Six simple ways to set yourself up for a powerful 2026

Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching Podcast. My name's Ellie Scarf. I am a senior executive coach by trade. I've been a coach for, I don't know, I want to say nearly 20 years, but now I have the absolute joy of working with coaches who are starting or growing their businesses and executive coaches who want to work with corporate clients specifically, because that's really my jam and that is the work that I love to do. So today on the podcast, I want to talk about six things that you can do now in the lead up to the end of the year to power your success in 2026. Now, I want to be very clear first with what I don't mean by this and what I'm not going to suggest. So nothing I'm talking about is intended to add burden, to add time, or to add hustle when you are already in this place, which, if you are like me and any of my clients, is a pretty intense time of year. So you might have listened, looked at the subject line of this podcast, right? So six things you can do now to power your success in 2026. And just thought, oh, God, do I have to do anything now? And what I want to share with you are six things you can do that are not hustling, that are not huge commitments. All of them are intended to be micro steps, things that will energize you, things that will expand you, and things that will set you up so that when you hit 2026, you have more capacity to grow and to do those things that you want to do to power your businesses. So the first thing that you can do is a bit of role play, a bit of role play for your 2026 goals. Now, what do I mean by role play? As we want to do a bit of cosplay, and a lot of this is from an embodiment and identity persp. So if you can think about who you need to be that person who runs the business that you dream of running, who is that person and where do you need to grow to step into that identity? So, for example, you might have started or be about to start your business, but feel a little, little uncomfortable really owning that new role. And for example, you might say, actually in 2026, I need to embody someone who confidently steps into that identity as coach and business owner. And so you might say, if you want to role play that now, what that might mean is that you need to be a person who is really comfortable saying, yeah, I'm an executive coach. And so what how you might do that now is that you might say, I'm going to use all of the social events, all of the functions that I'm going to in the lead up to the Christmas period. It could be school functions, it could be family functions, it could be work functions, it could be friend connections. But I'm going to use every function to practice saying what I do and saying who I am from a business identity perspective. And that might mean sharing your elevator pitch. And I don't mean, like, one of those lengthy elevator pitches where people are like, oh, my God, did I fall into a networking event by accident? No, I mean those elevator pitches, which is, yeah, I do this to help these people. Really simple. And I want you to practice it, right? So if that is your challenge, you have an opportunity to remember it. Your role playing of your 2026 goals could be just practicing saying to yourself, setting an intention where you remind yourself of your purpose or of the impact that it is that you want to have in 2026. So that role playing could simply reminding yourself of who you are when you are achieving those goals and when you are that person that you likely already are. But perhaps you haven't given yourself permission to really internalize, to embody and to sit with. So you have an opportunity to do that now so that when you get to 2026, the doing is going to be so much easier because that embodiment and identity work has already begun. Now, of course, the actual substance of that will really depend on your goals and what you want to do. The second thing that you can do now in the lead up to 2026 is to create a bit of a Runway. And so what's the purpose of the Runway? The Runway. The job of a Runway is to get you in the place where you can take off. So a Runway to a goal is, how can I put in place the conditions, the. The speed, the foundations, the momentum, so that you can take off when you hit the time? So, right. So in 2026. So let me give an example. So if Your goal in 2026 is, I want to really lean into outreach, right? I'm really leaning into outreach. You think, okay, if I step back to that, what are the things that I could put in place, the Runway that I could put in place so that I can really just go with my outreach? It may be that in the period lead to 2026, you could review your network, you could create your pipeline, you could identify some templates for your outreach that you could do. You could block out times in your calendar for the year when that's going to happen, so that when you get to January, your Runway is there and you're ready to fly the plane, right? You're ready to go and you're ready to start. You might even actually, I'll save that to the next one because I was going to give away 0.3. Another way you might create Runway is, is there equipment you need mater, you need support you will need to achieve your goals that you can put in place now. So if your goal, for example, is that you want to start a podcast, then get a great microphone, put it on your Christmas list, right? That might be very nerdy. That might just be me who puts nerdy things like that on your Christmas list. It may be a Christmas gift from your business rather than from your friends or family, but it is something you can think about. What are the things you can put in place so that when January, whenever you're back at work in 2026, when you hit that time, you're ready to take off. The third thing you can do this side of the new year to really boost your approach to your goals in 2026 is to create some microhabits now. And what I mean by microhabits is to really think about your goals and what micro steps you can put in place now. A small increment of that goal so that the habit is created and we can layer on volume. For example, you might have a goal around audience growth on LinkedIn, you might have a goal around outreach. You might have a goal or sort of an intention around posting on LinkedIn, right? If they are going to be goals, then you can start exercising the muscle, putting in place a microhabit with just a tiny piece of each of those puzzles. One outreach message a week, done consistently. It could be one new connection added on LinkedIn each day. It could be a one line post posted to LinkedIn once a week, right? If you're going from zero now, those little things mean that when you get to 2026 and you want to start adding volume and hitting those volume targets, but you've already got the grooves of a habit, so you've got the time, you sort of know where it can fit in your day. You have the muscle memory of opening up the LinkedIn messages and identifying the person you're going to send the outreach message to. You've got the habit around pressing post without overthinking all of those sorts of things. So whatever your goal is, I guarantee you there is some small increment, so tiny as to be insignificant in the scheme of your weeks and months, but that will make it exponentially easier to build the bigger habit in 2026. The fourth thing you can do in preparation for 2026 is the great is great planning, right? And when I say great planning a few things giving yourself the luxury. And I do think of it as a luxury. Like honestly, this is one of my favorite things to do. The luxury of time to do thinking work, right? Thinking and reflection and preparation so that your 20 strategy is well thought out and ready when you get there. And as I've mentioned, it means taking a bit of time to think about what you want to do and how you're going to do. Means time for some goal setting, some intention setting, and it means time to really go from goal setting to a clear strategic plan and an action plan, even down to blocking out times in your diary. Great planning and giving yourself the gift of some time to do that thinking work will really turbocharge 2026. Now, if you don't have the luxury of any extended blocks of time, think of it as giving yourself a gift. So it might say, on Fridays I tend to be a bit. I tend to not be super efficient in the afternoons. So rather than do very little and scroll on LinkedIn but really do nothing in particular, you might say, I'm going to give myself 90 minutes on Friday afternoons for the rest of the where I'm going to make sure that all my notifications are turned off and I'm going to have this time to think. So it may not be two days for strategic planning, but it is a dedicated time to think and to plan for 2026. The fifth thing you can do now to set yourself up for a great 2026 is my favorite rest, right? And that means making sure that before the new year arrives, you turn off for a real and mean period of time. Now that will look different for everyone depending on where you live, what holidays you celebrate, all of those things. For me, that is two weeks, right? So I take two weeks between Christmas and new, over Christmas and New Year and I really turn off. So it may look like I haven't turned off, but usually I've scheduled some posts for LinkedIn, I've scheduled the podcast and I really turn off and we all need it, right? We all need it. We think we don't. Now what can happen for me is that sometimes I feel in this time is I feel motivated and I feel inspired. I'm like, oh, finally I've turned off all of this external background noise and I feel yes, I want to lean into to doing some work and I will let myself, but I will do it with boundaries. It can only be the work that I find enjoyable. So for me that's things like planning and strategizing and thinking about my business, business model and all of that sort of stuff. It's not writing LinkedIn posts, recording podcasts, responding to queries, none of that. It's okay so long as it is things that feel energizing for you now as well as turning off. It is about finding what are the types of rest that really work for you to not just have a switch off, but where is the rejuvenation coming from, the inputs. Now there are all different types of rest that I consider in this one is creative rest. So it's rest by doing something creative. For some people that would be painting some of the drawing. Somebody would be going to art galleries and feeding yourself with creativity. I love all of those options because I do feel like I when I get very, very overwhelmed or stressed or deep into business, the creative part of me does get lost. And so I find that when I can really refill my creative tanks, that's when I feel really rejuvenated. And that's a great type of rest for me. Another type of rest that's important to me is a physical or nature based rest, right? So for me, I love hiking, I love the ocean, I love being outside. Now it can be a bit hard here where I live because in summer regularly our days are over 40 degrees, which means that we can't go out doing bushwalks in the day because we will literally get heat stroke. But it does mean I'll be outside at 5am whether it's with my dog or not, while it's still cool enough just to be outside. And then it might mean that we go to the beach outside of that 10 to 2 window when it's too much UV to be safe, or we really cover up like with a lot of coverage during that period of time, but that those are the sorts of things that from a physical perspective really fuel me. I also think social or connection based activities can be rejuvenating and restful for some people, not for others. I'm a bit of a mix, right? So I find certain types of social engagements and connections do feel really rejuvenating and they fill my buckets. Others feel more, more hard work, right. And so they are more draining than rejuvenating. So you've got to wait up and then there's. You'll have your flavors right. Cuddling your dog. Rest. Reading a book. Rest. Netflix rest. I think of Netflix more as that's a turning off type of rest. It's not a rejuvenation. But look, if you're mad for cinema, it might be that watching your favorite movies is something that fuels your soul, whatever that looks like. And part of this, I think, and this rejuvenation part of rest, not just the turning off part of rest, is taking the opportunity to reconnect to parts of you that aren't just your business or aren't just parenting, for example, or some other obligation that you have. Because often as business owners with lots of other things on our plate, we can tend to fall in the trap of putting ourselves and those things that really bring us joy and rejuvenation at the very bottom of the list. So making sure that those are front and center. And then the final, the sixth thing you can do now to really propel your goals in 2026 is to take a moment this side of the end of the year to celebrate what you've achieved. And I don't necessarily just mean that the accomplishments, but also the learnings. Because often we focus on where did we miss our goals, what did we not achieve? And of course, the negativity bias we all have makes that very easy thing for us to focus on, right? What were the challenges, what were the hard bits? And we need to do that, right? That's part of reflection process. But we must be really disciplined in focusing on what are we going to celebrate. We must focus on what progress we've made. We must focus on where we are relative to where we were this time a year ago. We must focus on what are we most proud of, because we need to be calling in more of that, right? It's like where did our clients come from? We want to call in more of that. Where did we enjoy our work and find great joy in it? Where did we connect with incredible people? How can we call more of that in? And we can't call more of it in unless we are really explicitly and actively celebrating it and giving it an some honor and some credence and some putting it at the forefront of our process at the end of the year. So it's a little bit gratitude, it's a little bit celebration, but it's absolutely something that we must focus on. Okay, so those are six things you can do now to power your success in 2026. Now just to summarize, those things are one, you can role play, embodying and identifying some of those 2026 goals. Now, the second thing is that you can create a Runway so that you're ready to take off in 2026. You can create a microhabit so that the grooves are already in place and you can just add volume. In 2026, you can take some time to really do some thinking and planning so that in 2026, you're already there and you don't have to go through the decision process of everything. The fifth thing is you really need to rest. And rest as in turning off, and rest as in rejuvenation and doing things that feed your soul. And then finally, you can celebrate. Celebrate what you're proud of, celebrate what you've accomplished and celebrate the progress that you've made so that we call in more of all of those things in 2026. Okay. I hope that has been helpful. I hope it's inspiring. I hope you feel great about what the end of this year can be. It's not about necessarily saying, I've got these big goals for the rest of the year. It's about saying, what are the things I can do to feed what brings me joy and set myself up for big things in 2026. Okay. Have a wonderful week, and I will be back with more planning talk next Monday.