How To Make This Year Your Breakout Year In Business
The way I see it, the start to the New Year is a perfect time to reflect on:
The last year
How you want to feel in your business vs. how you currently feel
Your deepest desires and big dreams for your life/business
Where your actions don’t align with your vision
What’s keeping you stuck in past versions of yourself in life/business
What you need to shift, do, feel, let go of, and welcome in, in order to re-align with your authenticity and truest desires
With all of this in mind, in this blogpost, I’ll take you through 6 steps to help you do all of this for YOUR business (and life).
Grab a journal, take some notes, and take time to relax. Connect with yourself, mother yourself, and let the insights sink in so that you can get clear on exactly how you’re making THIS YEAR your BREAKOUT YEAR 🔥
You can also watch this as an Instagram live, or listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
What is a BREAKOUT YEAR?
A lot of us are waiting for our breakout year. We’re waiting to be a big success. We’re waiting for it to all of a sudden feel like we’ve MADE IT.
You may be asking yourself: When am I going to hit it big? When am I going to be a well-known figure in my industry? When am I going to have a booked out coaching business? When is it MY moment?
A lot of us are waiting for that moment. What I’ve come to realize is that in that waiting period, instead of focusing on what’s ahead, what if we get really honest about what we have right now? What if we start to create the ecosystem for the feelings or goals we would like to achieve?
For example, if you want to have a booked out coaching business, maybe there’s a number that feels like success to you. What is required in order for you to create the ecosystem where that can occur?
There are things that we have to do both internally and externally in order to prepare for what it is that so many of us are waiting for.
Maybe it’s because some of us don’t believe we’re worthy yet. Or maybe we don’t believe we’re ready yet. Maybe we believe that we need to be validated externally first before we can have what we want. Maybe we’re chasing something and we don’t quite understand why.
I’m going to go through 6 steps to help you define and solidify what it will take you to make THIS YEAR your BREAKOUT YEAR.
If you’re a note taker, now would be a good time to take notes. Get out your pretty journal and pens, and let’s dive in.
STEP 1: DEFINE BREAK OUT YEAR
First of all, what does a “breakout year” mean to you?
When you think of the year ahead, what about it makes you feel like you’ve made it? Does it mean you’ll have major media features? Does it mean you’ll book out your coaching business? Does it mean you’re going to become a prominent authority in your industry?
What does it mean to you? You need to get clear on what a breakout year is for you.
Just like anything else, there is going to be internal and external components to this.
Internally, what are the feelings that you associate with making it? What do you imagine your breakout year to feel like?
Also, if you could not fail… like no matter what, you would not be told no… what would you do? Would you be on a major TV show? Are you on a major stage speaking? Are you leading an international retreat full of powerful women?
Write it down!
If you don’t know the answer yet, just write the question down and reflect on it. Think about it. Even if those thoughts come up like, “oh, I can’t do that,” that’s great. Instead of shutting them up immediately, pay attention to them. The challenge here is to be aware of the thoughts that are going to come up as you declare what your true dreams are.
I’m going to challenge you to also become even more clear. Your dream may be to help achieve world peace. Well, there are infinite ways that you could help do that.
Of course, Human Design is a super helpful tool for this.
Many of us will have voices that tell us why ____ is not possible for you. If we didn’t, we would already be having our breakout years. So, if you’re having those thoughts, pay attention to them. Write them down. Reflect. Where do those thoughts come from?
Look at your undefined centers and where you’re feeling extra pressure. Where is your really tender conditioning coming from?
To recap: Get clear on what your big dream is. What would you do if you could not fail? Then, what are the beliefs or thoughts coming up that are limiting you as far as taking action toward that big dream?
I think a lot of us in the coaching and healing spaces online feel the pressure to achieve things based on what our expanders are achieving. It’s beautiful to have expanders who can help guide you in the direction you want to go, but we have to be extra careful here. Especially if you have an undefined G center or undefined heart center. You have to be careful that you’re not going to go completely in their direction.
You might find that you get to where they are now and you may be exhausted and feel like crap. Their direction may not be aligned for you.
Get clear on what your big dream is, what your version of success might look or feel like, because some people want to have big businesses but not necessarily make a name for themselves. Some people don’t want fame, they don’t want to scale. They don’t want to run a major company or agency.
All of those things are completely fine. Your dreams are unique to you.
There are other people who want to start a business and turn it into an empire. Maybe they’ll sell it one day. Or start a coaching business and build it to the point where they can completely step away.
Someone else may hate the idea of doing that.
There is no right or wrong way. There is no right or wrong version of success. There is only yours and what’s not yours. So, what is yours?
I’ve done this process and I’ve thought about it. Sometimes, you have to figure out what you don’t want in order to figure out what you do want.
As a 1/3 profile in Human Design, learning what I don’t want has meant taking lots of messy action and learning the hard way. Burning out multiple times before I figured out, “oh huh, I don’t think I can operate like that.”
If you’re exhausted, burning out, feeling frustrated, stuck, bitter, or angry… what needs to shift?
STEP 2: GET CLEAR ON YOUR CURRENT BUSINESS
How do you feel now? In your schedules, routines, rhythms, relationships, holistic view of Self, lifestyle… how do you feel? Does it feel like you?
Does it feel right? Does it give you life? Does it drain you?
Look at those different areas of your life, because in business, we want to build one based on the lifestyle that we desire. We want to build our businesses based on the life we want for ourselves.
We can build out a business that supports us.
Look at your business now. Which aspects of your business do not align with your definition of a breakout year? Which aspects are misaligned with your definition of success, your greater vision, your bigger purpose for what you want in your business and in your life?
Look at your business model, offers, team, project management, and money. All these different parts of your business are parts that you must run as the owner. How does this feel right now? Does it feel aligned with your big dream?
Here’s a real life example:
A week ago, I had a strategy session with a private client who’s a Manifesting Generator. I asked her what her plans are for the year as far as what she’s offering. We went through the offers she has planned and I could feel this stuck energy.
I could not feel her sacral YES energy.
She then started talking about one particular offer, and I was like, “now, THIS is a YES.”
We did a visualization for her future self, and of course, in that visualization she was doing what she needs to do for that offer. So, we built out a plan that makes that one offer the final destination for her people. Then, we made a business model that gets them there.
We also built out steps along the way that take aspects of that offer that feel really good and juicy, and we infused those into lower ticket offers that will help get her people to where she eventually wants to take them. This way, she’s enjoying herself every step along the way, and so are her clients and community.
What is the offer in your business right now that you love the most when you’re doing it? What feels most like your zone of genius?
Maybe it’s not necessarily an offer, maybe it’s an aspect of your offer. Maybe you have a course, but you offer a live component, and that component gets you really excited. We know there’s something about that part that jazzes you up. Okay. How do we take that and build it out into a client journey? We want to do this in a way that makes everybody–including you–feel really good.
Instead of offering all of these other things that you feel like you should offer, that you feel pressured to offer, you can change your business model and whole plan for the year, based on what lights you up.
For sacral beings–create a plan for your juicy sacral YES. What’s a big sacral YES for you, will be right for the right people. Everybody wins.
Look at your business as it is now. Where does it not feel or look like you want it to? Where does it not align with your bigger vision for your life and for your business?
Say your business is to travel the world and be a motivational speaker on some big stages. You want to be known in your industry for being a speaker and make the majority of your living there. Maybe you have an education business on evergreen in the background while you’re travelling and speaking… that’s the big dream.
What are the steps that you can take now? What skills, knowledge, emotional capacity, and willingness do you need to cultivate in order to take the necessary steps to move towards your big dream?
Are you ready to go to London right now and be paid $15,000 to speak on stage? Is your business set up now and ready for the passive income to be coming in regularly as your foundation for the freedom to travel and speak?
Probably not.
If you were ready, both internally and externally, you would probably already be doing that.
STEP 3: ENVISION YOUR FUTURE BUSINESS
Let’s take an honest look at what is required to get you from A to B.
For starters, you could buy a book about public speaking, take a class, start practicing, or start incorporating smaller gigs into your business. You could learn about evergreen funnels, start course creation, and create your passive funnel, running ads to get people into your courses.
That can be a revenue stream for you right now, even if you have to start asking people to let you speak in their programs or offer it for free. That’s where you get to practice, gain testimonials so that in a few months you can start charging confidently and go up and up from there.
This is intentional.
You have to decide now that this is what you want, that you deserve it, and you have to know that anything you want in your business is possible. For you, for anyone. If you really really really desire it, like it’s not this pressure to achieve it… if you really truly desire it and it’s on your heart, you are meant to have it. Even if you don’t believe in yourself yet.
Be honest with yourself. What do you need in order to get there?
Let’s be real about this. It’s a huge undertaking to start taking the steps you need to take towards building out your desires and your business.
It requires a lot of time, energy, and resources on the front end to make an effective, profitable funnel. So, we either have to hire support or learn for ourselves. Do a lot of trial and error to get good at it. But if you know that you want to have that foundation and you want to have that freedom so that you can be speaking and doing other things, you can start taking baby steps toward that now.
When you start taking those steps, it’s going to build your confidence and belief in yourself that you can do it because you’re learning how or getting the support. In that process, you’re basically sending out this signal to the Universe that you’re taking the steps to become the version of yourself who has that.
I’ll give you another example.
Maybe you want to have a booked out coaching and intuitive guidance business. You want your clients to be so happy that your entire business is run by word of mouth. You don’t want to spend your time on social media or running ads, you want to be in your community, in person, doing events. You don’t care to scale, your vision is to be booked out by word of mouth.
Okay, great. What is required of you in order to go from now to your vision?
If you eventually want to be in a community, start getting involved in your community now. Trust that the opportunities will present themselves. Trust that the right relationships will be built, and that you’ll build your business by word of mouth.
If there are other things that you have to do in order to supplement that in the meantime, trust yourself enough to know that you will take action and you will hold the responsibility. This may be a part of what you need in order to go from A to be. Maybe you need to learn how to trust yourself.
Maybe you need to learn how to be more confident and to surrender to where your heart is guiding you. That’s an internal process that honestly needs to happen at every level, from my experience.
Also, maybe you don’t want to be on social media or Instagram to run your business. In your dream business, you’re not on there… that’s an external factor. So ask yourself: Why are you on social media now? Why are you putting so much of your energy there?
This is something external that you can shift now to be more in alignment with what you want. Internally, the shift may be believing that you can grow your business without being on Instagram. There, you know what to shift.
Getting what we desire does require more for us and sometimes we make excuses around why we don’t have what we want. It requires a lot of discomfort, and we want to avoid that. Most of us want to, and it’s fine.
But eventually, hopefully, you’ll get there.
What support do you need to call in? What do you need to learn? Do you have the skills and knowledge that you need to get from A to B?
Be honest with yourself.
What do you need to learn in order to be confident in your expertise? Take the drama out of it. Knowing what you need to get from A to B doesn’t require shame for where you are right now.
This is just a step along the way. We all have to go through this process. We’re all on different points on our journey. Own where you are. Own the point you’re at and know that there are things that you can do, energies that you can embody, on the way to your dream.
You can do that and trust the process.
STEP 4: TAP INTO WHAT NEEDS TO SHIFT
So, what do you need to do right now?
Do you need to
Buy a book?
Hire a mentor?
Join a program?
Organize your finances?
Need a certification?
Maybe a part of this is financial. Maybe you know you need a certification, you feel drawn to it and it will help you reach your next level of what’s required from you in your business, but you don’t have the capital to support that investment right now.
What do you need to do now? Figure out how to make the cash?
Again, it’s time to take the drama out of it and trust yourself.
Whatever you need in order to get the support, knowledge, or skills that you require to get to that next level, trust yourself to get it.
In that case, something needs to happen both internally and externally.
Can you really learn how to trust yourself? Can you work on that self-trust muscle?
Can you take the actions? Can you find the program, mentor, or book you need to propel you forward?
Or maybe, you need to rework your schedule and completely restructure your business model. Maybe these things don’t fit with you anymore.
Full disclosure, this year I’m building a personal brand, in addition to other big things. That was a result of me asking myself these questions and getting really clear on the answers. All these shifts are coming to me as a result of being honest and taking the drama out of it.
When looking at things that need to shift, you can also look at the shadows of the not self. That is, the pressure in your conditioning.
Pressures In Conditioning
If you have an undefined heart center, you may be feeling like deep down you’re not worthy of your vision. You may think that you don’t deserve that, or that you need to become someone else in order to be worthy of that.
Even if you have a defined heart center, a lot of women still carry this belief. That’s something we all want to work on. There are ways to practice increasing your self-worth. Just because you believe that you’re not worthy in this moment right now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t ever believe that you’re worthy.
I think there’s this misconception that we need to have this moment where we suddenly believe that we’re worthy and we’ve reached this destination. We need to know that everything that we want is coming.
I don’t believe that’s the case though.
I believe that it’s less about reaching the destination of believing that we’re worthy, and it’s more about taking the actions to practice feeling worthy in the moment. It’s about showing myself that I am willing to show up and practice feeling worthy regardless of if I am promised a major aha moment someday where I’ve reached the destination of inherent worthiness.
Inherent worthiness is a feeling that we have access to at any time. So, what do you need to do in order to access that feeling now and tomorrow and the next day?
It’s about building that muscle with self-trust. Know that someday you’re just going to trust yourself enough to put yourself out there. Why not today? What can we shift right now for your to build that trust muscle?
If you have sacral authority, you may be disconnected from your sacral response because you haven’t been honoring it. It’s probably why you feel tired, stuck, and frustrated, because you’ve basically been abandoning yourself.
Every time your body says NO and you do the thing anyway, or every time your body says YES and you do something else because you don’t feel you’re worthy of the YES… or because you feel like it’s a waste of time or you’re feeling pressured to do something else… you’re abandoning yourself.
You’re saying, “Okay body, I hear you. I see you. I’m going to do this instead. I’m not going to do what’s correct for me.”
If you’ve been abandoning yourself, you’re not going to feel like you trust yourself. Why would you trust someone who continually abandons and rejects you? Why would you trust someone who knows what you need and what you want and chooses not to give you that? You probably won’t.
You’re going to have to take baby steps to build back your trust with yourself, and a lot of practice.
Guess what? You can start right now. Make micro decisions that are in alignment with your authority. For instance, that requires you to check in with your body to decide what to commit to.
When it comes to looking at what needs to shift in order for you to embody that vision, stop looking at it like you’re trying to reach a destination. That once you’re healed enough, smart enough, or once someone believes that you are worthy of it, you will have it.
No. Start taking the actions right now to get yourself ready for it.
That’s your commitment, and that also ensures that every step along the way, you understand that it might not be easy all the time. It’s not always going to be easy to implement new habits and make changes in your life and business. But, the process gets to feel good because it’s doing something for you and your bigger vision.
STEP 5: PRIORITIZE WHAT’S IMPORTANT
Next, you’re going to prioritize.
Most of the women I work with are creative, intuitive, feminine entrepreneurs. That said, many of us are also neuro-divergent. And sometimes, it can be really hard to prioritize.
Most of us have an undefined head center, where we have all these ideas coming through all of the time.
We are also helpers. When we have conversations, even if it’s not with a client and in our personal lives, we want to help the people we speak to. We just throw our energy everywhere.
I remember I used to plan for the year and make decisions to launch this and that… all year long. I look back on that, and I’m like: How the fuck did I think I was going to be able to do all of that?
I have two children and my own personal life. I have friends. How could I possibly live the life that I want to live and do all the things in my business as well? Especially when I didn’t have the structures, processes, or team in place to support me (like I do now).
It didn’t make sense. I wasn’t prioritizing what matters most.
If that’s you too, It’s okay.
There may be different things that you want to try, like you can do all of the things. I’m just saying that we need to have clear priorities.
Like if that big vision is being paid to travel and speak on a stage, how can we incorporate that into this?
Where can we make it a priority to learn the skills, take the program, hire an assistant to help you with pitching every month? How can we make those things the priority in our life and in our business?
Maybe it’s not a priority all year long. Maybe it’s a priority for the first half of the year, and then in the second half of the year you’re going to be launching a retreat, you’ll be busier with your kids, or maybe someone on your team will be on vacation.
It doesn’t have to be the priority all year long, but where can you fit that in to make it a priority?
My business manager (Maclovia) and I did this by breaking down each quarter of the year, and got clear on our three focuses for each quarter.
If we knew that we would be launch something in quarter two, then we know that our priorities in quarter one are going to be getting ready for that. Then we have to break down what those priorities are. If you’re going to launch a mastermind in quarter two, then in quarter one your priority will be strategizing and planning, getting your messaging down, making sure you have everything in place to lead your people to your mastermind. That’s your priority for quarter one.
This will prevent you from reaching quarter two and being overwhelmed with too much to do.
Maybe you also need to hire someone to help you get super clear on what your priorities are in both your business and in your personal life.
If you know that every summer you take a month to travel or to be with your kids while they’re on vacation, well perhaps let’s not overschedule your business the quarter before that happens, and the quarter where you’ll be off. Make sure that your systems and processes are in place so that you can still make money and your business can run seamlessly when you take a break.
Remember, if you have a one in your profile, you need to feel prepared. If you don’t feel prepared, you will sabotage because you don’t feel ready or strong enough to handle what’s coming.
Make sure that you’re prioritizing.
If you know what’s coming next, you can work your priorities backwards from there. If you know there’s something going on in your personal life, you can also work that in.
And if it’s super overwhelming to think about your entire year, that’s fine. For now, think about the beginning of the year until June.
STEP 6: CREATE AN INTENTIONAL PLAN
The last step is to get really clear on your plan.
You don’t have to plan out the whole year, but having some sort of structure is important (I talk more about that here).
You want to balance out your structure with your flow, and here’s why:
There’s this study where they let all these little kids loose in a field. All the kids stayed pretty close to each other. But, as soon as they let them free in a field with a fence around it, they went all over the confines of that fenced area.
If you think about this in terms of your business, you want to have structures in place to feel grounded and solid. If you don’t have this, you’re going to stay where you feel safe.
The structure to support the kind of business that you actually desire will help you be free to flow. You’re going to feel free to express, to be creative, to grow, to stretch yourself. You’re going to feel safe enough to be free to do those things.
For example, if you know you want to be launching this program in quarter two, but you don’t exactly know when. You may not be clear on all the details yet, and that’s okay. But setting that intention is at the very least putting in a structure because now you know where you want your energy to flow in that quarter. When it comes, you know where you want your creativity and ideas to flow to.
For planning, there are some fun things to look at when thinking ahead.
Human Design Transits
If you look at your Human Design chart, depending on where you get it, there will be a wheel around it. There are all numbers of the gates, and then also the zodiac signs.
You can learn how to work with the transits in Human Design as you look ahead and align your business with them. If you want to learn more about the transits, join our text community by texting “hi” to 833-595-2760. I’ll be sharing insights and transit updates there! This will help you figure out how the transits will be impacting you. I’m going to give you some reflection prompts as well to explore.
Moon Cycles
You can start simple with the moon cycle.
For example, when I recorded this podcast episode there was a Full Moon in Cancer. This alludes to the idea that a lot of us might feel extra intuitive, sensitive, and extra emotional around this time.
I’m not an astrologer, so I won’t dive too deep into what that means specifically for you. But, many of us will feel the energy of New and Full Moons. And Full Moons will be a great time to release.
The Infamous Mercury Retrograde
There will be transits going on that are really supportive for something things and not so supportive for other things.
For instance, launching something new during Mercury Retrograde… you know, that’s okay. We just might want to be aware that there might be some tech and communication issues. We want to make sure that those contracts are air tight as well.
It can be helpful to meet with an astrologer to chat about different important dates throughout the year, like speaking engagements or launches, so that you can be clear about what the astrology will be around that time and what to look forward to.
You might not fully and wholeheartedly believe in all of this stuff, that’s cool, and also it can be an interesting lens to look through. At the very least, it can make you more aware of how you’re feeling in the moment or how these transits may or may not be affecting you.
Hormonal Cycles
Consider your moon cycle. If you know that you always start your bleed in the middle of the month, or maybe you bleed with the Full moon… do you want to be launching something new that week? Or even the week before?
Maybe you know that you’re not going to want to show up for a few days around that time. You’re probably going to want to go inward. Take that into consideration.
Life Events
There’s also things that happen in your year that will always be there. For example, your kids’ or partners’ birthdays, holidays, or vacation times.
This is something that I talk about because I have struggled with this so much, and I still sometimes do. I always think that I’m going to be able to do much more than I can in a certain amount of time. I’m pretty sure I have time blindness, which is very common for neurodivergent brains.
This is where priorities come into play. You can kind of have a priority list, and you can also have a running list of other tasks you can work on if your priorities are all taken care of.
Really look at those life events. What are the holidays, vacations, trips, lunar cycles, transits that will impact your plans for the year or quarter?
I always know that Gemini season is a hard one for me. It’s my 12th house season which is about self-undoing. I don’t want to be around anyone during that time. I’m doing the inner work and healing that I don’t want to do. It’s usually pretty messy. I don’t want to be front facing at all.
So now, I schedule that into the year. I don’t launch anything new in June.
Non-Negotiables
Lastly, schedule in time for your non-negotiables.
If you know that your bigger vision includes having a 4-day work week, even if that’s not possible for you right now, maybe you can include it in some way. Can you take at least part of your day once a week just for you? Maybe it’s once a day.
When you look at your bigger vision, what are the aspects of that vision that you can implement now, both in your business and in your personal life? What do you want your schedule to look and feel like? How can you start crafting out your days to feel like that?
Gala Darling made this great post. She’s an emotional Manifestor (like me), and I highly recommend going and reading this post, especially if you’re a non-sacral being.
It’s really good for feeling inspired to start creating the schedule and the life of your dreams now. Even if you don’t feel like you’re there yet, that’s okay.
You don’t have to believe that you’re there yet. But, start taking those actions forward now.
YOU’RE MEANT TO HAVE IT
To recap, the 6 steps to making this year your breakout year are:
Define Your Breakout Year
Get clear on your current business
Envision your future business
Tap into what needs to shift
Prioritize what matters most
Create an intentional plan
Know that if you desire it, you’re meant to have it. If you don’t believe that right now, that’s okay. You can take actions, starting today, to help shift that belief.
Also, just so you know, I wholeheartedly believe in you. I have zero doubt that you can make this year your breakout year.
Get clear on what that means exactly, and start taking the actions because you deserve that. I love you and I believe in you.
Thank you so much for reading!
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