Christine Corcoran says business owners who don't plan for 2026 now will hit an income slump in December or start 2026 behind. Set aside a day to map launches, marketing, and personal time on a big calendar. February works as your business year start if you have school-age kids.
Chapters
Welcome to five minutes of Momentum. These episodes are a short five minute burst of inspiration, motivation, and massive action. If you need that little kick up the butt to get things moving and to inspire you to take massive action, then every single Thursday, I'll be sending you through a five minute episode to download, digest and implement to finish your week off strong. Are you ready to get started? Let's go. Welcome back to five Minutes of Momentum. I cannot believe that we are halfway through September already. Like, September is one of my favorite months. It's my birthday month. And it's one of those months that's like spring and the weather starts to get warmer and we start to spring clean and we start to really think about the new year. And when it comes to creating an expensive year, creating a year where your business blows your own mind, it takes time and it takes planning. Right? And often there was two people that sit at this point in time in the year, right? There's business owners that sit there and be like, I'm so exhausted. I'm so tired. I've had no boundaries in place throughout the year. I've had no rest. And I'm just going to slide and ease my way into Christmas. And as I share this, this is no judgment, like, zero judgment, wherever you're at is absolutely fine, if it's okay with you. All right? So there has absolutely been times, the times in my business where I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to launch anything else for the remainder of the year. I'm just going to ease my way into Christmas. Right? Right. And there's been other years where I have made the effort to plan for the year ahead right now. Because what you do right now will define the success that you have in 2026. So defining what your next level is right now is incredibly important. Otherwise you will fall behind. And I don't say that from a place of judgment. I say that from a place of fact. If you're not planning, you're planning to fail. It's just the way that it goes. And the people that I see succeed are the ones that have got an incredible plan in place and they're executing on it on a regular bas. The only way that I'm able to bring these incredible things to life, like my beautiful event, my book. My book, launch parties, the masterminds that I've been promoting, the I unstoppable sales program, like all of these things take energy and effort and launching time, marketing, promotional time, all of that needs a plan. Right? It needs a plan. And so if you aren't defining what your next level is, you're most likely going to ease into Christmas. But you may start your new year on the back foot. And I see this happen with business owners where they start late in the year. They can kind of like, you know, because January is a write off. Like, honestly, January is a write off for most business owners, especially if you have kids. And so I always say to any of my clients that have kids and that hit February and they're like, oh my God, I already feel like I'm behind. There's two things that I'll usually say. One, you need to give yourself, let yourself off the hook because you are in a different situation, different season of life. And you need to recognize that your year actually starts in February once the kids go back to school. It's just the way that it is, right. And so there's no shade, no shade on that. It's just acknowledging that for yourself. So you don't judge yourself and then just start fresh in February. But there's one other thing I want to say. If you are planning for your new year now, you should be able to then rest and enjoy Christmas and January and not stress about your business and then be able to start fresh in February if that's the case if you have kids or January, if you don't and you're back to work. Normally, like, normally I take a good three to four weeks off over Christmas, New Year and. But I'm intentionally putting a plan in place now because that way I'm actually starting already executing on the strategy right from the get go. I'm not starting on the back foot. Right. And that's with what happens in these next three months. We head into this last quarter, October, November, December. And usually if you work with business owners, I work with a lot of business owners. Usually even December is a bit of a write off, right. Because people are like easing into their holidays. They've got kids on school holidays. They've, you know, thinking about Christmas even is such an overload. There is so much. And you've got to be conscious of what you're doing in your business now to ensure that one, you don't have an income slump over December, January. But two, you're really planning out what you're going to create, what you're going to implement, what you're going to, what you're going to sell in different points in the year. So that way you are following a strategy, otherwise you just wing it. And so I see the business owners that really take the time to do that now is why I actually start the next level Mastermind in September, because everyone is in the energy of, like, I need to start playing for this now. And I know the people that I attract into that container are absolutely forward thinkers. They're the visionaries. They truly want to make sure that they are executing well in their business. And we know that that takes time and planning in order to create that outcome. So where are you at right now? Have you even thought about 2026? Are you starting to just think about 2026? Because if you aren't, it's time. It's time to then set aside some time in your calendar. Whether it's a day, sometimes I take like to take like a day or two out and I go and like, put myself in a. On a hotel or I take myself down to the beach and I just do some visual planning of, like, what I truly want my year in 2026 to be. And then I'll come back and put the business plans together, right? And I'll put a big calendar on the wall and I'll map it out on a spreadsheet and I will get really bloody clear on exactly what I'm doing and when. When I'm launching things within my business. School holidays plays a big factor. And so I have to be conscious of all of the dates that go into a year, right? And so you might already know. You might have some travels planned for 2026. I know that I do. You might have some other things planned in the year. You might have some family things happening. And so we need to be planning well ahead in advance. And so I want you to start to think about this right now, because it is time to plan your next level right now. Don't wait. You will end up feeling like you're behind if you do.
