The Plan You Write for a Woman Who Doesn't Exist

Sometime in the next few weeks, you're going to sit down to create your plan for the new year. You're going to open up a new Google Doc, or maybe you'll buy a beautiful new notebook that you're hoping will change everything. And then you'll write down your goals, maybe a revenue number, a launch, a hire you've been putting off.

And here is who we usually write that plan for: a version of you who wakes up with a full tank, who has nobody else's appointments in her calendar, whose kids magically don't get sick, and whose parents don't call in the middle of the workday, who actually has 40 uninterrupted hours a week, and no one depending on her for anything.

I don't know about you, but I've never met that woman, and I don't plan on meeting her this quarter either. And when we plan this way, as if everything is going to go perfectly fine with no interruptions, it only takes a few weeks for a kid to come home sick, or a parent to end up in the hospital, or for you to hit a wall of exhaustion and need to take a break, and you start to feel behind.

And then you'll do the thing that I've watched women do for almost 20 years, which is decide the problem is you. You're just not disciplined enough. You're just not hustling hard enough.

Friend, it is not you. You built a plan for the ideal situation that you likely don't have. So today I'm going to give you the exercise I personally run before anyone in my world sets a single goal.

It takes about an hour, and it doesn't cost a thing. It is the most useful exercise I think any woman can go through to actually create a plan that will survive her real life. So go get a pen.

Why This Series and What Matriarchy Means

Hey CEO, Racheal Cook here, founder of The CEO Collective® and host of the Promote Yourself to CEO® podcast. I've been so excited about this series, The Matriarchy Would Never, because this is a huge topic that I think about constantly, that I'm in conversation about on a regular basis.

I wanted to highlight things that I feel we can do to change the default setting in the way business is run. I think business as usual no longer works for so many people, and I am running into women all the time who are so frustrated with the same assumptions, the same underlying best practices, the same standard of how to do things.

And it's time to create a new way. When the old way isn't working, when the old way is causing harm to those involved in it, then it is time for a new path forward. And that is what this series is all about: calling out what no longer works, calling out those assumptions, calling out the things that are holding us back that have always been kind of underneath the surface, said as, "Well, this is just how things are done. This is how business is done."

And challenging it, in a way that helps you intentionally, thoughtfully decide how you want your business to operate, so that it works for not just you, but all the people around and surrounding your business. Because that, to me, is really what matriarchy is.

When you look at the difference between patriarchy and matriarchy, patriarchy is very hierarchical, where men, especially white, cis, straight men, especially old white, cis, straight men, are at the very top of the pyramid, of the hierarchy, and they have the most power, the most resources. And the people at the bottom are always going to be women.

And even more than that, patriarchy is held up by the unpaid and invisible labor of women. The only way we can break free from this is to build something inherently different. One, by calling out the unpaid and invisible labor, by acknowledging that even though we have come so far in the world of feminism and equality, there's still such a far way to go.

There's so much further to go, especially because we are still in a society that does not value the things we have to take on: the invisible mental load, all of the invisible work we do behind the scenes, how we truly are the connective tissue for families. We are the safety net for so many people.

And the only way to change it is to shine a big-ass spotlight on it, I think. That's why I love this series and thinking about how the matriarchy would do things differently, where instead of a hierarchy, it is about centering the most vulnerable people in the middle, and everybody sharing power, everybody sharing resources, everybody taking care of everybody else.

When we talk about the village, it is the village, right? It is the village where everybody takes turns and gives what they can, and receives support and gets support. That is at the heart of what, in my mind, matriarchy truly looks like. And when you apply it to business, there are a lot of things we have to shift, and that's what I want to talk about today.

Because the matriarchy would never put you last on the list. The matriarchy would never tell you it's selfish to take care of yourself, and the matriarchy would never tell you not to get help when you really need to say yes to help. All of that, to me, is some of the most harmful stuff women have been told for years and years and years.

And somehow, these stories continue to dictate how we move through the world. It takes a lot of unlearning to start to receive help, accept help, ask for help. It takes a lot of unlearning that taking care of yourself is selfish, and to start putting yourself back on your to-do list and back into your plan.

Capacity Comes Before Any Goal Gets Set

So I want to take you through this exercise that I took my clients through at the most recent CEO Retreat, and it has become a big part of the conversation. Before we do any planning, before we set any 12-month goals, before we set any 90-day goals, we take a moment to get clear about what our capacity actually looks like, and how we can resource ourselves to protect and maintain that capacity.

Because it doesn't matter how many hours a week you typically work, it is pretty much impossible to plan for a quarter or a year as if there are never going to be distractions, never going to be interruptions, never going to be emergencies that pop up and pull you out of what you had planned.

So we need to be a little bit more proactive, because as your business grows, there's more and more that you're responsible for, which means you need to resource yourself a whole lot more than you are used to. So let's get into the exercises I love to walk my clients through, how to resource yourself, and how to protect your capacity.

Your Definition of Success Starts With Your Life

The first place I always start is, what is your definition of success? This is one of my favorite exercises, because my process for finding your definition of success is not about the revenue goal you're setting, and that's what a lot of people define success as as a small business owner.

They define their revenue goal. And revenue goals are great, but what we really need to look at is what success looks like in a lot of different areas of your life. So one area is your life and your lifestyle. And yes, it costs money to live your life and your lifestyle, so I do think part of your definition of success there is how much you really need to pay yourself.

This should come before you set a revenue goal, hands down. If you're not clear about what you need to pay yourself, then go get my Get Paid Calculator. It is an amazing tool we developed. It is available on the website for only $47, and it will help you figure out how much you need to pay yourself in order to live the lifestyle you actually want to live, and then help you reverse engineer the revenue goal.

But I find that a lot of times we're just not clear about what that looks like or why things look that way. So when I think about my life and lifestyle, yes, I'm thinking about what it costs to live my current life. What do I want to put aside for retirement? I've got twins who are graduating high school next year, so what is it going to cost for me to put twins into college come 2028?

But I'm also thinking about other areas of my life and lifestyle. I like to go on a vacation every year. How much is that going to cost? How much time, energy, or money will that take? I like to travel a little bit. I'd like to take my kids to New York City to go see Hadestown live, because they've been asking for it ever since they performed it in school.

I'd like to make sure I have plenty of time to go on girls' trips with my friends. So think about your life and your lifestyle beyond just your bills. I want you to think about what your life looks like on a regular day. A regular old weekday, not when you have unlimited funds, because then we can get too far away from our current reality.

Just think about, over the next year, what changes or upgrades would you like in your life and your lifestyle? They could be really small. They could be really simple, honestly. But you have to prioritize them. And so I like to think of it as, "I'll be successful in my life and lifestyle when this is what a regular every day looks like. When I have slow mornings, when I have fresh flowers in my house, when I have really lovely pajamas."

Whatever it is for you, those moments in your life where you just really, really love how your day-to-day life looks, feels, sounds, what that experience is like for you.

Health and Wellbeing as a Non-Negotiable

Then we're going to go through the next area, which is your health and your wellbeing, including your mental health. This is really, really important to me. I have chronic illnesses. I have lupus. I have chronic pain and fatigue. For me, this is a non-negotiable, and I'm not ever going to tell you that your health and wellbeing needs to be some sort of weight loss goal. I have had to overcome that programming as well.

For me, it's more about having the energy and the ability to do the things I want to do without pushing myself into a flare-up or running myself down, which is very easy because of my chronic health conditions. So for me, that means things like having doctor's appointments proactively on the calendar.

As soon as I see a doctor, I go ahead and schedule my next appointment so there's never a lapse in care. I prioritize the other things that help me stay well: my chiropractic appointment, my acupuncture appointment, my massage. It is not a cute little relaxing massage. This is actual body work to help make sure my body is not in pain.

But I have to prioritize it, because if I don't, then I will be in there when there's a major flare-up and I'm not able to do anything. So what are the things in health and wellbeing that matter to you? This can also include, "I have my therapist." It could include making sure I'm eating well. It could include making sure I'm moving my body, getting out on a walk every day.

What does your health and wellness definition of success look like, again, in a regular, everyday, normal life for you?

Relationships, Creativity, and Spiritual Connection

Then what about your friends, your family, and your relationships? I want you to think about what that definition of success looks like. This is something that is so crucially important to me.

For me, I think about my relationship, of course, with my husband. What does that definition of success look like? To me, it looks like we took our walk this morning and had a full hour to talk while we were on our walk, and it was a great time to connect. It's having date nights. It's having a little honeymoon vacation, just the two of us, once a year.

When it's time with my kids, it's trying to have a mom-and-me date with each one of my kids individually every single month. It's having family dinner multiple days a week. It's taking each of my kids on their own trip with me, just on their own. I also think about taking care of my parents, my dad right now.

I think about quality time with my nieces and my nephews, who are a lot younger than my kids, but I really, really love spending time with them, so making sure at least once every other month I'm getting to see them. It looks like time with my friends. If I am not prioritizing a girls' weekend probably every three months, then I know I'm not prioritizing that time on my calendar.

We love making space for a little girls' trip, even if it's just out to my river house. So what does that look like? What does quality time look like with the people you care about?

Then creativity and fun. I think this is one a lot of us miss, because as we get older, we start putting down things that were little hobbies or interests.

I have become the hobby queen. I love a good hobby. I play mahjong with some friends every couple of weeks. That's been a new hobby to pick up. I've been taking a class on reading tarot with a friend of mine who's an amazing tarot reader. I have been learning about astrology. I have been painting.

I've been playing with flowers so that I can have fresh flowers every week, every other week, at my house. What are the things you do just for the fun of it, that you're not going to monetize, but just because it's enjoyable for you? What does that look like? What does that definition of success look like?

And then the final category I have here is your spiritual connection: your connection to source, to the universe, to God, to yourself. What does that look like for you? This, to me, is more of a mindfulness practice. This is making time for journaling. This is making time for my own self-reflection.

These are some of the practices I have to make sure I feel connected to things bigger than me. But what does that look like for you?

Why Business Is Not One of the Five Areas

So as you go through each and every one of these, I want you to notice I didn't say business is also a category, okay? I want you to notice that, because business is the engine, not one of the destinations.

I know a lot of us are very fulfilled by our business. I'm very fulfilled by my business. But I tend to see that ambitious women will default to working all the time if we're not really intentional about these other areas in our life. And if we're not intentional about it, then it's going to win every single time, because it's the only one with a clearly defined scoreboard.

We will focus on business over making time for our relationships, over taking care of our health, over creative hobbies and interests, over everything, because it feels more productive. And that's a very hyper-capitalist feeling, right? It feels like, well, it's not as productive to do a paint-by-number, because you're not making any money off of that.

It doesn't feel productive to have a do-nothing day with your whole family where you just watch movies and hang out. It feels much more productive to put your head down and work some more. But the problem is, at some point you will burn yourself out if you neglect these areas. If you don't prioritize these areas, they will prioritize themselves at some point, and it won't be in a nice way.

It'll usually be because there's some sort of emergency. So I want you to think through all five of those areas of what your definition of success is. Again, I'm going to put this in the show notes, but I want you to think about your life and your lifestyle, your health and your wellbeing, friends, family, and relationships, creative hobbies and interests (things you do for fun, not to get paid, for fun, you don't have to monetize it), and then the spiritual personal connection, which can be whatever that needs to mean for you.

What does success look like for each of those?

Naming the Season You Are In

Once you've identified your definition of success in all five of these areas, I like to dial it in a little bit more. The first question I like to ask is, what is the season of life and business that you are currently in, or that you're headed into? What is the season for maybe the next year going to look like?

For me, the season of life I'm in, I have teenagers, two of whom are going to be seniors in high school next year, so we are definitely in the looking-at-college-and-what-comes-next season, getting ready to launch these little baby birds out of the nest. That's a pretty big shift for me on the family front.

I'm also still caregiving my dad and taking care of him, making sure he has everything he needs as he ages. I am going through perimenopause, which I know many of you sympathize with. This is a particularly interesting season of life that I had no idea was going to be this way. But it is very much impacting my capacity.

It very much impacts my time, my energy, my attention, my ability to focus, my ability to think, everything. And then I think about the season of business I'm in. I am now in a ramping-back-up season of business, because the year before, I put the business on cruise control to take care of my mom for the last year of her life.

So now, after coming out of caregiving and grief, I finally feel like I have the capacity to ramp back up. I think it's important to name the season you're in, because one, seasons change. If you are in a particularly tough season in your life or in your business or both, it's not going to stay that way forever and ever.

It's going to be a season, and then this too shall pass. And I think that can be really helpful. But I also think for a lot of us, especially for me personally, sometimes my ambition and my conditioning that success means business, success means making money, success means all these other things that are very clear metrics of success, can kind of override everything else if I'm not careful.

If I am not careful, I can very easily let myself get wrapped up in that at the cost of the other things in my life. And so I've had to learn how to balance that, and how to know that I would always rather give myself some wiggle room in the business and prioritize my life, my family, my health, my hobbies, my creativity, the things that matter to me.

I would always prefer not to put those on the back burner, because if you put them on the back burner too long, you will find yourself in severe burnout and probably hating your life and your business. So I have learned that the things that are important in my life, I cannot back burner them at the expense of my ambition.

I've got to make sure I still have those pieces in place. And I think a lot of people have a hard time with that because of the society and conditioning we have all had, which is success at all costs. I'm letting go of that mindset myself. I'm still working on it. It always pops up, and then I have to tell myself, "You know what? It's okay. I don't need to be on this invisible scorecard at the expense of the people that matter, my health, et cetera."

How CEO You Shows Up in This Season

So once you know the season your life and your business is in, I want you to think about how you want to show up in this season.

When I think about how I want to show up in this season, I think about CEO me. CEO you, CEO me, is the highest, best version of you. It's the version of you that is feeling so aligned, so happy with the way your life is going, the way your business is going, feeling in the flow, feeling like all the things are working exactly as you would like them to work.

So how does she need to show up in this season of your life, if she's showing up as the best version of you? For me, that is grounded, rested, patient, present, resilient, relaxed, resourced. Take some time and think about how you want to show up, how you want to feel, if you're showing up as the best version of yourself in this season of your life and your business.

And then as you think about how you want to show up, you can ask yourself, well, what do you need to show up as this version of CEO you? In this particular season, what do you need to show up as this version of you? I think this is incredibly important to think through. So I like to go through the list of everything I just shared, how I want to show up, and then actually decide what needs to happen in order for that to be the case.

If I want to show up rested, then I have to prioritize my sleep, and not just getting in bed at 10:00. I have to prioritize the quality of my sleep. So what else can I do to make sure the quality of my sleep is as good as it possibly can be? As someone who's not a great sleeper, I have to work on this, and it could mean I try not to eat less than three hours before I want to go to bed, because it makes it harder for me to fall asleep.

I have to limit my caffeine, because that makes it harder for me to fall asleep. I have to limit wine, because that makes it harder for me to fall asleep. I take an Epsom salt bath at night, because that helps me get to sleep. I have to make sure the temperature is correct, because that helps me get to sleep.

So I go down this list for myself of what helps me be the person I want to be in this season. If I want to be rested, how do I make sure that becomes a priority? What are the actual action steps I need to take to prioritize that? If I want to make sure I am feeling grounded, then what do I need to feel grounded every day?

For me, this is a lot of the quiet time I take for myself every day. I need slow, quiet mornings. I need to make sure I am not only taking quiet time for myself, but using that time on some of my mindfulness practices: journaling, reading a tarot card every day, sitting with myself and just having some quiet meditation.

Those things are really helpful for me to stay grounded. Making sure I'm doing breathing exercises. I do a lot of those if I'm feeling particularly stressed out and I can tell my nervous system is dysregulated. Going outside, literally barefoot in the grass, to actually ground myself. Moving my body to discharge any energy that just needs to move through me. Those things all help me show up more grounded.

Building a Home Success Team

If in this season I'm saying I need to be more resourced, then what do I need there? And again, this is something where you can look to the different areas of your definition of success. So for me to feel more resourced in my life and lifestyle, that could include things like my home success team.

Just like I have an assistant for my business, I have people who support me at home. And yes, I work primarily from home, and my husband also works primarily from home, but that doesn't mean we can be here working and keep everything running all at the same time in particularly busy seasons. So that could look like having the housekeeper lined up to come once or twice a month.

In really busy seasons, we might go ahead and have meal prep lined up for us. We have grocery delivery lined up for us. We make sure that as many things as we can reasonably get support with, we get that support for our life and lifestyle.

Same thing with my health and wellbeing. How do I need to resource myself? As someone with chronic health problems, that means my doctor's appointments are already on the calendar. I do not skip them. I do not push them back or back burner them. If I'm ever feeling like there's a change in anything, I am going to proactively get back on my doctor's calendar, and I have multiple specialists I'm always seeing.

I probably see at least one doctor every couple of months. I make sure I'm seeing the people who help me stay as well as I can, who help me prevent flare-ups. So that could look like chiropractic. That could look like acupuncture. That could look like aromatherapy. That could look like massage, especially when I need some good muscle work or fascia release.

It's not relaxing, spa music, fall-asleep massage. This is sometimes painful massage, but it helps keep everything moving the way I need it to move. This also includes having a therapist. In seasons I knew were going to be really hard, that meant hiring a therapist again, getting back on my therapist's calendar, and prioritizing that.

That also means prioritizing fitness. I'm never going to be someone who goes and does CrossFit or anything, but making sure that I am prioritizing going on walks and doing the things I can do so that I can stay as healthy as I possibly can. It could also mean auto-shipping all my supplements.

It could mean making sure my doctors give me 90-day versions of my prescriptions so I never run out of anything. All of those are things I think about when it comes to my health and my wellbeing.

Friends, Kids, and Time on the Calendar

Then I might think about my friends, my family, my relationships. What do I need in this season? In this season, I really need my friendships.

And I will say, through the hardest season I ever went through in my whole life, the year I took care of my mom before she passed away, I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have these women in my corner. If I didn't know that at least every other week I was going to spend time with someone, and on the days when I just needed to fall apart, I had people there to catch me.

So for me, at least once or twice a month, I need to see my friends, and I really try to see them at least once a week, at least somebody, and we're often texting multiple times throughout the week. We try to see each other at least once a week, and we've also been trying to have some sort of little girls' getaway every three to four months.

Even if it's as simple as going to my river house, which is an Airbnb that I own, for just a weekend. That can be such a beautiful reset and give me the time I need, the place where I can be myself and just be taken care of in that way.

Relationships with my kids: I always make sure, especially in this season, that I have one-on-one time with each of my kids, that I'm making time to have conversations with them, that we're making time as a family to have family dinner, or do a game night, or go to a festival that's happening in town, or go do something together.

We try to prioritize that. And every season, every month, we get really clear. I start plugging these dates into our calendar in advance and aligning all of our calendars to make sure it happens, that it's not just a nice thought. It's like, "Oh, Alex," my oldest son, "what's going on this month? When do you want to have a mom date?" And then we'll decide to go out and do something together. Same with Li and Mitchell. We actually look at our calendars every month and plug it in.

Me and my husband, we look at our calendars. If we want to have a date night, we plug it in in advance and decide who's going to be responsible for making that happen.

So relationships are really, really important to me, and I feel like if they're important to you, you've got to get yourself in the habit of putting them on the calendar, or else it won't happen. And it doesn't have to be anything big. Sometimes it's literally asking a kid to go run errands with me, because somehow they will talk to me if we are in a car running errands. That's just kind of how that works.

What do I need in the definition-of-success area of creativity and fun and hobbies? I love my old lady hobbies. I'm teasing myself here, but I love to crochet, I love to paint, I love to arrange flowers. I love to nest around my home, so I just finished decorating for fall all over my house.

I love puttering around in the garden. Those hobbies and that creativity are really regenerative for me. It's such a good outlet for me. And my friends and I will often find things to do together. In fact, we just put on the calendar a night where we're going to do flowers together, because I happened to find a really beautiful fall bundle of flowers that we'll make into arrangements we can all take home.

So we're trying to plug those things into our calendar in advance, so that you are resourced already. You're resourcing yourself in advance. And then of course, the final category: what do you need for your spiritual needs, mindfulness practices, connection to self, connection to source, connection to God, connection to the universe, whatever that might be? For me, this comes back to mindfulness practices, meditation, yoga, journaling, all those types of things.

Why Investing in Yourself Feels Harder Than Investing in the Business

So this is how I think through resourcing myself. And I find that when I take the time to resource myself in advance, it is much more likely to happen, which means my energy stays higher, I'm happier, I feel more aligned, and I'm able to navigate the ups and downs a little bit better.

I do want to say that when we had this conversation at the CEO Retreat, quite a few people brought up that they have a hard time investing time, energy, and money into resourcing themselves, but they have no problem investing time, energy, and money in resourcing the business. And I think this is such an interesting thing that really impacts women a lot, and it is because so much of our conditioning has told us that putting yourself first is selfish. Investment in your business seems like ambition, right?

You're going to get an ROI on that, so it is worthwhile. Investment in your own capacity and your own needs and your own personal priorities can read as indulgence to people who feel like, "Well, if there's no ROI, this is a waste of money. If I could do it myself, this is a waste of money." I'm here to tell you that this is not the mindset that will ultimately get you where you want to go as a small business owner.

If you are constantly leveling up the support you have in your business, but you don't have any support at home, you have no home success team, you have no personal success team, you haven't prioritized relationships, you haven't prioritized your health, you haven't prioritized anything other than growth for the sake of growth, it is an imbalanced equation, and at some point, something is going to fall apart.

And unfortunately, I have seen that it's usually relationships and health that are the first two things to start falling apart for women when they are easily investing in their business but investing nothing into the other areas of their life. So try to do everything you can to get in the habit of resourcing yourself.

Saying No and Lowering a Standard

So I want to wrap this up by talking about some simple things you can start implementing to resource yourself now that are free or really don't cost that much, because this is often the easiest place to start.

One is to say no and eliminate something. Start asking yourself, every time another task gets added to your list, "What happens if this doesn't get done at all for the next month?"

And if the answer is, "Nothing bad happens," then say no. Stop agreeing to stuff that is putting more work on your plate when it's not worth it for you long term. There has to be a limit. And especially as women, I know we get asked to participate in a million things. I've had a lot of conversations with clients who are regularly asked to be on a board, or sit on this committee, or volunteer for this, or do that for the community, and it gets to the point, especially in busy seasons, where you have to start declining things and getting them off your calendar, and get really, really disciplined about what gets a yes versus what gets a no.

For me, this comes down to kid stuff. Anyone who's a parent knows that schools always want us to come and volunteer, which is awesome. I love being able to do that, but I'm not going to be available for every single thing they ask of me. I will be very selective in how I decide to contribute my time, or my energy, or my money.

I will definitely show up and participate in Career Day. I will definitely show up and go on a field trip with my kids. I won't show up to volunteer for the classroom parties. That's never been my thing. So I decide where I can make the impact and say no to anything that isn't a fit for me.

The next thing is to lower a standard. Lower the standard, ladies. We are putting such pressure on ourselves, and I see this so much, and often these are standards we inherited. They were never ones we actually agreed to. For me, this caused more fights in my marriage for the first 10 years, easily, and we've been married almost 20 years.

It was all about the standard of our house, because I was raised by a mother and a grandmother who wanted everything to look absolutely perfect, to the point where you could have gone in and done a full photo shoot for Architectural Digest, and there would be no evidence of the children living in that home.

I realized very early on that standard was driving me crazy. It was causing fights with my husband. It was making me frustrated with my kids, and so I needed to lower the standard. This didn't mean now we're not going to care at all and the house is going to be a disaster, but it did mean that instead of feeling like I have to have it perfect all the time, it's okay if it looks like we live here.

It's okay if there are some toys in the corner, or some books out because we're actively reading them. It's okay, and I don't beat everybody up about it anymore. So we got on the same page about what that actually looks like. Now, it has taken so much pressure off.

Renegotiating Ownership and Deciding Once

The next one is a big one, especially in families, and that is renegotiate ownership, not just execution.

One of the things I had to learn was that my husband was really good at saying, "Well, how can I help? Just give me a list." Meanwhile, I was fuming that he was asking for a list. I've learned that I have to hand over the whole category, not, "Here's your list for today," or, "Here's your list for this week."

I had to say, "I need you to be in charge of meal planning, grocery shopping, and making dinner five nights a week. Whatever you want to do is great, as long as it's something everybody will eat. You can have as much creative control as you want here, but please do not come back and ask me what's for dinner. I need you to take on the whole thing."

Before, I would only give him the execution, which was, "Make dinner." But if he hadn't done the planning and the grocery shopping, then he still had to come back to me to ask what was going to be for dinner. So handing over the whole thing is a game changer. Handing over things like, "I need you to be in charge of reading all the emails from school."

Schools always want everybody's email, so we made up an email just for schools, and my husband reads them and updates me on anything that I actually need to know about. It removes it off my plate, and he has more bandwidth to go through and make sure we have all of those details.

So we've gone through that for so many areas of our life. What are the things he's going to take on? And he takes over ownership of the whole thing. It has been a game changer, and it has stopped the, "How can I help? Just give me a list."

Another thing that is incredibly helpful is deciding once instead of deciding every time. It's really easy to underestimate how much decision fatigue we all experience, but I'm telling you, we experience so much decision fatigue. And dinners are an exact example of this. I know so many of us are tired of the question, "Well, what's for dinner tonight?" We started coming up with a standing rotation of dinners, and I think Jameson has 14 to 21 meals that he will rotate around that are pretty much crowd pleasers.

We try not to reinvent the wheel every single week. He comes up with the meal plan based on his greatest hits, and that way it's simple, it's easy. He doesn't have to come up with a whole new shopping list. He doesn't have to overcomplicate this. He can make double batches so there's always something in the freezer.

That kind of thing eliminates a lot of the decision fatigue. I work from home most days, and getting dressed used to be such a time-consuming thing for me, because I'd be uncomfortable trying to go from my quiet time in the morning to working to picking up kids to running some errands, so I decided to just have a uniform.

And so now I have a uniform that I wear pretty much every day at home. I'm always in black, and it's very comfortable, and it looks pulled together if I need to run out. I can be in the same thing all day, every day, and it eliminates a lot of that decision fatigue.

Keeping Buffer and Planning for 70 Percent

And the final thing I'll share here is to decide what your calendar is going to look like a little bit in advance. I really believe that a full calendar is not the sign of a business working. It is a sign that you are already at max capacity. If I were to open up your calendar and it is blocked out this week, next week, and the week after, that tells me you have no buffer. And if anything comes up, the only way you're going to be able to handle that disruption is to sacrifice something in your life, or reorganize your entire calendar.

So I like to maintain my calendar and keep it very open. In fact, this is something I've learned as my business has grown over the years. It's really easy to think your calendar needs to be back-to-back-to-back appointments. I find at this point that if more than 40% of my week is super scheduled, then that's too much.

I only have about 40% of my week scheduled with standing appointment times. My Monday CEO Date is a standing appointment time. My Monday team meeting is a standing appointment time. I have slots on Tuesdays, because those are my one-on-one client-facing days. Those get filled when I have one-on-one appointments, and if they don't, then I work on other things.

Wednesday is a deep work day. Thursday is time for the members of The CEO Collective, and then Friday is a flex day for me. So I keep a lot of open time on my calendar, and what that has allowed me to do as my business has grown, as I've had more team members, as I've taken care of more clients and lived my life, is that now when something comes up, I have wiggle room. Okay?

And this also goes into creating my plan. As I'm creating my plan, I am only planning for 70%. I am only planning for 70%. There are a lot more little things I could go into here about maintaining your capacity, things I naturally think of. But as we wrap this conversation, one of the most important things I've learned is to build an extra buffer, because there's always going to be a glitch in the matrix, right?

There's always going to be something that pops up that throws us off. So I need to keep a buffer in my calendar, minimum 30%. Ideally, for me now, more than that. I like a lot more than that. And how I create that buffer, one, is I plug into my calendar in advance all of the things related to my definition of success.

I actually map out those things. At the top of the month, I sit down and look at what needs to happen in my life and lifestyle. Then I look at what needs to happen in my health and wellness. Are all those appointments scheduled? Is the auto-ship scheduled? Are all these things happening? Then I look at my relationships.

Is there time for everybody on my calendar? I don't wait for time to magically appear to have quality time with my kids. I don't wait for time to magically appear to make time with my girlfriends. In fact, we don't even leave hanging out without going, "Okay, look at your calendar. When else can we hang out?"

We are so diligent about getting it on the calendar, because if it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist, and the time will get filled by something else. I make time on my calendar for the creative things, the hobbies, the fun I want to have. Every time I go play mahjong, before we leave, it's, "Hey, when are we playing next?"

We get it on the calendar. If there's some creative activity I want to do, I'll invite friends over, or I'll just decide, "Hey, this Sunday, babe, I'm going to be making this flower arrangement, because this is something I want to do for myself." So I get it on the calendar. And then when I actually go to plan, I can see the shape of my calendar.

I can see the shape of my weeks. And once I start planning out those goals, I don't plan as if I have a solid 25 hours a week to work on those goals. I know that in my calendar, I really only have about six hours a week to work toward specific goals in my plan. The rest is running the day-to-day of my business.

So I know that for me, in my business, six to eight, sometimes 10 hours a week, but usually six to eight hours a week, are spent on my 90-day plan, out of my 25 hours. If I have more time available, I'll work a little more on the plan. If I don't, I know that's enough, because I've planned for 70% and I give myself plenty of buffer.

I love to work ahead on my plan. For example, with the podcast, I don't wait until the day before to record. I like to have my podcast planned, recorded, and handed off to my editor weeks in advance, because that protects me from the glitch in the matrix. If something comes up and suddenly I don't feel well, or whatever's happening, I already have those things ready to go, and now I'm not the bottleneck to getting that out, because I have plenty of buffer room.

So I've found that working ahead on things gives me a lot more buffer. But making sure I'm not starting my quarter or my year with my calendar maxed out, and protecting time on my calendar for the things that need to get done and the things that help me live within my definition of success, that is a game changer.

Your Calendar Shows What You Value

So if you take one thing out of this episode, I hope you do these exercises. I really do. I know these are probably similar to exercises you might have heard before, but I hope you answer these questions for yourself, because these are things that are very easy to say are important to you. To me, I always know if someone's truly living in alignment with their definition of success based on what their calendar looks like and where they're spending their money and other resources.

If you're telling me your health is important, but you're not prioritizing it in your calendar, or you're not investing in going to see the doctor or seeing the dentist or the basic things you need to take care of yourself, paying for your medication, all of those, that's out of alignment.

If you're telling me your family is important, but you don't have the things you're saying are your definition of success on the calendar, that's out of alignment. And so you have to plan for those things first to see what your actual capacity is, and then you can start to set your goals. When the goal comes first, the capacity is just whatever's left over.

What you get for your life is whatever time is left over, whatever energy is left over, whatever focus is left over, and then you become an afterthought. So before you plan going into 2027, I really encourage you to go through this exercise.

Let me know what your thoughts are, and just know that the matriarchy would always put you first in the plan. The matriarchy would always encourage you to resource yourself, and the matriarchy would always surround you with a village of people who are there to walk beside you in the tough seasons of life and business.

So I hope this was helpful. I can't wait to hear your feedback. I am active over on Instagram, so come chat with me. Let me know what came up for you as you listened to this episode. And if capacity is definitely a challenge you've been experiencing, come talk with me at the CEO Ceiling Assessment.

I am running this free live event on Tuesday, October 20th at noon Eastern, and it's to help you figure out where the bottlenecks are in your business that are holding you back from getting to that next level of success. And no surprise, there's a lot of overlap between what we talked about today and what we're going to talk about in this assessment.

But my goal is that at the end of this assessment, you will see where you're in the red, by rating each of the five areas we walk through green, yellow, or red, and then I will share with you some next steps for how to start taking action and unblocking that bottleneck for yourself. All right. The matriarchy would never.

I'll see you in the next episode.