Well, hello there and welcome back to Your Most Aligned Year. It's Episode 3, my friend. If you want to start with Episode 1 go here, or Episode 2 go here

Today we're gonna be talking about the next step in this process, which is all about your adaptable roadmap.

If you know anything about my teaching style, anything about my brand over the last decade, I love a good roadmap. It has been the name of a freebie, an entire program. I use "roadmap" all the time because for me, I love seeing what's ahead, seeing the big picture and the main focuses where I should really be directing my energy and attention.

I love having that guidance, and that's essentially what we're gonna be creating for you for this next year in life and business.

Listen to the full episode below:

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The Key Word Is Adaptability

The key word here is adaptability.

Because most plans, especially business plans I have found, leave very little room for adaptability. Now, not that you can't change those things. What I find is that entrepreneurs will set a plan, and because they don't approach it in an adaptable way, they try to fit themselves into a box, a predetermined box that no longer actually serves them.

You are creating a year plan and you don't know who the hell you're gonna be in September. You don't know what's gonna be happening in October.

To set these very rigid goals and a very rigid roadmap is actually what I believe derails a lot of entrepreneurs.

What we're focused on right now is creating more of this adaptability rather than this rigid goal setting that so many of us, myself included for years, have been trained to do.

Because when you're trying to map out your entire year in January down to the very specific details, the problem becomes that you are not going to be the same person in Q4.

Think back to what we talked about in the beginning. The whole goal is that you are stepping into this new identity. That could happen very quickly in Q1, depending on you, where you're at, your life experiences, what's being demanded of you outside of your business. But it could also take you quite a bit of time. This might even be just the first iteration of that.

To create really rigid plans for a person that you aren't today? You need to give yourself flexibility. It's gonna be the very best thing that you do.

Because life happens. Illnesses, unexpected opportunities, shifts in your industry, shifts in what you love, personal changes. Your responsibilities could change. And so many of my listeners are caretakers, and I just cannot stress that enough.

Rigid goals make you feel more like a failure when you need to pivot. And that's the whole thing. Set yourself up for success because I want you to feel like you are in the driver's seat of shifting the roadmap or shifting that specific goal, rather than feeling like you have abandoned the plan.

You are not abandoning a plan. You are making decisions that serve you in this season of life, in this moment.

Enter: Monthly Themes

The shift that I have really taken over the last few years (and I teach my clients inside of the Academy and Brand New Plan) is to have monthly themes.

A monthly theme and focus that gives you direction, but it contains the built-in flexibility so that you do have a clear roadmap for the year, but it's not rigid.

It's like, "This is our focus. This is what we're seeing as possible."

If you want to write a book, and you want to release that book in July, you are gonna take the steps to make that happen. But should you need to shift it because something unexpected comes up, you're able to do that without feeling like you've abandoned something or you haven't hit the goal.

It has that adaptability.

Your business does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in your actual freaking life.

Yes, there are things we need to separate. We need to have set time to work on our business. We need to be able to shift the hats that we wear. But to think that it is its own siloed part and does not bleed into our life and vice versa? That's not reality.

What to Consider Before You Plan

Before you plan, you really want to consider a few things when you're making this adaptable roadmap.

1. Seasons

Everyone's seasons are different, but over time you will start to understand your particular seasons. In the beginning of planning or in the beginning of your business, really just look to the actual seasons. It's a fantastic way to look at how you might be able to show up.

Think of the winter solstice. Think of the equinoxes as the driving forces. Winter is hibernation time, self-care time. Maybe you aren't gonna be able to show up as much. We have the holidays, we have all these busy things. But then come spring, you might build your momentum.

Now again, these are just guidelines. Every person is different.

I'll use my business as an example. Summertime for me actually tends to be a bit of a hibernation as a business owner because as a homeschool mother, summer for me actually gives me more time. I'm not homeschooling during that entire time, and so I have a lot more flexibility to get things done in my business that I wouldn't normally be able to prioritize.

So the backend of my business, the admin work, fixing things that are broken. I often take this time off from creating new content as well. I'll take a break from YouTube, I'll take a break from my podcast. Because I need and have the capacity to work on these things. So I create a lot of space for that.

Every season is gonna be different. As you start to pay attention to these seasons in your life, you're going to be able to use them to better plan in your business.

Start thinking about:

Which seasons do you have more energy in?
Which seasons do you naturally slow down?

2. Holidays

Which types of holidays in your life require more energy from you personally? But then also think about holidays as it relates to your business or your industry.

Are you in a type of industry where the end of the year, beginning of the year, is actually some of your most profitable time? Maybe you're in the fitness industry, the health industry. These tend to do really well at this time of year.

Are you in the homeschool or teacher education space? August/September's gonna be a really big time for you, honestly mid-July.

Think about the holidays and seasons, the peak times for your business and life. This is very, very important in planning around.

3. Life Events

Please, for the love of all, do not plan your next year in business without prioritizing the life events.

I schedule these in first, always.

I already have three major trips scheduled in my calendar for 2026 (well, four actually) because I'm not gonna schedule anything else during that time. Those are very, very crucial to me and the success as a business owner and a human being.

Think about:

Family commitments
Vacations
School schedules
If your child is in an event and there's a very busy month

Put that in your calendar. Put that in your list before you start building out the actual plans for your business.

4. Your Patterns

When do you historically need breaks? When are those moments? We all have them.

I shared a little bit about my summer, how that's a little bit different for me than other business owners. Do you like to take breaks around your birthday? Are there certain times of the year where you notice that you just are not as outwardly expressive?

Creating content is actually a struggle during this particular time of year? Really take these things into consideration.

A bonus consideration: If you want to take this a step further, another thing you can start considering is really planning around your cycle.

We're gonna talk about this a little bit more in the final episode where we're talking about habits, but this really came up for me recently. We were talking about systems on our Academy strategy call, and one of the things we discussed was our cycle as women and paying attention to that on a monthly basis.

If you're planning that the first day of the month is always when you're gonna sit down and write all your social media content, but that first day of the month doesn't fall in your ovulation period of your cycle? It might be really hard to have that inspiration to create content, to have that creativity.

There's a lot of amazing resources on this. We actually have an episode here on the Authentic Brand Builders Podcast about cycle syncing. Definitely check that out.

Pay Attention This Year

The thing that I really want you to realize as we head into these monthly themes is that different months require different versions of you throughout the year.

If you even just make it a goal to pay attention to that this year, you will be set up for so much success next year.

If what I'm talking about isn't something you've previously taken into consideration or paid attention to, doing that this year will set you up for so much freaking success.

When I started paying attention to the seasons in my life and my business, it really made the execution of my goals and my energy flow so much better. It just made business feel much more intuitive and in tune than when I wasn't paying attention to those things.

Creating Your Monthly Themes

Now that we've set up why we do this and the first steps I want you to take before you choose your monthly themes, let's start thinking about monthly themes as less rigid, more adaptable.

Rather than saying "I'm gonna make $10K in January," I want you to reposition it as what the focus is that month.

I'll be honest with you, a lot of people are like, "Okay, I'm gonna make $10K months." How are you going to do that? Let's talk about what that looks like.

They might take the next step and say, "Okay, in order to hit $10K months, I need to sell X of this product." Great. But how are you going to do that? What is the focus?

I'm all about taking that revenue goal (taking that best revenue goal) and breaking it down into whether that's consistent monthly revenue you want to be generating. Maybe it does fluctuate if you're more of someone who does signature launches. Maybe you launch something four times a year, so March and June might be higher revenue months.

I'm all about figuring that out so you can see it's possible to hit the goal you want to hit. But how are you gonna do it? What are you gonna be focusing on each month to generate that revenue?

Monthly Theme Examples

Instead of just saying "I'm gonna make $10K in January," maybe:

January is my launch month - Maybe you have a product you're going to focus on launching in January, and that's gonna be the main focus of that month.

Content creation month - Where you're going to batch schedule a bunch of content

Community building month - Where you want to prioritize getting your reach out there, being on as many podcasts, doing as many guest speaking events as you want

Systems and backend month - I do this a lot in the summer. June tends to be a big systems and backend cleanup, the mess that exists

Rest and recharge month - Building in intentional downtime

Product creation month - Let's say you want to launch a new product in March. January's actually gonna be creating that product. That's gonna be the focus.

I actually have a goal for January which is all about testimonials. My January goal is to gather as many testimonials as possible for my products and my services, because this is something I've identified as a gap with my digital products. I know the results are there, people will send me a message or mention it on an academy call, but I need actual screenshots and documentation so I can use that in my marketing. Increasing sales for these products is a goal for me for 2026.

That's a goal I have that month. My normal content, that's gonna happen, the normal things are gonna be happening, but that is my main focus for the month.

How to Create Your Monthly Themes

To create these, you want to:

Look at your revenue goal (I highly recommend you aim for the best, I talked about this in the last episode)
Determine what needs to happen to hit that
Break it into 12 actionable focuses (not rigid goals, this is our main focus for the month)
Take into consideration your seasons, your holidays
List out your monthly themes

I've shared a few of mine. January is a big testimonial/social proof month for me. I'm gonna launch my book in April. That feels really scary to share with all of you, but here we are. April is actually gonna be my 10 year anniversary of having my business, so it feels like a really symbolic time to release my book.

If you are the type of person who only has the capacity for one monthly theme, start with that please.

You can always add more. It's like, if I do this one thing, I know I'm making progress towards my end of the year goal, and that's what I want for you. One main focus.

Because some of these months, it's gonna be a lot. If it's a launch month, that's probably gonna be what you have the capacity for.

If you want to add on more, absolutely go for it. But I do recommend you create some sort of hierarchy so that if life happens, if things start to get in the way, if your schedule gets busy, you focus on the one that's gonna matter the most.

This is going to give you direction, which is what most people are lacking.

We can't take action if we don't know the direction. This gives you the direction without the pressure of just focusing on hitting exact numbers.

A Reality Check About Monthly Revenue

I'll be honest with you, I've had many years where my year started slow. I would be like, "I'm gonna have a $25K month," and I didn't.

I didn't give up on that goal. I was able to make more money later in the year.

Creating these monthly income goals are really, in my opinion, just so you can see that the end of the year revenue is possible for you. Just so you can wrap your head around it.

If you know next year you want to make $100,000 as a business owner, you know that you need to average about $8,400 a month. So you're like, "Alright, $8,400 a month. How can I break that down?"

Let's say you solely focus on one-on-one. Then you need to have four people paying you $2,000 a month. Or you need to sign one one-on-one client every month at $8,000.

It's just so that you can see that it is possible. You're seeing the tangibles.

But as business owners, our months do fluctuate. If no one's told you that recently, here's your loving reminder: that happens.

A lot of people will start the year slow and make up a lot of revenue at the end of the year. Or they'll start the year really strong, they'll take a few months off, they'll end it really strong.

The goal is that you end the year hitting the number that you want to hit. How we get there can shift and can change.

The Quarterly Evaluation Process

In addition to the monthly themes, I want to leave you with one piece of this puzzle that I think is absolutely essential when you are creating an adaptable roadmap.

After this episode, you're gonna sit down and think about what are your 12 main focuses to help you get to your revenue goal (and not just revenue, but business and life goals as well). What are those 12 monthly focuses minimum? And you're gonna set those for the year.

But here's the key piece for adaptability: I need you checking in every quarter to make sure that is still relevant.

To make sure you didn't already do it (you might have gotten ahead of yourself, I love when that happens). To make sure you're on track.

These 90-day quarterly evaluations are so fundamental for business owners. Because what I want you to do is shift your focus around so that you are planning the specifics every 90 days, and then every 90 days you're checking in to see how that's going, and then planning the next 90 days. So everything you're planning is really based on who you are at that moment.

90 days is:

Long enough to make real progress
Short enough to stay focused
A very natural rhythm for entrepreneurs and business owners

The 4R Framework

I have a really simple framework for this. The Four Rs. I teach this inside Brand New Plan. We go into it a little bit more in depth. I actually share with you what data to look at, how to evaluate your process, how to make the shifts.

But I want to give you this framework here so you have an understanding of what it is.

Review, Reflect, Regroup, Refresh.

REVIEW

First, every 90 days, you want to review. You want to look at the data. Yeah, data. You need to be looking at specific numbers. What actually happened?

And I'm gonna say yes, specific numbers, but also the emotional data. It's not always a number. It's like, "Well, I said I was gonna do this, but I didn't do this. Here's why I didn't do this."

So what actually happened?

I love to have my clients really look at:

What is generating leads?
What is generating views?
What's working? Let's do more of that
What offers are making money for you?
What are the best and worst revenue months and why?

This can also help you identify seasons when you're going to plan again next year or within the quarter. This is the review: data collection, analysis.

REFLECT

How are you feeling right now? Because it's gonna change every 90 freaking days.

How are you feeling about your business right now?
Are you on track with your yearly goals?
What unexpected things have come up?
Are you feeling unbalanced anywhere?
Is there something you said you were gonna test and try that just isn't feeling great right now?

REGROUP

Do you still feel aligned with your plan moving forward for the next quarter specifically? Maybe even just assess the end of the year goals.

Do you need to change this?
What specifically needs to change as we're heading into the next 90 days?
Are you being called to do anything differently or try something new?

That's why this assessment is so important.

REFRESH

Make adjustments to your plan. Set your next 90-day very specific movements. Update your monthly themes if you need to.

This is how we create a plan that doesn't break, because it's designed to evolve.

We're checking in and it takes the pressure off of feeling like you have to check in every week or every month. It's every 90 days. You can do that.

The Strategic Power of This System

If you follow what I teach here at Brandmerry, you're also using that period of time to map out your content for the next 90 days.

So if you think about this strategically, my friend:

You're reflecting, you're checking in on your progress. You are getting really specific about what the next 90 days hold. This is where you're not just thinking about the monthly themes (you do that in January or December), but you're also getting a weekly breakdown for Q1 (January, February, March).

You have your monthly themes, but you also have maybe a weekly breakdown. "I'm gonna host a webinar. I'm going to launch this product. I'm on vacation." You're getting a weekly breakdown.

You're not doing that for Q2 yet because we haven't gone through Q1.

Then at the end of Q1, you are following the Four Rs: Review, Reflect, Regroup, and Refresh. You're listing out your specific weekly breakdown for the next 90 days, and you're also planning your content because now you know specifically what you're doing and you can create content around that.

Then you're taking the pressure off of creating content and what you're gonna post each week and what the focus is gonna be.

Do you see why this is so important?

And you're repeating that process every 90 days.

Planning Creates Space for Inspiration

Having a plan creates space for intuition, for inspiration.

A lot of people think that having a content calendar keeps them from creating things that are exciting in that moment. No, actually, it gives you the space in your brain to think about other shit because you're not sitting there going, "Oh my gosh, what do I post today?" and you have that stress.

You're able to make shifts and changes and post from a place of inspiration rather than a place of desperation. "Oh, I gotta do this. Oh my gosh, I gotta do this. I just gotta whip something up."

This is why having these plans are so great.

Your Action Steps for This Week

Right now you've got your monthly plans, and I want you to start thinking about the specifics of Q1 (January, February, March).

Ask yourself:

What's my theme or main focus for those months?
What needs to happen to support those quarterly revenue goals?
What are some things happening in your personal life? (Make sure those are on your calendar)

Write out your more specific roadmap for Q1.

You have your year adaptable roadmap (monthly themes), but then also right now, because it's the beginning of the year, you need to give yourself the specifics for Q1.

I have one of those dry erase calendars in my office, and I'll just write down for the whole week what I'm focused on: promoting a webinar, sharing a bundle, recording a bunch of content. You're just giving yourself those weekly themes, again, only for Q1.

This is gonna set you up for a lot of success and a repeatable system that's really gonna serve you throughout the entire year.

You're gonna have:

Your roadmap for the whole year
Your really specific strategic focuses just for the next 90 days

Then you will review, you will reflect, you will regroup, you will repeat the process again.

Want the complete system? I give you a full breakdown on this. You don't even have to wonder what you should be auditing, what data you should be looking at. I give you all of that inside Brand New Plan.

This is where we go even deeper into that quarterly evaluation. If you want the templates for that, you want more information on that, be sure to check out Brand New Plan because it's only available for a little while longer.

Go to brandmerry.com/newplan to get all the information. It's only available a few weeks out of the year because I do an end of one year, beginning of the next year to help you plan out your business in a truly authentic and sustainable way.

Speaking of sustainability, next week in our final episode, we're talking about sustainable execution. We're talking daily habits.

One of my favorite topics. This is how you actually make the things happen. The plan is great, but how do we do it? What are the habits that we have to take on?

And more specifically, what are the habits that our new identity, the future version of us, does on a regular basis?

We're gonna connect your habits back to your identity, giving you a system that'll actually stick.

It's gonna be a good one, and I will see you in next week's episode.

Michelle

Tune in now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.

P.S. Ready to build a revenue-generating brand? One that not only stands out online but also makes it easier than ever to create high-value content? Tune in to my free brand class and learn my Build a Better Brand Method. Watch now at brandmerry.com/class.

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