My Planning Getaway

Every year, my husband Don and I take some time to review where we are with our lives and set intentions for the coming year. We usually go away for a night or two. It’s an opportunity for us to connect and to share deeply about what is most important to us.

This year, we left on New Year’s Day, which was a Friday, and spent two nights in a hotel offering great weekend rates. We identified our most important intentions and then created 25-, 10-, 5-, 1-year and 90-day action steps that would take us in the direction of our intentions. We identified qualities we wanted to develop in the coming year. We asked ourselves questions that shifted our thinking. For example, I asked Don what had made our summer projects in the garden so successful. We saw that we had a long-term vision, which we chunked into weekends. Each Saturday had a list of steps and we were able to see the results of our work at the end of the day. We can now use the approach we used in the garden to create other projects in the future.

The value of our annual getaway is that we focus on what we want to create and we support each other in making it happen. It’s a real benefit to do the planning somewhere away from home because it creates a full break from the ordinary, and from the errands and projects that inevitably grab our attention when we are at home.

I appreciate being focused and clear about what is important to me as I begin the new year. And I appreciate beginning the new year with a clear vision that my husband and I can share.