This isn’t your normal “plan your year” article. Why? Because we are coming out of a global pandemic. This is something that should not be ignored because of the impact it has had on everything as we plan for 2023.
Here are five steps that I suggest you take to plan for your 2023:
Take Account of Where You Are: Have you ever fallen off of your bike? My immediate response is usually to get up as quickly as possible to convince everyone I’m ok and didn’t actually fall. And then, the reality starts to set in. I fell. Let me check myself out. Let me accept help if needed. For many people, the pandemic was like falling off of a bike. Lots of things happened all at once, and kept happening for about two years. And many people just continue on, dust themselves off and act as if nothing happened. It’s super important to do a thorough assessment of where you are in all aspects of your life. Some places to look are physical and mental health, your finances, spiritual, friendships, and family connections.
Get Basic Needs Met First: It is going to be extremely important after assessing where you are to make sure that you are getting your basic needs met. This is something that many of us don’t have practice with because most of our basic needs were taken care of by structures that existed pre-pandemic (family, culture, society, “just the way things go.”) But many of those things were eliminated or fractured during the pandemic. It’s super important to make sure you get your most basic needs handled in order to do bigger things in 2023.
Massive Forgiveness and Energy Movement: I think a huge opportunity for positive change post-pandemic is going to be through coaching and therapy for people recovering from pandemic conditions. My suggestion is to do it now and not wait until it becomes a trend. The pandemic likely created lots of energy that needs to be let go through coaching, forgiveness, therapy, etc. The longer you hold on to these things, the harder it will be to create a clear future.
Create a New Goal: A common coaching term is to create your future from nothing, meaning try to get as clear of a head as possible and just create a future. But this way of thinking became popular when the world had a consistent way of working and many people had their basic needs handled. Now we are in a situation where the world is re-learning how to work and there are lots of things to take into consideration when making your plan including your answers to the first two above steps.
Prepare to Take NEW Action Steps: In the pre-Pandemic world, some goals had corresponding actions. But some of those goal-action relationships were disturbed during the Pandemic. There’s likely new ways of getting some old things done. Some easier because of technological advances, some more difficult, and some just plain different. So, it’s going to be really important to not be tied to the old way of doing things. Look at the goals and try to get a clear picture of what needs to be done in our current world to get the goal completed.
