“The monthly plan is the place where you bring together where you are now with where you're going.” – Mia

Last year, one of my FLOW365 clients told me she had put her monthly plan in a gold frame on her desk. I loved the idea so much that I immediately went out and bought my own.

Now, every day when I sit down at my computer, I can look up and see what matters most to me. My big dreams are right there, alongside the things I've decided deserve my attention this month. On the days when I'm excited and full of energy, it keeps me focused. On the days when life feels complicated or I'm questioning what I'm doing, it reminds me why I'm doing it.

I've come to believe that monthly planning might be the most powerful planning practice we can have. It's the place where our big dreams meet our actual lives, where we can honor what this season is asking of us, and where we decide what deserves our energy next.

In this episode, I'm sharing my one-page monthly planning process, including the four steps I use to look back, learn from what's happened, reconnect with my bigger vision, and decide what matters most for the next four weeks.

I'm also talking about why I've been experimenting with planning around the new moon, what menopause has taught me about finding new rhythms, and why a monthly plan can be especially powerful when life looks nothing like we expected.

And we're talking about guided planning and why I think planning together can be as different from planning alone as going to a yoga class is from rolling out your mat in your living room.

You'll walk away with a simple process you can use right away, whether you're growing a business, navigating a big life transition, focusing on your health, or feeling called toward something new.

Want to see the process written down? I created a companion Substack post with all four steps, my favorite reflection questions, and a simple guide to creating your own one-page monthly plan. Read the Monthly Planning Guide on Substack

I've created Plan Next Month, a full year of guided monthly planning, because I want more women to experience what happens when we make time to plan consistently.

Here's how it works:

• 12 guided monthly planning sessions. Once a month, we'll gather on Zoom for one hour. I'll guide you through the planning process step by step, with time built in to actually make your plan.
• One page that holds what matters most. You'll create a simple plan that brings together your wellness, home and family, inner life, and work, while keeping your bigger dreams in view.
• A monthly planning template. You'll have a page to work with each month and a repeatable process you can make your own.
• Live or on your own time. Join me live or use the recording to plan whenever it works for you. The recordings include the guided exercises and planning time.
• A full year of practice. Each month you'll reflect, make decisions, and create a plan that responds to your actual life. Over time, you'll build the habit of following through on what matters.

And when you join now, you'll also get Make December Matter, my special year-end planning workshop, included. (It’s usually $97.)

Right now, you can join for $88 for the entire year, before the price increases. That's 12 months of planning together for less than the cost of many single workshops.

This is guided planning rather than coaching. You'll leave each session with your own completed monthly plan, and the structure to keep coming back to what matters.

Ready to plan the next 12 months with me?

Sign Up Here

“You don't hate selling. You hate not knowing how to get clients.”

–Steph Crowder

Are you just box checking and calling it sales?

Sales isn’t a personality thing, it’s a skillset you can learn. And if you’re running a business, it’s a skillset you need. You can be amazing at what you do, but you need clients or customers. That’s why I’m so excited about this conversation with Sales and Strategy Coach Steph Crowder.

Selling doesn’t have to feel sleazy and gross. And, in fact, it can be a relief to actually take charge of sales. Steph shows us easy ways to work taking action on sales into our days.

We talk about:

• The difference between sales and marketing and knowing your money making activities
• Personal outreach and real conversation — and the problem with the way we think about coffee chats
• How we’re playing it safe (even if it feels like we are putting ourselves out there)
• Making sales a habit — what happens when you stack small activities over time?
• Dropping the jargon and making your offer accessible to a 7-year-old
• Finding the lie your clients are telling yourself to fire yourself up to write

ABOUT STEPH

Steph Crowder is a Sales and Strategy Coach who helps entrepreneurs sell with courage, clarity, and confidence. A former Director of Sales Training at Groupon, she’s coached thousands of business owners to land clients quickly and scale into sold-out group programs using simple, authentic sales strategies. Steph also hosts the Courage & Clarity podcast and runs a multiple 6-figure business in under 20 hours as a mom of two.

LINKS

• https://stephcrowder.com/
• https://stephcrowder.com/podcast/
• https://www.instagram.com/heystephcrowder/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniewuerdeman/

DOABLE CHANGES

At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Action is where change happens.

Even though we want big change, it’s really little things done over and over that make the difference. So pick a doable thing. Put it in your calendar. Weave it through your days for a week and then move on to the next one. It will have a snowball effect.

Here are three Doable Changes from this conversation:

• HAVE A CONVERSATION. Schedule a conversation — not a sales call, a conversation. The people you meet might become customers or they might become someone who thinks of you when they hear somebody who needs what you do. Go into it with curiosity and openness.
• SPEND ONE HOUR A DAY ON MONEY MAKING ACTIVITIES. What if you spent one hour every day on money making activities? Not perfecting an Instagram reel or obsessing over the wording on your sales page, but activities that actually put you out there and may lead to making money. DMs, conversations, follow ups…
• COMPETE IN THE TIME OLYMPICS. Pick a timeframe — a few hours in an airport lounge, the time between drop off and pick up, a single morning — and challenge yourself to get an email series or landing page done.

Fall can change the order of things, and what worked a few weeks ago may not work quite the same way now. This is a chance to pause and create the rhythm that will serve us best in this season.

Right now, I’m figuring out what fall looks like for movement, meals, work, creativity, and family life. In this episode, I’m sharing why I’m thinking less about rigid routines and more about creating a rhythm that can expand and contract with real life.

I’ll also share a simple way to think about who you’re becoming, what matters most right now, and what you can anchor into your days and weeks, basically, how to create your fall rhythm.

When the season changes, the way we eat often needs to change too.

In this episode, I’m bringing you back to where Plan Simple began: food. I’m sharing how I’m resetting food in my own life this fall as our family rhythms shift, schedules change, and I pay closer attention to the energy I need for everything I want to do.

I’ll walk you through the simple questions I use to reset:

• Why does food matter to you right now?
• What was working before—and what isn’t working anymore?
• What are the actual circumstances of this season?
• What three things could make food feel easier and better right now?

We’ll talk about family dinners, feeding yourself when you work from home, seasonal rhythms, meal planning, grocery shopping, energy, and why food is an important part of productivity.

You don’t need a perfect meal plan. You need a food rhythm that works for the life you’re living now.

“Assessment is a hue of understanding, not a frame of understanding.”

–Christina Giammalva

I LOVE a good assessment. They can be so useful in helping us understand ourselves and work with our own strengths or rhythms. On the flip side, if not used well, the results and reports can become more noise or even box us in. So what do we make of assessments and how can they help us?

Let’s dive in with Christina Giammalva, therapist and coach, who uses assessments regularly with clients and helped write about assessments for the most recent issue of Pause Magazine.

We talk about:

• Difference between Myers–Briggs types
• Root fears identified in the Enneagram
• Comparing people with the same responses on one assessment and different responses on another
• Finding comfort in understanding how we are and working better with others by understanding we aren’t all the same
• Understanding attachment theory and wondering if we are enough
• The idea of self-acceptance, not self-improvement

ABOUT CHRISTINA

Christina Giammalva is a Somatic Counselor helping individuals from around the world reach new levels of inner calm. Through revealing the connections between the mind and body, she’s devoted to helping clients address deep-rooted issues that cause anxiety, stress, depression and other health-related struggles.

LINKS

• https://www.christinagiammalva.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/cfgiammalva/
• Pause Magazine, Issue 5

DOABLE CHANGES

At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Action is how change happens.

Often we feel like our actions have to be huge to match the bigness of our desires, but we have seen over and over and over again that the little things add up. By stacking up a series of Doable Changes, you will create that big change that you crave. Choose the one that really resonates with you this week and really make it part of your life.

Here are Three Doable Changes from this conversation:

• TRY AN ASSESSMENT. If you haven’t taken the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram or Attachment Theory, pick one to try. Don’t overthink the questions as you answer. Read the basics about your results. Write down any ahas you have about yourself.
• CONNECT IDEAS. Try taking more than one assessment. What information do you find showing up in different ways? What intrigues you from each?
• WORK WITH WHAT YOU LEARN. Understanding how you are wired — and how others are — can be useful. Teams often take similar assessments to understand how members operate. This can help with interpersonal dynamics. Christina found recognizing that her children were wired differently from her helped her mother them. If you have someone you live or work with willing to take the test and share results, discuss what you learn and one thing you might try to change to improve the way you communicate or work together.

In this episode, I’m talking with FLOW365 member Thuy about building a business that honors her health, creativity, spirituality, and life as a mother.

Thuy’s business has taken many forms, from spray tanning and teeth whitening to face reading, space clearing, and tea ceremonies. Instead of forcing herself to choose one perfect path, she is learning how to bring all the pieces together while focusing on the actions that create income now.

We talk about why rest is power, how slowing down can help you move faster, and what happens when you create spaciousness without losing momentum. Thuy also shares how planning, community, and loving accountability have helped her stop spiraling, trust her intuition, take massive action, and build a rich life alongside a growing business.

This conversation is a beautiful reminder that your health and lifestyle do not have to compete with your ambition. Sometimes they are the very things that make your next level possible.

If this peaks your interest about FLOW365, let's talk: https://plansimple.com/flow365

Quick Wednesday, extra episode on why I'm so passionate about the concept of a village. And how both a range of women and small intimate groups help with followthrough.