[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s podcast. Welcome to Women at the top of Telecoms and Tech. I’m your host. I am Nicola Scco, and I am the coach who works with organizations in telecoms and. And I help them to recruit, to retain and develop, uh, women across the organization so that they have more senior women and so that they can close the gender pay gap and create a more diverse and inclusive culture.

So welcome to the show today. I’m really excited today cause I’m gonna be sharing a bit of a secret, a secret framework that I use with my clients, um, really successfully over the last few years to help them to create some. In planning the year for themselves. So I don’t ever want to pressure clients doing this in January cause it just feels [00:01:00] like there’s all the noise about news resolutions and setting a word for the year.

Um, doing it all in a rush. And if you haven’t done it by the 1st of January, you’ll. You are failing already. So it’s almost that pressure and expectation. So I wanted to do it a little bit later in the year, um, so that you’ve probably got back into routine. Your children are back to school, you’re back into your job.

Um, and the other part of it was also a lot of planning goes into the end of the year for the following year. So even if your financial youth runs slightly differently, still probably quarterly finishing up, like reviewing budgets, reviewing plans, reviewing strategy. So planning can feel quite heavy. It can feel quite something that’s, it’s quite a lot of pressure.

It’s quite a lot of expectation and it can feel quite serious. So I want this to take you through my process today because I want to bring some of the joy back to it for you. I want to help you set some objectives that aren’t just the boring old. Snooze first, smart [00:02:00] objectives, which I get. There’s a framework.

I get that it can work really well, but I want you to bring it back to what’s in your heart. So my biggest message to you today, my biggest takeaway for you is really thinking about and getting back in touch with what is gonna bring you joy this year? What feelings you most want to feel and actually creating, helping you create a plan that is led from rather.

Very tangible, smart objectives around strategy and objectives and budgets and all those things which you do in your day job so, so much. The main learning for you today is really about planning with feeling first. And what do I mean by that? I want you to plan not just with your head, and you’re brilliant at strategy.

You’re brilliant at setting objectives and budgets. You, that’s part of what you do as a leader. Creating that strategy for your area, creating the resource. Then creating the budgets to support what you’re gonna deliver and then delivering on your objectives. So it is part of what you do. So that’s all we’ve had.

Um, what do I mean by head? [00:03:00] That’s all with your logic, your reasoning, um, your knowledge. But what we want you to do today instead, just lead with feeling first. So lead with what’s in your heart. Lead with what your body’s saying a big yes to that you are excited about. That feels light, that feels easy, that feels like, oh my God, I would love that in my life.

So I just want you to think slightly differently today, not just with your head, um, but with your heart. And listen to what your body’s feeling, what listen to what is pulling you forward rather than just what is pushing you. You are pushing towards, so, That’s my big message for you today. Let’s get started and I’m gonna ask you to pause the podcast at different time so you can sit down, um, and work through these questions.

I’m not gonna give you all the questions that I’ve worked through. Um, this is like a two to three hour planning process that I’d work with through as a workshop with a group, or I would work through one-to-one with a client. So do take some time to sit down, write it out, feel into what’s going on in a time when you are hopefully not as distracted, and you can give it some real time and focus.

So [00:04:00] let’s get started. So this is my pause and passion plan. I’ll explain what it means as we go through, but really it’s about, I, I really love this planning process because it, it starts with stopping and looking back to then building what’s next. So you get all the richness of the lessons from the last year, the last quarter, um, before the excitement of what’s next.

You can take, drain your experience and really seal the lessons from what’s just been to then create what you want to. Um, and it’s a different way to plan based on the neuroscience of change. So I, all my coaching, all my frameworks are based on neuroscience and the neuroscience of change, and it’s proven and designed to work.

So rather than those doll or fashioned smart objectives, it’s about setting goals. This is about setting goals with. Goals that, uh, help you to feel on fire goals, that lift your heart goals, that fill, [00:05:00] fill your soul, and they make your body tangle and feel excited. Um, so a great recommendation. So if you enjoy this today, um, a recommendation will be to have a read.

Look up Danielle Laport. Um, and she has a book called Desire Mapping. And that I, when I read that book and I led read about her process of setting goals and objectives leading from the heart, it just, it really, really resonated with me. I had 16 years working in corporate and all of my goals were smart.

They were tangible, they were specific, all those things. Um, and I did so much of it work. There was no joy in it for me anymore in doing it outside of work. So this process is really about setting up goals, leading with feelings first, um, and just the neuroscience behind it. The, when you set goals and you’re very, very clear on what you want and what’s important to you.

The brain sets in process a, a system called the reticular activating system. The R res system. Um, and that system is basically your helping the brain to, you are [00:06:00] giving it a, a framework of what you want it to look for. Find ways forward that you probably didn’t expect or you haven’t thought about or hadn’t occurred to you before.

So the reticular activating system hones in on sifting all the millions of information we’ve received per minute, and it hones in on the ones that are actually gonna help you to get towards your goal. So the more that we can help you get that clarity on your. And also identify the feelings, the more it’s gonna be like rocket fuel for your brain to help you get to those goals.

So it will give you the feelings, especially will give your goals kind of like a hyperdrive as every goal from a brain perspective is search of feeling. We want the feeling rather than the thing. This podcast is produced by the podcast boutique. and the podcast boutique have been absolutely invaluable for me in helping take my fuzzy headed concept, develop the plan of what it was gonna be, what the podcast was gonna be, create a launch plan that then put us in the top 10 [00:07:00] charts on launch week, and then also they just put together.

The editing, they get it ready to launch. Uh, so it means each week you get listened to a new, very well edited, put together episode, and they are the experts and they help you to really develop your podcast so that you can have more downloads, you can reach more people, and serve your audience by really creating relevance subjects for right now.

So I really, really recommend. It’s great to have someone on your side, um, and they’re absolute experts in this area, so you can contact them at ww dot the podcast boutique.com, and that’s also in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

So step number one is all about pause and reflect. So hence the name, pause, and passion plan. And it’s a different way to plan really based on that neuroscience that we talked about. And we’re gonna start with a pause reflecting back at what is just gone. So you can look at [00:08:00] the last year, cause we’re naturally in January, can look at that quarter.

It’s up to you. And we are just in the process of developing a journal, which is gonna be a quarterly. Takes you through this process, um, and then keeps you accountable to what your goals are, but in a really gentle feel good way. So start with a pause and reflect and find those diamonds in the learning, and just be really honest with yourself.

This is not a process to judge yourself or to be hard or think about where you’ve failed or to think where you haven’t met a. This is a process to help you to find the lessons, the things that you wanna do differently. Even the most challenging things. If you’re looking back, what would you do differently?

What is the lesson? What is, what is gonna be different next time? Because that is the richness of looking back. That’s what you get from reflecting. You get those lessons, you get those diamonds in the rough and those those big things that you can do differently. So some questions to just think. Whilst you’re doing this, what was the overall tone of this period for you?

So just think about [00:09:00] what was the tone, what was the energy? How would you describe it? What created that tone for you? What were the main experiences? What were the big things that happened over that timeframe? What was the most consistent feeling during that timeframe, during that period? So we call it the sponsoring emotion.

So the umbrella emotion. So what was the emotion? You felt most of, um, and sponsoring emotion, it can be even more positive or more negative, and that tends to then be a framework for other emotions, hence that sponsoring emotion. What was the impact of this feeling on your life, on your career? What was your biggest lesson?

What are you most grateful for? What would you like to experience more of from this period? What would you like to experience less of from this time? What would you like to stop? What would you like to. What was your biggest win? What was your biggest struggle? What was your heartfelt magic moment, and how much do you feel like you were you?

So [00:10:00] there’s 14 questions there that might feel quite a lot. Pause the podcast. Now. Start to go through them. You don’t need to do all of them, even if you just pick four or five that resonate with you. Just that time to stop, to reflect, to look back, identify those lessons. So Paul’s podcast. Start making some notes.

Um, go to the worksheet. They’re in the show notes. If you want a printed copy, if you like bit old school like me and you like to write down, um, or you can copy it into a worksheet and do it. Um, do it and type, type it out. So take some time, grab yourself cup, stop the podcast now, add some of those questions and really reflect back.

Welcome back. How did you get on with that? I hope, um, I hope that went well for you. Like I said, there’s no need for judgment. No need for being hard on yourself. No need to. If life is some curve balls and things end up completely differently, that’s absolutely fine. It’s just about taking those lessons.

You’re gonna go through that period of time anyway. So drain the richness of experience, really find those lessons, find things you would do differently and honor that. [00:11:00] So now we’re gonna move on to step two. Step two is all about passion planning, which is the passion part of the balls and passion plan.

Um, and we’re gonna start creating how you want to feel. So again, think about whether this is for the year or the next three months. That’s, that’s up to you. Um, I generally work with clients on a three month period, but if we’re we’re in January, we might look at the whole year. What’s your fire? What’s your passion?

What’s your purpose? So we’re gonna get the into those feelings. So what are you excited about? What’s in your heart? What’s in your soul? And if you remember, all goals are search for feelings. So that’s where the brain will really fast forward things. So here we start inside out and we start with the feeling to create the goals rather than starting with the goals and specifics.

So it’s a little bit of a different process. And here, I just really invite you to be brave, to be really brave, to have courage and ask for, and think about what you. And to be honest, be really honest about where you are. Be honest about the energy that you have. Be honest about the, the how fulfilled you are [00:12:00] feeling of how are things at home, because the truth will always set you free.

So really honor yourself and the time you’re taking to go through this by being as honest as you can. Um, almost think of it as we shining a light on the gray, big gray swirly mess. That was last year. Um, I say mess just as. It’s, it’s a big period of time and there might be some real headlines and letters for you and for us.

In some ways it was a bit of a mess, but it was brilliant as well. There’s a huge amount that I learned, and I’m going to record a different podcast, actually, episode that’s all about my intentions for 2023 based on how my 2022 went, which I hopefully will help you with this as well. So questions here. So we have eight here.

So again, Paul’s, Paul’s podcast, um, when I’ve gone through these questions and take some time to go through them and really, really listen to your heart and let that balance out with what you’re thinking about in your head. So, number one, where do you feel you are in your life right now? So think I’ve headlines.

Um, I also talk to clients if this helps. [00:13:00] I, I talk about chapters a lot as well. What is a chapter you feel that you are? In your life right now? So for me, we’ve obviously, we’ve got married now, we’ve moved back home. We are just, we really, we’re settling down where we are. We really love where we live. We love being on the beach.

We love the house. So we’re gonna be investing hugely next year in a, a huge renovation. Um, And also that consistency. I want that, that calm consistency in my work and in my business to support all of that at home and have that freedom of time. Um, and that’s freed me up now to also be able to train for a channel swim.

So that’s kinda like the chapter. I feel that I’m in at the moment. I work with clients who might be in the chapter of, they have older children who’ve now flown the Nest, so actually they feel like they’ve got one or two big jobs left in them. Or I might work with a client that her chapter of life is that she has younger children that still need them a lot.

But in a different way from when they were babies. So again, it’s what is that chapter of your life you’re in right now? Number two, what is [00:14:00] currently taking up your head space? What keeps you up at night? Um, and just take this opportunity to empty your head and just get it all out right now. So you can just take a blank sheet of paper and just write down everything that’s on your mind.

So almost think of it. If your brain is a computer with lots of tabs open, you’re just gonna close some of those tabs by just writing them all down. Get ’em outta your mind and just closing those tabs as we go. I’ll, I’ll do a different podcast on that cause it’s a great tool that I use for clients to help, help clear your mind.

Um, in five, just five minutes. Number three, what’s keeping you from being the present right here, right now? So kind of what’s distracting you? What are those future thoughts that might be going on? What are you reflecting on in the past, maybe in a way where you are ruminating again and again over it?

Number four, this is a big one, so take some time over this and really, really listen to your intuition. Um, what feelings would you love to feel most each day? What feelings would you love to experience being? Um, and this is really at the heart. This plan, and we [00:15:00] can often chase stuff and things and promotions and next steps and qualifications, assuming that they will make us happy.

So instead here, we want to lead with feelings first. Which then lead on to what what you want. So really think about what feelings would you love to feel most each day and pick two or three feelings and really lean into them, really imagine them. And so for me it’s around that calm, that consistency, and really appreciate everything in my life and really soaking it all up.

Number five, then, what will these feelings bring to your. Um, think about specifics. So start to imagine being in them and what will you say, what will you think, what will you feel and do following on from and flowing from those feelings. So for me, around that calm, that consistency and that appreciation.

It will be working consistent days. It will be having a structure and routine that works for me to balance my swimming training. It would be having weekends that I know that I can just be at home and be with my partner and go for lovely long walks to take my time and [00:16:00] everything slow. So it’s that feeling of very.

So for you, do the same thing and take those two, three feelings you most wanna feel and imagine them in your life. Number six, what are the ingredients that will help you create the recipe for these feelings? So what do I mean by this? You have felt every feeling there is to feel every ho human feeling you have felt at some point in your life.

So therefore, from a brain perspective, you have a recipe for that feeling. So what does that mean? It means that you have a list of ingredients. Help you create that feeling, whether it’s positive or negative. You felt sad. You felt happy. You felt energized. You felt fulfilled. You’ve thought all of those things.

So really think about your ingredients that will help you create the recipe for those two or three feelings you most want to feel. Um, number seven, what feelings would you like to experience less of in your life? Um, and what will you say, think, feel, and do to make sure that there’s less of those? And number eight, just think about what is the journey you’re going on for the next period of time.

So think of almost like a headline, a [00:17:00] hashtag. And give it a bit of an umbrella term. There’s probably a lot you’ve heard a lot about, like a word of the year or something like that. It’s, it’s a similar thing, but think of it more as an intention. Think of it almost as a way of being, um, think of it as almost your umbrella that you want to have for the years of me.

It’s that calm consistency. So pauses a podcast. Now. Go through those questions. Um, try to really lead with your heart, um, and see what comes out for. Right. Well done. Um, I’m really excited to hear what your, what your words are, what your feelings are. Um, keep coming back to them. It might not be an obvious one straightaway if you’re struggling.

Think about feelings that you don’t want that last question. So step number three, then it’s onto the action inferno part of the plan. So we’re gonna take some really inspired, um, action, bring it all together and make it into a plan, which is really, really exciting. And you can focus on the. To create your future, uh, which I just love.

I love that consciously taking responsibility and creating what [00:18:00] you want and just owning it. So many people that I work with, so many people that I know just don’t know what they want, so they’re never gonna get there cause they don’t have that clarity and that great quote from Branny Brown. Clarity is kind and clarity.

Lack of clarity is unkind. So we’re being really kind to ourselves here by getting that absolute clarity. Okay, so what do we do here? So, number one, you’re gonna think about what’s your, what’s your headline? What’s your hashtag? What’s your umbrella’s home for the next 90 days or the next, whatever period of time that you choose.

So think of it as a, a top line that you want to feel for the next 90 days that would give you that, that big feeling and lead into all the feelings that you, those two or three feelings that you want to. Number two, um, you’re gonna focus on four areas. So freedom, finance, fulfillment, and fun. You’re gonna give them a score right now.

Then you’re gonna think about the feelings that you want to feel and think about the score that you want to get to, what you want that score to be, and why at the end of this period of time, and then we use that framework. So we think [00:19:00] about the plus one plus one in your score in each area right now.

What do you need to do to get there? What would the highest score look like? So for example, if in fun at the moment you are a three, how are you gonna make it a four? What are you actually gonna do? If freedom’s really important to you, what does that freedom look like? And what’s your score? If you’re a, if you are a four now because you’re giving so much your work, how’d you make it a four?

Um, how’d you make it a five? So you’re gonna plus one each score with some actions right now, and then you’re gonna think about what you need to commit to daily, weekly, and monthly to get the score to where you want it to be over this period of time. Next one, you’re gonna think about who you need support from, um, and what do you need from them?

So who can help you with a specific part of your feelings or your goals, or just get really clear who’s gonna support you and how they’re gonna support. So Paul’s, uh, Paul’s podcast here, and just really think about those four areas. How are you gonna plus one that score, and also go back to those feelings.

What are the very [00:20:00] specific things that you’re gonna do to create those feelings consistently? So now that we’ve created that action plan and some immediate steps forward, some inspired actions, call it, inspired being from the heart feels good, feels right, feels like an obvious thing to do. I’m gonna have a think about step number four, just how you’re gonna check.

So how are you gonna update your plan? How are you gonna check in with your feelings? How are you gonna, at what point are you gonna have sit down again and have a look at this? How are you gonna look at your week? And just think about how are you honoring those feelings that you most want to feel? So what’s your checking process to update, um, where you are?

And also to just check in with where you are as things evolve and as you evolve through the year. And just have a really good think about what’s that process gonna. Um, and then number five finally is when you are starting to be more in those feelings, when you’re starting to make changes in your life, to feel more of that.

So for me, that calm, that consistency, how are you gonna celebrate? [00:21:00] How are you gonna recognize it? How are you going to build on that momentum? And that’s the final step. So what I would really invite you to do, Go to the link in the show notes, have a look at the worksheet, start to go through the worksheet.

Um, and even if you just take time to pause and reflect, even if you then just take time to identify those key feelings and the things and the frameworks that are gonna help you to be in those feelings more and more and create them in your life. , that’s a great start. Um, and if this is something you are looking for help with, um, I can help, um, either on a one hour call, so have the immediate impact coaching calls or on a v i p day, either at my office here in Koor, um, or somewhere that works with both of us.

So if that’s something you’re interested in, do drop me a message in the show notes and do keep an eye out for when we launched the journal, taking you through this process. So I’d love to know how you. Do drop me, um, an email in the show notes or connect with [00:22:00] me on LinkedIn. And yeah, I’m really, really excited to see what comes out for you with your 2023 plan.

Um, all the best of it. Keep going through these steps. Keep coming back to what feels exciting for you and bring that joy back to your planning for this year. You deserve that. You deserve the world. Thanks so much. I’ll speak to you. Podcast episode. Bye. Hi, it’s Nick here. I just wanna take a moment just to say thank you for listening when I’m sat recording the podcast in the deepest steps of Cornall.

It’s incredible to think that it’s reaching women across the world in 30 different countries, and we have thousands of downloads a month. So thank you so much for being part of that and being part of the audience means the world to me. But I do want to grow this audience. I would love you to help me reach more women like you.

So that we can really drive positive change in the corporate world. So you can do that one of three ways. First of all, you can subscribe to the podcast. You never miss an episode. It’s always a new episode’s, always delivered straight to [00:23:00] your inbox. You can review the podcast and leave us a rating, and the more ratings we have, we also go up in the podcast charts.

And finally, you can just share a favorite podcast with a peer, with a colleague, or on your social media. So I would love you to do that. Thank you for all your help. And I can’t wait for what’s.