Welcome to the 4-part series about planning your year ahead.
This is a long essay you may want to bookmark and reference.
Here’s what frustrates me about most outcome-based goals:
“Hit $10K months.”
“Get your first 1,000 subscribers in a year.”
“Get fully booked.”
These goals sound motivating. But they’re missing something critical: any connection to what actually happened in your business this year.
Most people set next year’s goals without looking at this year’s data.
They pick aspirational numbers without asking: What did I actually do? Did it work? And do I have the capacity to do more of it—or something different—next year?
Start with Reality: What actually happened this year?
Before you can plan where you’re going, you need to know where you are.
Not where you wish you were, but where you actually are, based on what happened in your business.
To see that clearly, we’re going to use an adapted version of my Roots to Fruits framework—a way to track not just your results, but the activities that create those results over time.
The Fruits of Your Labor: Your Final Results
These are your outcome metrics—the things most people review at the end of the year.
Review these numbers:
- Revenue, profit, and cash: How much did you make, how much did you keep, and what’s in your bank account?
- Client metrics: How many new clients? How many renewed? How many left? Where did they come from?
- Offer profitability: Which offers were worth your time and which weren’t?
- Your sustainability: How do you feel in your business? You might be working outside your Zone of Enoughness.
This is your starting point. Reviewing the ultimate fruits without judgment.
The Sprouts You’re Tending: Your Leading Indicators
Before you see final results, you see signs of traction—the sprouts.
Review these numbers:
- Sales activity: How many inquiries did you receive? From which sources? How many turned into proposals and clients?
- Audience growth: How many people chose to hear from you on your social/newsletter/podcast platforms, and did that grow?
- Earned visibility: Podcast appearances, guest teaching, speaking—how often did new audiences see your work?
If your fruits lag behind your goals, look at your sprouts. Are new people even seeing your work? Are they inquiring? If not, the issue isn’t sales—it’s earlier in the process.
The Seeds You’re Planting: Your Proactive Efforts
Here’s where most people get stuck.
You can’t control exactly when someone buys. But you can control whether you’re planting seeds—the proactive efforts that create visibility, connection, and trust over time.
Review these efforts:
- Relationship building: How many proactive outreaches did you make? How many real conversations did you have with your network—both new connections and existing relationships?
- Authority development: Are you creating work that lives beyond the feed or inbox? Articles, case studies, podcast episodes, portfolio pieces—assets people can discover and share.
- Broadcast marketing: Newsletters, social posts, podcast episodes—are you showing up consistently enough for people to remember you exist?
- Visibility efforts: How often did you pitch or get invited to appear in front of new audiences?
Seeds take months—sometimes years—to turn into fruits. If you didn’t plant many seeds this year, you can’t expect a harvest next year.
The Roots You’re Strengthening: Your Business Foundations
The roots are the behind-the-scenes systems and projects that make everything else easier.
Review these projects:
- Building: What business-building work did you complete? (New CRM, streamlined offer, better invoicing, hired support, updated client journey)
- Tending: What’s well-maintained in your business—and what feels overwhelming?
Strong roots don’t show up in your revenue immediately.
But they determine whether your business can drive or sustain growth.
The Air and Soil You’re In: Your Environment
Finally, acknowledge the environment you're planting in. Maybe you’re parenting young kids, caring for aging parents, managing a chronic condition, or working a full-time job alongside your business.
And don't forget that we're living in 2025. When your entire industry might have gotten impacted by political decisions. Where we're all living in a world where our digital communication is increasingly ensh*ttified, we're facing more atrocities in the world, and having to keep on business-ing anyways.
Your circumstances matter. When you look at your numbers and efforts, don’t look with shame. Look with clarity: Yes, this is what happened this year. All of it.
(This is why Part 2 of this series focuses entirely on your context—because your circumstances impact your lived reality.)
You cannot compare your progress to someone who is operating in a different environment. That person who grew their LinkedIn audience by 5,000 followers because they sell "how to grow on LinkedIn" on LinkedIn, or the other person that has 40 hours a week to dedicate to their business and no caregiving responsibilities.
This step is about getting honest about what’s actually possible for you in your season.
📍 Feeling overwhelmed? Start here:
Don’t try to answer everything at once. Begin with just these three questions:
- Where did your clients come from this year? (Referrals? Social? Partnerships? One source or many?)
- How many proactive relationship-building efforts did you make? (Outreaches, calls, asks for visibility—not posting or marketing emails, but actual connection)
- What business-building work did you complete this year? (Did you set up that CRM? Streamline your invoicing? Complete your website overhaul? Give yourself credit for what you built.)
These three questions will tell you more than you think.
|
What patterns do you see?
When you review your year through this framework, you're not looking for reasons to "should" on yourself. You're looking for patterns so you can make decisions based on reality instead of aspiration.
One of four things happened this year:
- You had a plan, executed it, and got the results you wanted.
- You had a plan, executed it, and didn't get the results you wanted.
- You had a plan, didn't execute it, and may or may not have gotten results.
- You didn't have a plan, and likely didn't get the results you wanted.
Whatever scenario you're in, the data from this year shows you what needs to change.
Maybe you spent months posting on social media but got no clients. If your data shows that channel didn’t produce any sprouts—DMs, inquiries, email sign-ups—then continuing to post there isn’t a strategy. It’s a distraction.
Or maybe when you look at where this year's clients came from, the answer is "mostly referrals." If referrals are your primary source, did you do anything proactive to expand that network? Did you plant or strengthen relationships that could turn into future referrals—or are you hoping they'll just keep coming at the same pace?
This is the gap most people miss: They want different results next year, but they're not changing their approach based on what this year showed them. They're continuing tactics that aren't producing results. They're not executing plans they know they need. They're hoping the same activities will somehow create a bigger harvest.
That's not how it works.
What to Do Next
Before you set goals for next year, get clear on what actually happened this year.
Not what “should have” happened. Not what happened for that person you follow on LinkedIn. What happened for you, in your circumstances, with your capacity.
Use the Roots to Fruits framework to map your reality:
- What were your fruits (results)?
- What sprouts did you see (leading indicators)?
- How many seeds did you plant (proactive efforts)?
- What roots did you strengthen (systems and projects)?
- What was your actual capacity this year—and is that likely to change?
Once you see the patterns, you’ll know what’s possible next year, and what needs to change.
Maybe you planted seeds that just haven’t sprouted yet. Maybe you didn’t have capacity this year to plant seeds (that’s data, not failure). Maybe you were planting in the wrong soil—focusing on a business model or target client type that won’t generate the income you need.
You’re not looking for what went wrong—you’re looking for what’s true, so you can make informed decisions.
If you need the accountability to record this information during the year, consider joining the Deeper Foundations Membership, as we tend our metrics every month.
And if you need more personal support to build the systems and structures that support this approach (and how to protect the time to do this work), check out my new group program called Business Rhythms. More information will be coming this week, but if you've wanted to learn Operations with me, you'll get the support to do it starting in January.
Next in this series: Part 2 will help you assess your capacity—what’s actually possible in the season you’re in, based on your business stage, your available resources, and your real-life constraints.