Happy New Years!...In the middle of February. Too late? I’m thinking about that Curb Your Enthusiasm bit where Larry David says you’ve only got three days to wish people a Happy New Year. I'll admit, it might be too late to wish you a Happy New Year, but it’s never too late to set new intentions.

In this episode, I share my strategy for yearly planning, while embracing the belief that setting new intentions knows no calendar bounds. (Grab the FREE New Years Planning Workbook Here!)

And if you don’t have the capacity to even think about New Year’s resolutions, I’ve been there and I’m sending so much love your way. I hope this episode is a comforting guide to regaining clarity, setting intentions and preparing for a new year with a realistic and compassionate approach.

In this episode I'm discussing:

• [00:00] - The New Year Starts in February (or whenever you want it to)
• [01:18] - Seasons of survival and seasons of growth
• [03:30] - Step 1 - Dreaming
• [05:09] - Step 2: Financial Planning
• [08:54] - Step 3: Setting Intentions, Goals + Planning
• [11:35] - Finding Purpose + Meaning

Links:

• Click here for the full show notes for this episode.
• Click here to get the FREE "New Years" Planning Workbook.
• @maybethiswillbethecure on Instagram

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Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Consult your physician before making any changes to your health plan. The host, Megan, is not a healthcare provider. Always seek guidance from a qualified health professional for your individual needs.

And I totally relate. I feel like I spend January in that same kind of restful, contemplative energy and plan for the new year to actually start in February. So that's why I'm releasing this New Year's episode in the middle of February. And to be real, you can set new intentions any time of year. So I feel like this is relevant anytime.

Welcome to Maybe This Will Be the Cure, a podcast where the wisdom of a healing journey meets the warmth of shared experiences. Join as we explore the topics of healing, living with chronic conditions, chronic pain, neurodiversity, mental health, and parenting kids with disabilities. I'm your host, Megan.

Now, last year around this time, I didn't have the brain space for any New Year's resolutions or yearly planning. My kids were still deep in autistic burnout, and after a really tough non stop year, it all caught up to me in January.

I couldn't function. My brain was foggy. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. I was plagued by itchy stress rashes all over. I'd sometimes pass out or feel lightheaded and nauseous in stressful situations. And between low blood sugars and panic attacks, we had a lot of stressful situations going on.

I do web design on the side and I was really struggling to work. I just didn't have the energy to create. And I felt like I was in that newborn fog, but minus the sweet newborn. I wasn't sleeping well. I was learning so many new things at once. Between diabetes and burnout, it's big learning curves and adjusting to lots of changes all at once. We moved out of state the same year. And I was grieving. I was tired constantly. I felt panicked often, and I was struggling with being social, all of it.

So I started regular therapy again, and I've stuck with it this entire year. And along with coaching and a lot of other supportive therapies and practices like MFR, chiropractic journaling, meditation, exercise supplements, all of it. I'm doing a lot better and my boys are doing a lot better than last year. So here I am a year later with the space, energy, mental clarity, and capacity to finally think about this new year, and I have the space to do some planning and set some intentions. Nothing too crazy. We're still in recovery from burnout and I'm finally being more realistic about my capacity. But I am so grateful to be in a spot where I can even think about the new year things. And so I thought I'd share a few things I'm doing to prepare for this new year.

But I just wanted to say if you're in a season of complete survival mode or living in a fog, I've been there and I'm sending so much love your way and I'm hoping that you can get some relief soon.

So for new year planning, the first thing I like to do is take some time to dream. I am a dreamer. I have big dreams and desires for my life, and I am a total woo girl. Like, I love the idea of manifesting and I think action is really important too. But I've realized that sometimes as you focus on a specific dream or a goal, you start to notice things that can help you get there or certain opportunities come your way. It's like when you glance around a room and then on the second look, you choose a specific color and suddenly that color stands out in a way it didn't before. Our brains are naturally filtering out so much information, so I prefer to focus on my dreams and I hope that by doing so, my brain will start noticing things that might pave the way for their realization. And I don't know if it will always work, but I think that even if I don't reach the dream, I'll probably gain a lot just by trying to get there. I love the book "You're a Bad A at Making Money". I know the title might be a little off putting, but I've read it so many times because it always helps me feel so motivated and energized to take action. In the book, she has an exercise where you write out a day in your dream life, and I've done this exercise several times and I did it again this past month. It's just so fun to think about. When I did this exercise for the first time years ago, my dream was that my husband and I were both working from home with flexible schedules. And guess what? Here we are! We both work from home with flexible schedules and I'm so grateful. So I just love to take some time to dream.

The next thing that I like to do to prepare for the new year is some financial planning. And before you tune me out, I know this podcast is about healing, so talking about finances might seem kind of off topic, but if you think about it, finances impact health so much. So I think it's really important to talk about.

And I used to have no clue about our finances. Like literally, I wouldn't even look at them. I would ask my husband before I spent any money to make sure we had money in the bank. But for years I didn't even know how to log into our bank account. And I'm sure you can imagine how wonderful that was for our marriage. No, I'm just kidding. It wasn't a good thing, and it led to a lot of frustration for both of us. So a while ago, I took this online course by Shanna Skidmore called Blueprint at home, and it basically taught me how to manage our home finances. Side note, I also took her business finance course. I think it's called the blueprint model, and I loved it. Seriously, it was so helpful for me. Anyways, since taking her course, every month I do a money date where I look at where our money went, and for the first time in our marriage, we finally have a money plan (which is basically just a nicer word for budget-I just hate the word budget) to help us be more intentional with our spending and saving. For years, from newlyweds to new parents to law school, we didn't have a money plan. Our plan was just don't spend any money. Oh, you need something? Wait until next year. So if that's you, I feel you. Anyways, I'm grateful now to have a better understanding of our finances and to be in a place where we can make intentional choices.

So, for financial planning for the year, the first step was to do the December's money date. So wrap up the year. And I went over our income and expenses for the month. And then I looked at the whole year's income and expenses, and I compared our actual spending to our money plan. And our income varies from month to month. So getting that bird's eye view of the full year is really helpful to see how we're actually doing financially.

And then the next step is to set goals together and update our money plan. So before we even talked about budgeting or our money plan, we started with a discussion of our goals and things that are coming up for the year and our dreams, and we discussed the financial impact of those. So, for example, we're trying out some new therapies for the boys this year, which is a big cost that we need to plan for. We also have a couple of family trips coming up this year, and we're trying to save for a new car. Both our cars are over 200,000 miles, so it's time. And we have student loans that we're working on paying off. So with all those things in mind and taking into account what we learned from our spending last year, we update our money plan to fit this year's goals.

Okay, so after I do financial planning, then I like to take some time to set our intentions for the year goals and then plan to try to reach those goals. So first, setting goals and intentions. As a family, we used to have this big chalkboard in our home that had each family member's individual goals or things we were working on for the year that we could just see all the time easily. And it also had a section for our intentions, which is more like, how do we want our home to feel? Or what do we want to focus on in general? So just, for example, on our chalkboard, before I had a goal to start a garden. When my husband was in law school, his goal was to finish law school. My oldest wanted to get a Nintendo switch, of course. And my youngest wanted to start lessons like his older brother and get a dino toy. And what's cool to see is how we all eventually met those goals. I just think it's helpful to be looking at it all the time. And then in the intention section, we wrote that we wanted our home to feel comfortable, safe, loving and fun. Now, to be honest, the past year and a half this chalkboard has just sat under my bed after our move, and I still don't have the energy to put it up. So instead, this year, we kept it really simple. We just talked as a family about what our individual goals are, what our intentions are or focus is on for the year. Maybe someday I'll get around to putting it up.

And then I always have different health and wellness goals that I'm working on. Shocker. This year I'm trying to walk more. It's still hard for me to get out of the house. Both my kids typically panic when I leave, so I found a walking pad on Facebook marketplace and I'm using that to get more steps in regularly. And I also got this cheap pedometer that I'm using to track my steps, you know, what gets measured, gets managed, or however that saying goes. And I also scheduled the dental cleaning for the first time in years. So winning!

And then I also took some time to figure out my creative goals for the year and to plan for those. One thing I've realized while experiencing a season of burnout with my kids is that I have this natural desire to create things, and creating fills me and it keeps me sane. I have a web design business, a small Etsy shop, and a few months ago I started the Maybe This Will Be the Cure Instagram page that eventually led to this podcast. I have tons of ideas, and I start to feel overwhelmed when they're all brimming inside and I don't bring them to life. So this past month, I made decisions about what creative ideas I'll pursue next, and I mapped out a plan to get it done.

When my son was hospitalized and diagnosed with type one diabetes, in a way, it completely broke my worldview. I realized that some circumstances are out of my control. I can't prevent every bit of suffering in this life. I'm always thinking of that Weepy song "The World Spins Madly On." But even though I'm not in control of all of life's circumstances, there's a lot that I can control, even if it's just how I think about a situation.

I love the book man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl. If you're unfamiliar, it's a book written by this psychologist that was imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II, and he shares the lesson that despite external circumstances, we can make choices that contribute positively to our lives and that even in the face of suffering, you can find meaning and purpose. I was reading a quote recently that talked about how trees halt their growth and focus on survival in difficult seasons, and last year required that I focus on just the bare necessities for survival just to get through the days. I had no space for New Year's planning or anything else, but now that I have the space for some growth, I like to have something I'm working towards and I love the purpose and meaning it adds to my life.

Thanks for being here as I share the things I'm doing to prepare for the new year. I'll provide links for the things I mentioned in the show notes if you want to check it out. Also, I put together a New Year's planning worksheet - if you want something that kind of boils this all down to an actionable worksheet - for you and I'll link to it in the show description. I love talking your ear off. Until next time!

Thanks for joining us today. Where dreams are nurtured, challenges are met with resilience, and every tiny step forward is a victory. Hit subscribe so you can easily find new episodes and join this community because maybe this will be the cure.