Plant Seeds
Spring was my favorite season as a child. I loved the early spring days when the first hints of warm sun melted the edges of the snow. I loved the delicate wildflowers that bloomed after the spring storms passed. I loved Easter and the smell of vinegar for dyeing eggs.
As a teen, I went a little goth and gloomy, and I changed my love to autumn, with its darkness and mist. These days, I love spring and fall equally for different reasons. Spring is a time for renewal and planting seeds, while fall is for letting things die and turning inward.
When I started doing seasonal planning, I realized that each season has its specific energy and needs. Unlike an annual plan, which assumes that every season has the same potential, a seasonal plan takes into account the shifts we all feel as nature goes through its cycles.
Spring is a great time to start new projects. I’ve come to believe that January is perhaps the worst possible time to start fresh, yet we all feel the pull of the New Year bandwagon.
What if you used the time around the Lunar New Year to make big plans and the spring Equinox to kick off projects instead? This may not be aligned with your workplace’s fiscal year, but it’s more aligned with the natural rhythm of a year.
Seasonal planning takes the pressure off the start of the new year because I know I will make a new plan in a few months. It may include many of the same projects as my winter plan, but my spring plan is all about planting new seeds.
In my spring Equinox Planning workshop, we create a vision for the future. In order to see the future, you need a clear view of the present. Where are you spending your precious time and energy? Where do you want to spend less? More?
To get to a vision, we first identify our values and virtues. While our core values don’t change much over time, I suggest spending some time annually to identify a few values to build your vision around.
Next, we identify virtues and superpowers. Virtues are the qualities that make you who you are. They are the things you are good at, and your superpowers are the skills and talents that feel fun and easy.
The formula for creating your personal vision statements goes something like this: Take a role or interest and attach it to a value:
In my role as a Medium author, I can support my value of wisdom sharing…
Then add your virtues and a vision for a specific outcome:
…by using my writing and critical thinking superpowers to build a profitable publication.
The vision “build a profitable publication” can be turned into a multi-year project, with sub-projects broken into monthly or quarterly milestones. In that project plan, you would define what “profitable” means for you and define the specific publishing goals and processes for submissions.
You can create as many vision statements as you want. These are the seeds you are planting in your own mind, but not all of them will grow into something. The Mad Libs format is meant to inspire creative combinations, some of which may be complete nonsense. That’s OK! Just because you have an idea does not mean you have to do it.
I suggest using a five to ten-year timeframe for your visioning. Any further into the future can be difficult to predict. When you have a handful of visions that you want to take action on, use them as the basis for your seasonal or Equinox Plan.
My seasonal plans are built around projects and habits. A project is a clearly defined set of deliverables that can be completed. If something does not have a clear finished state, it’s not a project; it’s a habit. Many of our goals are better served by habits, and some require both.
Take the example of the Medium publication. You would need a project to track progress toward launch and profitability. Once you have reached those targets, it becomes a series of habits to keep the publication running and meeting your success requirements.
You choose three core projects and key habits for each seasonal plan you create to keep your visions moving forward. During your weekly, monthly, and seasonal reviews, you check in on progress toward your visions. And you get to decide which plants to continue to water.
If you’d like to learn more about my Equinox Planning process, you can join me for a free 90-minute workshop on September 21, 2024, at 10 a.m. PDT.
