Michelle Hardman on Setting Goals for the New Year | GP 47

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Michelle Hardman on Setting Goals for the New Year | GP 47

Thinking about setting goals for the New Year? What professional advice can you follow to set goals for yourself and your practice that will stick? What mindset can you have about goal-setting that will allow you to make flexible yet versatile goals?

In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks with Michelle Hardman about setting goals for the New Year.

Meet Michelle Hardman

Even though she knew at 15 years old she wanted to be a therapist, life always has some interesting detours! After nearly 16 years in corporate human resources leadership, Michelle decided to follow her dream to counsel people in the context of their whole life rather than just their career life.

Now, as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and owner of a successful private practice, Michelle enjoys working with adults who have anxiety and/or trauma histories. Michelle is also a Certified Daring Way Facilitator, teaching curricula based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown. While Michelle is honored to be in this clinical space, she still loves all things “business!” By leveraging her unique combination of business and clinical experience, as well as her MBA in strategic management, she is an exceptional business coach to fellow practice owners and other helping professionals.

By taking a values-based approach to building a business, Michelle supports clinicians/helping professionals align their business approaches in marketing, branding, networking, and business planning to their core values; thereby reducing the overwhelm and increasing joy and fulfillment! Plus, by creating invaluable tools such as The Primed Planner™, Michelle is committed to empowering amazing clinicians/helping professionals become confident business owners!

Visit her website and her counseling website and get in touch via email: [email protected]

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Goal-setting strategy
  • CLEAR goals

Goal-setting strategy

I think goal-setting really needs to start with, in my opinion, your core values and your why because those, if you think about building a house, are your foundation blocks that you’re going to build everything else on. (Michelle Hardman)

Staying in touch with why you became a therapist and perhaps why you wanted to build and own a group practice in the first place are important things to keep in mind because they are the propellers that drive you and your ambitions.

Your core values on the other hand are like the compass that guides you in your right direction. When you work with these two things, your propellors and your compass, you stay in alignment between yourself and the direction that you would like your practice to move in.

In another way, your values act as filters to keep you on track instead of getting caught off balance by any old interesting thing that comes along.

CLEAR goals

C: Collaborative

Collaboration is required within the team so that everyone on board knows what the goals of the practice are. Therefore, the practice then becomes a joint community working towards a particular direction.

L: Limited

This is limited in scope and duration. When you set a goal, try to keep it within a certain scope or area and within a certain time limit, otherwise, your goal may become too expansive and loose-ended for it to come to fruition.

E: Emotional

The goal should resonate with you. Goals do not have to only be numbers and metrics; by ensuring that your goals resonate with you and is attached to your why, it can really stick well and you would be looking forward to accomplishing it.

A: Appreciable

Break your goal down into smaller pieces. Action precedes motivation, so when you simply begin with the smallest steps your motivation grows and momentum is built.

R: Refinable

This is also synonymous with ‘recalculating’. Your goals need to be flexible and agile and you need to be honest with yourself when it needs to change. Consider changing your perception of it as recalculating so that you do not get stuck in a downward spiral when things do not go exactly according to plan.

Here, it is important to remember your core values as a filter to know when to shift, change, or release goals if need be.

Use the code: 21GRPGOALS – and get 10% off any of the planning tools in the shop – including The Primed Planner – through the end of December this year!

Useful Links:

Meet Alison Pidgeon

A portrait of Alison Pidgeon is shown. She discusses ways to grow your group practice on this week's episode of Practice of the Practice. Alison is a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a 15 clinician group practice. She’s also a mom to three boys, wife, coffee drinker, and loves to travel. She started her practice in 2015 and, four years later, has two locations. With a specialization in women’s issues, the practices have made a positive impact on the community by offering different types of specialties not being offered anywhere else in the area.

Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016. She has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[ALISON]:
You’re listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you’re thinking of starting a group practice, are in the beginning stages of a group practice, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, we have lots of great content for you.

Grow a Group Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you grow your group practice. To hear other podcasts like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, and welcome to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host. We are nearing the end of the year and so I wanted to have a guest come on who could talk about setting goals because that’s something that I know I always think about when we get towards the end of December, to plan for the upcoming new year for my practice. So today I’m interviewing Michelle Hardman. Not only is she a licensed clinical mental health counselor, she also has her MBA. So the first part of her career, she spent in corporate America working in human resources. And now she has transitioned and become a therapist. She’s a certified Daring Way facilitator. She also is now a business coach to help fellow practice owners and helping professionals with their business. She’s going to talk to you about her view of really planning and executing things in your business according to your values. And another really cool thing about Michelle, she actually designed her own planner for therapists. It’s called The Primed Planner, and she sells it on her website. And I think that’s super cool because I always loved having a paper planner. I tried to switch to a digital planner, and I just couldn’t get used to it. I just love you know, crossing things out on paper. So I think it’s really cool that she made a planner geared towards therapists. And she’s going to talk about that and how she got started doing that and how that works in terms of another stream of income for her and that type of thing. So excited to share this interview with you today. Michelle Hardman.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
Michelle, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.

[MICHELLE]:
Thank you. I’m super glad to be here.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. So I know you have a lot of different things that you do. And I’m excited to kind of hear about all the businesses that you have, and all the things that you’re involved with. So can you kind of give us the overview of what you’re doing?

[MICHELLE]:
Sure. So I’m a private practice owner, and I specialize in anxiety and trauma, which I love that work. But that’s about half of my work. The other half of my business is called The Primed Practice, and that is a business that sort of grew out of the passion of trying to help clinicians be competent business owners. Because you know, as a private practice owner, you are a business owner, but we often don’t look at ourselves or think of ourselves that way. And so, helping clinicians get in touch with how to market and build a practice and how to set goals, how to have accountability with themselves, all of those things are so crucial. And sometimes I feel like a big important piece that’s skipped over is sort of the foundation, why you’re in this business, what your core values are. And so we get all wonky, to be technically worded, about how we’re building our business. So I really talk a lot about alignment, and how that can make doing the pieces like marketing and goal setting and some of those businessy things we’re not taught in grad school a little bit more palatable, and maybe even interesting and fun.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. So you do business consulting, mostly with solopreneurs, correct?

[MICHELLE]:
That’s right. Yeah, most of the time I’m working with solopreneurs. It’s really fun to see them get launched and growing. The group practice I think, a lot of the same components, if you will, are present. But of course, there’s some other ones too, which, you know, my background in human resources, leadership and you know, having an MBA in strategic management, like I definitely understand the group and growing an organization for sure. But my, I guess, the heartbeat and my passion is really for the solopreneurs who may not have as much support

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. Um, so I know you also have a planner that you’ve designed, and you sell, that’s geared towards therapists. Can you tell us about that?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. So thanks for asking about it. The primed planner is something, so I am a planner junkie, I call myself because I love to try all kinds of planners. And as a clinician and someone who was a business owner, I had trouble finding one that had prompts that kept me engaged, and I would get bored. And the prompts weren’t useful for me for what I wanted, for how I wanted to use it. So creating a planner that would give gentle prompts and nudges to stay engaged in things like networking, and self care, because I think we all know, we’re really good about preaching self care to our clients, and sometimes may not be the best at like following through on that for ourselves. So really giving some prompts to stay on track with all of the business and networking but also goal setting, you know, whether that’s the financials, and marketing plans and things like that, there’s a space in the planner every month and to build an annual roadmap, and then ways we break that down throughout the planner to make sure that A we’re doing it, and B that we’re holding ourselves accountable.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Because I think that, you know, our field is somewhat unique and like, I am the same way. Like I love paper planners, like, I tried to switch to digital, but I just couldn’t do it. Because I just love crossing things out when I’m done with them.

[MICHELLE]:
Yes, girl.

[ALISON]:
Yes, yes. So I think that’s great. And I know, that’s like a big trend now that people are sort of rejecting the more digital to do lists, and they’re going back to paper. So I know we were talking earlier, before we started recording about not only is it good for the solopreneur. But it’s also good for group practices, whether you’re the owner, or whether you’re working in the group practice. So I think that’s a really good thing to note as well, like, if you’re looking for a tool like that, it can definitely serve, you know, multiple different [unclear].

[MICHELLE]:
Absolutely, I really wanted to create a tool that was flexible enough that it could, any clinician, whether you were an owner, whether you were a group, or solopreneur, whether you were a 10-99 contracted clinician, or whether you were a W-2 employee, that you know, the prompts and all of the planning components that are in there about the business and just about your schedule, that all of that was applicable to anyone in any of those situations, because it all really is going to roll up to the same thing for us, you know?

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I wanted to ask you too, so I know there’s a lot of therapists who talk about wanting to kind of maybe start other streams of income, maybe they want to get into, you know, selling a product or something like that. So how was that kind of process for you? Like, was that pretty easy to figure out? Like you have this idea to make this planner and then like, how does that work with getting it printed and shipping it out and all of that kind of stuff?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, it is a big undertaking and it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying, because, you know, I didn’t know anything. I’ve never published anything, right? I’ve never used a printer or a publisher, any of that. So I had no idea. And, you know, I guess for me what I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I guess, right? And it sort of helped me. But I believe in asking lots and lots of questions. And, you know, I really, it sounds cliche, Alison, but I honestly believe like, this was a fire burning in my belly to create this. And I really felt like it was needed. Because I wanted to create this fun planner, you know, this fun, effective tool for folks. And I kind of wanted to trick you into staying more engaged with your business, right? So as I kind of leaned into that passion, I just kept asking, I just did like one foot in front of the other because I had no idea. So it’s a huge learning curve. It was a ton of fun. And it was terrifying. Not just because I didn’t know the process, but because I’m putting something I created out there in the world. And you know, that’s the way it, that’s pretty vulnerable. And that’s kind of scary. So I was scared and excited the whole way along.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. So then how does it work with the planners? Like obviously, they get printed somewhere? And then does that company ship them out? Or do they send them to your house and you ship them out or how does that work?

[MICHELLE]:
All of the above, it can go any of those ways. For me personally, I found a self publisher who actually warehouses, picks, packs, and ships for me so it’s amazing because I don’t have a room full of planners in my house. They’re all sitting at the warehouse, and they’re fulfilled there and picked packed and shipped from there. So it’s really quite lovely. I don’t have to deal with that. And again, that was something I really hadn’t planned it just as I started doing the research because I thought I would just have it printed, have them shipped to me, I’ll ship them out and make all my friends hate me because they’re gonna have to help me. But yeah, it’s actually done in the US, in another state though, not here in North Carolina, and they take care of it for me.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. So then you’re really removed from doing all of that like legwork.

[MICHELLE]:
Yes. I’m the customer service department, though. Like if there’s any issues, people deal with me personally, when that’s coming. Because to me, that’s just, you know, you’re working on a practice, you’re building your goals, you’re trying to execute goals, like you don’t want to have to deal with some run around for a product that’s supposed to help you, not add stress. So I make sure everybody talks to me directly if there’s any issues.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, nice. Well, one big reason why I asked you to come on the podcast today is because I wanted to ask you about goal setting, because I know that’s one of your specialties. And obviously, with a new year coming up, that’s something that’s on a lot of people’s minds. So can you talk a little bit about the strategy that you have around goal setting?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, I think goal setting really needs to start with, in my opinion, your core values and your why. Because that is like if you think about building a house, those are the foundation blocks that you’re going to build everything else on. And you know, as clinicians, most of us are not trained in business and marketing. So we can feel kind of out of our element, you know, when we start to be faced with marketing and business plans, and financials and all of those things. So staying in touch with why did you become a therapist, why did you want to have a group practice in the first place, is really important, because that’s sort of to me like the propeller that drives everything, right. And then your core values, your two core values are sort of your compass, so that you’re going in the right direction. And I think when we build on top of those two things, then we stay in alignment. And I think that’s absolutely imperative to have a thriving private practice, whether solopreneur, or group, those things need to be in alignment. And then I like to use clear goals.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I’m really glad that you framed it out that way. Because that’s also how I encourage my consulting clients to think about it. Like I actually have them write down their mission, vision and values for their group practice. Because the values especially act as a filter for when you know, different opportunities come along, or you’re setting goals for the year, like making sure those line up because I think so many people can get distracted by the next shiny object. They don’t stop to think like, oh, wait, is this really aligned with my values? Or am I just getting distracted by the next cool thing? Yeah.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. And that’s a great filter too, I think for, like, even financially, like, if I look at my core values, and my why, you know, this next shiny thing could be this training that costs $2,000. Well, running it through that filter doesn’t just tell you which way to go and say, yes, it can also really help you, you know, filter out what is just a shiny object. So I love that you use that. That’s amazing.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. So the clear goals, the clear is an acronym right? And each letter stands for something. So can you go over what those mean?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, so the CLEAR goal is what I really prefer, sometimes you hear people talk about SMART goals, which is also useful. I like clear goals, though, because the E in clear stands for emotional, and we’ll go through that real quick. The C is collaborative, the L is limited, E is emotional, A is appreciable, and then R is refinable. So, you know, clear, just the word clear, you know, makes a lot of sense. You want some clarity around what you’re doing. And when you think about the why, the core values and you know, that alone is going to bring clarity. So then adding CLEAR goals on top of it, really, again, just sort of adds the next, I guess you could say, appropriate brick in building that house, right? So for collaborative, I want you to think about goals, especially in a group practice, that, you know, goals aren’t something you set as an owner and then don’t talk about, right? Collaboration is required so that everybody on your team knows what the goals are, and why they’re driving to this goal, right and why we’re in this business. And I think in a solopreneurs case, it’s also really imperative to talk to you know, peer consultations, trusted colleagues, to talk about and bounce off what you’re thinking about doing if you’re a solopreneur. But the idea that it is a community and we are in the community doing amazing work, so this shouldn’t happen in a vacuum, if that makes sense.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I really like that because I’m very collaborative when it comes to like, you know, talking to my staff and making decisions, not that, you know, they’re making the decisions, but I definitely want their input in like, the direction of, you know, where the practice is going, because they’re doing the work every day, you know. So who knows better than they, right?

[MICHELLE]:
Yes. 100% absolutely. And so, you know, and tying it back. I don’t know if your listeners have ever listened to that Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle TED talk, I highly recommend it. Because he talks about the why and why it’s important. And so it’s worth a listen, if you’ve got 18-20 minutes to spare. But I think, you know, that collaboration isn’t just about, hey, we want to increase revenue by 15%. It’s also here’s why this is important. And I think that’s easy to lose sight of when you’re going through the day in, day out, next client, next client, you know, I got to take a potty break. You know, it’s really hard sometimes to keep those things front of mind, which is also personally why I like to have a planner, because I note that every week, my goals, and try to tie them back into the bigger why. And just to stay mindful of it.

[ALISON]:
So can you tell us about the L?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, so the L is limited, like I said, and this is limited in scope, and in duration. So when you set a goal, you don’t want to set a really broad, wide sort of catch all goal, you want it, the scope to be limited to a certain thing or a particular topic or area. And then you also don’t want to set a goal for like, the entire year. You might have an end game and know how you can measure success. But you know, giving yourself check in points, giving yourself due dates, you know, sometimes we don’t like to do that. But I think it’s really imperative to hold yourself accountable and actually see your goals come to fruition.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, nice. And then the E you said was emotional. So tell us about that.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, I love this one, because the goal should resonate, right? And if it’s resonating on a deep level with us, it’s emotional. And so we try so often to, you know, be objective and you know, keep things unemotional when we’re setting goals. At least a lot of times, folks that I coach with go to that place like it has to be numbers and metrics. And yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s all part of it. But I think when you talk about motivating your teams, when you talk about keeping yourself motivated and engaged, if it doesn’t resonate, it’s gonna fall off of us. Right? So it has to again, be attached to your why, your passion. Why are you doing this in the first place? Because if it doesn’t feel connected to those things, then guess what? We’ve just set ourselves up to get distracted by the next shiny object, you know, it’s gonna make it more enticing.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And I think if you don’t have, you know, if you don’t feel passionate about it, it’s really hard to keep going when things get hard.

[MICHELLE]:
Yes, it’s so true. It’s so true.

[ALISON]:
It’s easy to lose motivation.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, it’s a great point. If it doesn’t tie into that emotional level for us, then we’re going to be looking for something else. And we’re going to be more likely to give up or quit on that particular goal. And that’s not going to help us.

[ALISON]:
Right, right. Yeah. So let’s move on to the A, what does the A stand for?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, so A is appreciable. And I think of this as just the breaking it down, right? We need to be able to take whatever goal we’re working on, and break it down into smaller chunks. The research actually shows that, you know, in some ways, action precedes motivation. So we have to be able to take steps, even if they’re micro steps, we start to get some air under our wings, and we start to get some lift when we start just doing things. And so to take a goal and break it down into appreciable baby steps, then we start to get even more motivated, because we love checking things off the list, whether that’s in a paper planner, or on your to do list, in your reminders, you know, electronically, it builds momentum. So being able to break them down, you know, action leads to traction. So thinking about appreciable, I like to also kind of plant the seed for action, and think about what are the actions I need to take to support this goal and get to the end game?

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I think that’s such a good point. Because for so many people, it’s just hard to get started. And but then once you get started, it’s like, oh, this wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be in my mind.

[MICHELLE]:
True. It’s so true. And I think that’s such a great point. I’m glad you said that, Alison, because again, this is a really good spot where your core values really can be a compass to help you get started. So when you feel stuck on what action to take first, because you’re right, it’s so hard to take that first baby step. And, you know, it’s a good place, though, to think about your core values and let those motivate you. Like, I’ll give you an example. One of my goals was to do more videos and put out there for the world to see, not because I love to be on video because I actually detest it. But one of my core values is authenticity. So for people to get a feel of what it’s like to talk with me, work with me, what my products are about, why The Primed Practice even exists, it’s imperative that they see me and experience me on video, because that’s the best way to get to know me. So when I, this happened to me yesterday, when I get stuck, and I need to do a video, I think, wait a minute, authenticity and gratitude. Like, this is how you show up. This is your value. And that can help motivate me and stay on course. If that makes sense.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So let’s talk about the last one, R.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. So R is refinable. And I like to sometimes substitute the R for recalculating because I always think about my GPS when I take a wrong turn, you know, and it does that little recalculating, recalculating. Your goals have to be flexible and agile. So the ability to recognize when maybe this goal was maybe this isn’t the right timing for this goal, or maybe I don’t know, there’s a worldwide pandemic, and we have to pivot really fast in a really big way. Right? We have to be able to refine some of those goals. And a lot of times, I think people get some kind of feeling about doing that. And there’s a narrative around, oh, I failed, or this is wrong. I’m doing it wrong. I mean, there’s all kinds of things that can come up in that space, in that headspace. But I think to think about it as recalculating, it’s okay, it’s actually necessary to meet your goals. And this is just you know, it’s an iterative process. So we have to be able to continue to look at it and monitor it, so that we can recalculate when we need to. So while the R is refinable, I like to think about recalculating.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I love that you included that because I feel like people get stuck on like, if I set these goals for the year, like it has to go exactly how I planned it. And they don’t, they’re like, they get very rigid about it. And they don’t allow themselves like the wiggle room to be like, oh, I’m halfway through the year, this isn’t exactly going how I thought, now I need to change up what I originally thought I was going to do.

[MICHELLE]:
Mm hmm. 100%.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I think for me too, like, what I run into, and I’m sure lots of other people have the same experiences, like you start maybe to run into obstacles. Or maybe, you know, you’re kind of taking the baby steps, and it’s not working for whatever reason, like, how do you decide, okay, maybe I just need to recalculate and keep going versus like, this just isn’t working and I need to like scrap this and like, start over?

[MICHELLE]:
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that that is a really important thing to be mindful of. And, you know, I really encourage people again, and I know this kind of sounds like a broken record. But if you can stay in touch with those core values, which are really going to keep you tied into and mindful of, you know, your vision and mission for your particular business, then you can use that again, as a filter. Because sometimes things really do change and shift in a big way. And sometimes they’re little ways, but meaningful. And so I really encourage people to honor what’s going on, you know, it’s imperative because how can we be good business owners, good leaders, or good clinicians, for that matter, if we’re disregarding and dismissing what’s happening in our life, and refuse to make adjustments or you know, like, I think it’s, it’s sometimes helpful to even think about as a clinician, like, what what I tell my client in this case? We’re human too. And so trying to determine which is okay, dig in harder, or scrap it, I think, really listening to yourself and what you need, because I think sometimes honestly, too, just as humans, we’re not skillful sometimes at saying what do I need right now? You know, and it counts and in a big way, so if we disregard that, then I think we’re also setting ourselves up for, you know, a crash and burn situation, potentially, whether big or small, I think really going through and looking at what your hopes for achievement for this particular time period. Let’s use a year for example, since we’re about to head into a new year. It’s okay if you don’t hit all of those milestones and giving yourself permission to change that, and recalculate as needed, is really important.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. So could you give us an example of using the CLEAR strategy for a goal like, give us an illustration of how that works?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. So when I, [unclear] going to use last year as an example, 2020 was the first year of the primed planner. So 2019, I was working on it. And in October of 2019, I had a serious illness befall the family. And it was very critical and very serious. And you know, for us planner folks, we love to get our planners in the fourth quarter, we don’t wait till January. So October of 2019, the wheels kind of flew off of my bus because of things that were going on in my personal life. And so while I had a goal of selling out the planner, by January, the end of January, I had to really think about recalculating that in a big way. But the collaboration was I worked with a graphic designer, I sketched the planner, and then she would make it come to life in graphic design world. So it was collaborative there, I collaborated with my publisher, I collaborated with my husband, he probably looked at planner pages more than he ever thought he would in his entire life, but pulling in people that were important, and that mattered in this project.

Limited, my goal, like I said, was to sell out by the end of January. So it was time constrained, right? I wasn’t putting, you know, in the next 12 months, this is how many planners I’m gonna sell. From an emotional standpoint. I mean, it, ooh, girl, it was all kinds of emotion because it was my passion. It was my creativity, because some of these things were things I had sketched personally. It was how my mind worked in terms of, you know, what we need as business owners and clinical business owners. So it was very emotional and very much coming from a place of passion. And I really had to pay attention to that as I moved through it, because like I said before, I was pretty terrified and felt really vulnerable. Appreciable, I had to delineate really small baby action steps the whole way. So leading up to October, I had certain deadlines every couple of weeks that I wanted to hit in terms of milestones, have this layout done, have this color palette finalized, you know, and even broke those some of them down like the color palette, you know, by the end of this week, I want to have three trusted inputs on the color combinations, things like that. So they were appreciable. And they made all these little baby steps that led to the bigger decision and the final product.

And then the refinable, like I said, we had this huge family medical emergency that happened at the end of October. And I had to do all kinds of recalculating. I sort of scrapped, I don’t care how many planners I sell, you know, sometimes life throws a monkey wrench at you that makes you reevaluate what’s important. And while I really wanted to sell the planner out, I didn’t really care at that point, you know, so, but outside of family medical emergency, you know, maybe it’s not important. End of January selling out was totally arbitrary. And once my inner, authentic self recognized that and sort of got rid of the perfectionism around it, because that shows up. I tell everybody, I’m a recovering perfectionist.

[ALISON]:
Me too. Me too.

[MICHELLE]:
Okay, so you relate. So once I said, like, whoa, wait a minute, that’s totally arbitrary. What are you doing? It just really opened up the space for me to do what I needed to do and take care of myself. And that’s what I love about that CLEAR. Does that help give an example of a CLEAR goal around [unclear]?

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. I think the other piece too, and I’m curious if you include this in the planner, but I think we, you know, especially around the beginning of the year, we make goals, and then we sort of forget to check back in to see how we’re doing. And that’s where I think that recalculating component is so important, because like you said, life changes, or you learn something new that makes you realize, oh, I gotta change this up a little bit. So that part of what’s incorporated into the planner to like, think back on like, okay, I gotta check in with my goals. It’s been a few weeks or whatever.

[MICHELLE]:
Absolutely, absolutely. So the way the planner is laid out, there’s an annual roadmap in the front where at the beginning of the year, you would create your annual roadmap, and it’s going to include like, what are your skills, gifts and talents? What are your goals for the year in different areas? It’s going to look at, you know, core values, and it’s going to help you think about what energizes you, what depletes you and like, look at it from a multifaceted, whole person perspective. And then every quarter there’s a quarterly curiosity where you’re encouraged to have a page to check in with yourself, see where you’ve been, where you’re going. And then every month though, there is a space also to reflect on how last month went, and how you’re going to balance on what’s important going forward. So you have your annual roadmap at the beginning. And then every month, you’re going to reflect back and look forward. And then every week, there’s actually a space to again, check in with your goals. And of course, actionize a lot of different things around those goals. But it’s really laid out so that it’s constantly having you check back in and make sure you’re aligned. So between the annual roadmap, the monthly reflect back, look forward, every week, what’s your planning, and then the quarterly curiosities, it’s really meant to sort of thread constantly throughout your year, throughout every week, you know, what you’re focused on. And are you moving in the direction that your compass would have you go?

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I love that. That’s awesome.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, thanks.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. So Michelle, it’s been super helpful to hear about all the things that you’re doing and goal setting. And I think it’s such a timely topic for people. So I hope our listeners found it valuable. I know I found that really valuable. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. It’s so much fun. I hope it’s helpful. I totally geek out over this stuff. So I’m glad to share it.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so I know you have a giveaway for the listeners, right? Can you tell us about that?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. So if your listeners are interested in getting some tools that could be helpful for setting goals and planning, I want to give you a discount code so you can get 10% off any of the tools in The Primed Practice website.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, no, that’s fine. We’ll put the code in the show notes, so yeah, you sent it to me. So we’ll definitely include that in the show notes.

[MICHELLE]:
That would be perfect.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, that coupon code. And tell us the website for The Primed Planner.

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah. So if you go to theprimedpractice.com, that’s the home of The Primed Planner. And there’s a shop there where you can take a look at the planner and other tools and stickers, and all those good fun things. There’s also some good like training, you know, Marketing Mojo and things like that out there. But yeah, that’s theprimedpractice.com is the website. I’d love for you to come check it out.

[ALISON]:
Okay, great. And what is the best way for people to get ahold of you if they would like to speak with you?

[MICHELLE]:
Yeah, I would be, oh, I love collaborating. So speaking of CLEAR goals, so anybody can get in touch with me through the website. There’s a contact page, of course, but you can also email me at [email protected].

[ALISON]:
Okay, excellent. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. It’s great talking to you.

[MICHELLE]:
Super to be with you. Thanks so much, Alison.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
Thank you so much for listening. Since we are nearing the end of the year, I just wanted to wish everybody a happy and safe New Year. I hope 2020, if it was rough for you as it was for many people, I hope 2021 starts to turn around. And I really appreciate you listening to the podcast. We just launched in March of 2020, right when the pandemic was starting and so, if you have a minute to rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listen to the podcast, I would really appreciate it. So, Happy New Year.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.