When a new month or a new quarter rolls around the planning begins if you are a planner like I am, it takes a little more time and effort than planning your day or week. When its a new month or quarter and you have a business or businesses or you just have a lot on your plate it is important to set goals and have an organized way to go about accomplishing them.

5 Tips on How to Plan Your Month:

Try to do it before the month starts if you can
This will allow you to get ahead of yourself and to plan out what you want to accomplish before the month can meet you with things you didn’t expect. Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t get around to this before the month starts but if you can then do so. Take a little bit of time after your other obligations are maybe at the end of the night or do it while you’re working and plan out what you want to get done personally and with business, what growth do you want to see, what things worked in the current month that may not work in the next and what do you need to do more or less of. Write it out and make it plan, also don’t be so stuck in your plan that things don’t have room to change especially if the change is for the better.
Set realistic goals
Be honest with yourself on what you have the time and energy to complete, you don’t want to set unrealistic goals that you don’t have the current capacity to complete and then end up disappointed at the end of the month because you got nothing done, I’m not saying be easy on yourself or don’t try to challenge yourself but be aware of who you are, how you work and what is already on your plate. If what you need is more resources or information to accomplish larger goals focus on getting that.
Break down your goals
Break down each of your goals on how you can go about accomplishing them. What do you need to do daily to meet your goals, how much time do you need to dedicate to each thing, what things does each goal require you to do. Take the things on your monthly to do list and break them down on your daily and weekly to-do lists if to-do lists are your thing. Don’t just write things down but put action into accomplishing them and making them real.
Allow yourself grace
Sometimes things happen that we didn’t expect and can’t prevent so if those things happen and they alter your plans don’t beat yourself up about it because it was out of your control, but figure out how to adjust and change what is necessary. If you don’t get a few goals done but don’t feel like you have a valid reason it is okay, you are not on a deadline and if you know that you gave your best then that’s all you can do and just try harder the next month to get more accomplished. you don’t want to beat yourself into burnout or depression and not want to do anything at all. You are only one person and you are not a superhero, remember that you are now where you used to pray to be.
Put relaxation on that list as something to do
With all the goal you may have that you want to accomplish you still have to make sure that you are giving yourself time to enjoy your life outside of work, to recoup in order to be able to continue working, to enrich yourself so you have the energy to keep elevating. Don’t think that the grind and hustle are the only things that are important, your well being is more important than that because if you aren’t well then you can’t even enjoy the fruits of your labor and the things that you’ve worked to accomplish. Take days off. implement them into your schedule, allow yourself to unwind at night and get adequate amounts of sleep (definitely talking to myself too)

I hope that everyone accomplish all of the goals that they set for themselves and go out with a bang this year especially since there has been so much going on. Remember to enjoy your moments while they are happening, you deserve relaxation too and slow progress and small ins are still worth celebration.

I’ve touched on this before on my blog, but I wanted to touch on this again as the year is closing and the decade (which sounds CRAZY), I want to talk about the actual difficulty of owning your own business or businesses and being a one person show because people may make this journey seem so easy and it can be misleading.

When you are a one person show you are the person in charge, the assistant, the accountant, the content creator, the marketing manager, the product developer, the PR team, the planner, the photographer, the videographer and so much more and it can get very hard. When you have so many different tasks that you are responsible for and then you also have to think of the new ideas it can drain you of your creative energy. When you have so much to handle you aren’t able to have free space to think freely or creatively or randomly. But also as the person that does it all you have to figure out when you can allot time to relax, to unwind, to freely think, to create new ideas, to keep your creative juices flowing, this is non-negotiable. Your business relies on you and your ability to keep thinking of new things so you HAVE to give yourself space to do that and you have to give yourself space to relax sometimes or else you’ll always be running against a clock and a to-do list.

Also as a business owner you probably have other responsibilities outside of your business or businesses such as a 9-5 or multiple jobs or hustles, children maybe, going to school etc. so your business may not be your only responsibility so your plate is full and it can get hard to continue being upbeat and having continuous great ideas flowing in. There will be off days and don’t think that there won;t be, but if your goals are worth working for then it will be all worth it in the end.

If you have a lot within your business and your personal to handle to free up time you can use different apps to delegate tasks, you can use the phone that you’re always on to set reminders, take notes, set alarms and put it on do not disturb or airplane mode so you can get more done. Planning ahead is what will also help for you to allot more time. Also having time management and discipline, take certain days off, take time from irrelevant things and apply that time to things that matter. The journey of doing it all by yourself is a hard one, but there are some ways to lighten the load.