, I don't know, I'm going to find my next client, right? So, so we build in the sales systems across the year, and this is where I'm usually pulling out my calendar and then mapping everything out across the year. So I'm adding in all my events, I'm adding in all the launches that I'm doing, I'm adding in any challenges that I'm going to run, I'm adding in any webinars that I'm going to run. I'm adding in anything that, anything that I basically think about when it comes to sales. So I really want to map out, like, when am I selling and what am I selling? What are my goals around that and what am I going to do to make that happen? So launches, or another way to think about it would be just promotional periods. And this is where I also teach this in unstoppable sales. Because if you don't have promotional periods and you're just hoping that your social media will help you sell and find clients, this is again, where we're leaving a lot of our income up to chance. Because social media is a social platform and people aren't there to be sold to. So we're really just hoping, wishing and praying the right people see the right content at the right time. Whereas if we have an intentional promotional period and we're really thinking about how we're planting that seed for our clients, we're nurturing them, and then we're setting them up to actually feel confident in order to buy the product that you're selling or the service that you're selling. And so that takes intentional focus. And otherwise it's just like, you know, you're often leaving your content to the last minute, and then it doesn't actually turn any results. So we're really, literally, this is where we're getting into the nitty gritty, right? We're going how we're going to achieve this. What do I need to prioritize and what are the sales systems I need to have in place in order for me to achieve those sales? I'm mapping that out across the year. Usually then I'll map out my holidays. So I don't want to burn out. That's the last thing that I want to do. And so I look at, okay, what trips am I taking next year? I'm heading to the States probably twice. I also want to do a trip to Bali just for a relax and retreat. And I also just want to be conscious of not burning out. So I want to make sure that I'm maximizing my time away. So I'm going to be running some retreats for my next little Mastermind. Ladies, there will not be a Thrive retreat next year. Just FYI, if you've been thinking about joining the next one, you will need to be a part of the next level Mastermind. If you would like to go on a retreat with me. Because that's actually all it's going to be next year. It'll be part of the next level Mastermind. So you can add your name to the wait list. The link is in the show notes. Just add your name to the wait list and I'll reach out to you and share the details and then you can determine whether the next level Mastermind will be the right fit for you. Okay, so we work out your sales. We work at the strategic piece of like, what is. Where are you going to find your clients? Who do you need to get in front of, like all of the things? Then we step into number four, which is who, who do we need? So this is broken down to visibility and your network. So we start there and then we determine your team. So visibility, network and team is under step four. So we go, okay, visibly, who do we need to get in front of with the offers that we want to sell? Who do we need to get in front of? How many people do we need to get in front of? And what is my strategy around that? Because a lot of the time if we don't have the leads, then the sales, which is with step three, is not going to work. So we need to make sure that we're prioritizing visibility activities. So for me, this is where I'm like doing more podcast interviewing. This is where I'm speaking at more events. This is where I'm running events. Like, I'm really thinking about, like, how do I get in front of the right audience and be intentional around that? It's not just social media, it's a lot of other things. So I really plan out like my visibility goals and my plans around visibility and then I think about my network. Who is a high value person that would help me get in front of more of this audience? Who else would I like to be connected in order for me to achieve my goals all year? In 2024, I was a part of Chris and Laurie Harder's Mastermind and this was what it was all about. It's being connected to high value people. And you would be so surprised of how many of your problems in your business can be solved by being Connected to the right people and the way that they do this, and this is a very American way to do this and I fucking love it. And Australians need to adopt. This is, it's about pouring into your network and building incredible relationships. It's not about giving to get, it's not about just building the connections to be like, what can I get from them? Like, there is no scarcity element from this. There's no competition. This is all about collaboration and, and giving, like literally giving for the joy of giving. And so I had a conversation with a high value person I really value in my life at the moment. And I had a conversation with her last week and far out. Like, she's just so amazing. And she just like, oh, how else can I help you? What else are you working on? And I was just chatting to her about this event that I want to run next year and she's like, yes, absolutely, I will support you in that. Like what, what do you need? And I'm like, oh my God, this is so good. And so I also then obviously want to do the same for her. It's that reciprocal energy. And so this is where you want to really think about who do you want to be connected with? Who are your high value people need to be surrounded by in order for you to have your goals become a foregone conclusion? And then the last one is team. Who do you need on your team in order to achieve your goals? This may be everyone from expanding your team. So if you're looking at scaling and having a growth year, this is where you really need to spend some time because you need to maybe consider like, where are you spending your non negotiables, your priorities and your behaviors? Like when you look at the that list, then you will go, okay, how am I going to allocate time for that? Where am I currently spending my time? And do I need to actually get a new team member in order to overcome all the time spent in this area? Right. This is honestly one of the biggest things we need to do and you may need to like invest before you're ready in order for you to create that space. Secondly, it could be that you need to upscale your team. Like maybe you've been running on bare minimum or maybe you've been, you know, playing small with hiring, hiring just someone who's kind of a generalist. But maybe you need a specialist or maybe you need to hire proper team, who knows, depending on where you're at in business. And then lastly then who else do you need on your team to Achieve your goals. So do you need accountability? Do you need a coach? Do you need a mentor? Do you need friends to be aware of your goals? Do you need your partner to be aware of your goals? Because when you're going after them and you're sacrificing maybe time with family or sacrificing time with friends, do you need to let them know? Do you need to ask them for their support? Make sure that you communicate your goals with those people because they're the ones that are going to most likely hold you accountable and secondly, support you when you need it. So make sure that you take the time to do that over Christmas or New Year. All right, that brings me to step five and one of my favorite steps. This is about the mindset side. So if you don't have all the mindset to support everything that we've just mapped out, then it's a waste of time, right? So we need to do the mindset work. What are the belief systems that we need to have in order for those goals to again become a foregone conclusion? We need to consider that mindset. So what I normally do is I will write out like, what are the belief systems that I need to shift? Is there anything that's preventing me? What's holding me back? What fears do I have when I think about those big goals? What might show up for me? What are my wounds? What are my shadows that are going to prevent me from getting there? What am I, how am I going to self sabotage? Like if you're at know ahead of time, how you most likely going to sabotage, it's much easier to overcome it in the process. And then what we want to do is really determine who do I need to be in order for my goals to become the foregone conclusion. So who do you need to become to achieve those goals? When we do this, I really map it out. I want you to think about visualizing it. So I would actually spend time meditating on this and visualizing that next level vision. Now that I've got the goals written down, I visualize what that would feel like. The experience of it. I like give it like literally like play a movie in my head of exactly how I want to experience it. Really visualize it right to every little fine you finite detail. And so once we visualize it, then we go, okay, so what belief systems would my future self be having in order for me to achieve those goals? What would she believe about herself? What would she believe about business? What would she believe about life? What would you believe about money, like whatever it is that shows up for you, we need to uncover those belief systems because it's most likely that you don't necessarily have those locked in just yet. So we need to actually embed those new belief systems. And then the last little thing that I love to do, which is a new inclusion that I've started doing, is using ChatGPT to create a Day in the Life prompt that I can use for scripting. So scripting is one of my favorite ways to shift belief systems to step into my future vision and to manifest. So I literally jump into ChatGPT and I say, hey Chat, can you help me create a Day in the Life script of my future self who has already achieved all of these goals? So I literally write down all the goals that I've written down my future life, like how I want to be living my life at that point point, what do I want to be experiencing? And then I say chat, can you please write a Day in the Life description using high vibrational words and highly emotional words that describe every stage of my day once I have achieved all of these goals and then see what it pumps out. You would be so blown away. And then just adjust whatever feels right for you because you really want to like bring that vision that you had in your mind to life. And then the one of the things that I do is I read that every single morning until it becomes true. It's so much fun. It's so much fun and it's honestly starts to shift your vibration, your energy and you start to manifest those goals much faster than you would have if you just thought about it once and put them aside. So then lastly, if you want to use a word, then that's where I would bring in my word. What's my word that I'm going to embody for the year and then have that really as your North Star. And then lastly I really want you to think about then how you will measure your goals. Because as much as you write them down and you do all this planning, this planning is great, but if you don't execute on it, then it's not going to serve you. So I would then put it in my calendar. I've literally scheduled everything into my calendar. I have mapped out a yearly plan which is on my wall which I see visually every single day. And then I think about like what are my check ins? Like every Sunday I check in with my weekly goals, but then every month I'm doing a meeting with my OBM on our, on our business goals. And then I always do a quarterly focus as well, so I always like to break it down to a 90 day sprint and go, okay, what's the plan for the next 90 days? And then I go through that with my OBM, so then she knows that she's fully across it, and then I go to work. So I really hope you think about this in a really strategic way, because I know that there's plenty of ways to map out your goals and plan for your year, but this is my way of doing it. So I hope that you've loved this episode, I hope that you've taken lots of notes, and then if you have any questions at all, feel free to reach out and DM me. Otherwise, I'm gonna pop in the show notes, a link to a guide that I've created which is about releasing 2024. So if you don't feel like you're ready to actually think about 2025 and you need to really, like, take the time to actually defrag and like, just think about the year that just was and unpack everything, then this guide helps you do that and gives you a couple of rituals to actually release the year. And then we then work on planning out 2025. So if you'd love access to that, just click the link in the show notes. You can check that out. It's called my transcend 2024 guide. And yeah, that's there for you for free. And you don't even have to put your email address in. You can just literally just grab it. And then if you have any questions, send me a dm. Otherwise, I hope you have an incredible week and keep tuned for the podcast. We've got some incredible interviews coming up really soon and I hope you have an amazing week. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episodes as soon as the alive. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at Christine Corcoran Underscore Coach. Have an incredible week.