When I think about annual goal setting, it’s a long, gradual process. I reread old journals. I envision the coming months. I look at what I’ve planned and what I have yet to understand or know. I usually don’t see the path ahead clearly beyond the next 90 days. (And studies show that that’s about the limit of most of our reasonable capacity to plan.)
My conceptualization for 2026 is much the same. There are a lot of unknowns. But there are some big known items as well, including the launch date of the Burnout book on March 24, 2026.
What I’m seeing, when I look at the overall plan, is a series of BIG project focuses per quarter, and then the other items sort of simmering on back-burners, either in preparation for the quarter to come, or relaxing into an ongoing, day-to-day pattern after a big launch or push.
Q1
- Push – Burnout book launch in March
- Prep – Podcast pre-recordings and preparation
- Ongoing – Marketing, Patreon, Oracle Deck, Book Proposals, teaching
Q2
- Push – Launch podcast
- Prep – Get ready to actively query the Dissertation-to-Book Nonfiction book, start promoting a workshop as a coach
- Ongoing – Burnout book marketing, Marketing, Patreon, Oracle deck, teaching
Q3
- Push – Launch a retreat or workshop as a coach
- Prep – Unicorn launch, book boxes, revisiting class
- Ongoing – book marketing, marketing, patreon, oracle deck, book querying, teaching, podcasting
Q4
- Push – Give the workshop / retreat as a coach
- Prep – Prepare poetry manuscript to query in new year
- Ongoing – marketing, patreon, oracle deck, querying, teaching, podcasting
When it comes to the items in the “ongoing” areas – the marketing, podcasting and teaching stuff – I want to get this as prepared in advance as I can. Ideally, I’d schedule these items a month (or more!) out, so that I’m always working well ahead of the clock on the content created for them. I want to recycle and reuse more of my content so I’m not creating so much from scratch. And I want to automate chunks of that work. I’m also reducing the total number of classes I’m teaching next year so I can really focus on working on books.
That North Star Is Coming True in 2026
For over 20 years, I’ve had a “north star” moment of seeing my book in the wild. This is the idea that I’ll know I’ve actually succeeded at my goal of authoring a book if I can walk into a random bookshop and spot a book with my name on the cover. That will be the moment when I will have felt like I’ve crossed the finish line.
The Burnout Recovery book is traditionally published by North Atlantic Books and distributed by Penguin Random House. This is a “real book” that will be promoted and served up to bookstores. There is every reason to expect that I’ll have an “in the wild” experience with this book.
I wrote this book as a way of keeping myself sane after I quit corporate full-time work in 2023. I used it as a reason to show up for myself and my work every day. I didn’t really expect it to get published or to succeed. Now that I’m getting messages from the publisher that it’s gone to press, and is at the printers (!!!) it’s somehow becoming more real to me.
Both Burnout Recovery and The Unicorn Evolves will be coming out this year, and I want to give them both the time, attention, and care that they deserve. To that end, I’m focusing a lot more of my time on book creation and book marketing than I ordinarily do in my goal-setting process.
And then, of course, it’s also time to start querying and writing the books I want to put out in 2027!
My Goals for Q1 2026
When March 31 rolls around, I’ll want to be able to check in with my 90-day goals, and to be able to say “yes I did those” or “nope, that didn’t happen.” So here is the specific, finite list of goals that I’m setting out there for that purpose:
- Burnout Recovery launch 3/24/2026
- The Unicorn Evolves follow-ups, details, and edits all complete and on-time
- Podcast recordings and preparation ready for an April launch
- Grow Patreon by 100 more members
- Grow coaching by 2 clients
- Meet class minimums for Trickster, Virgin Goddesses
- Sell out the Equinox workshop
- Submit classes for Q2-Q3
- Attend a class at LABRC to understand how to pitch them
- Write first three chapters of storytelling book for proposal
- Complete videos and cards for Oracle Deck through May
- Start conceptualizing an on-demand class for Neurodivergent Burnout
- Complete career pivot resource
- Test another webinar
- Market burnout book, enoughness resource, coaching, patreon and classes
- Finish follow-up rounds of vaccines
- Start seeds for garden and hardening off seedlings
- Finish winter yard work
- At least one adventure with Josh (we have a lot of weekend getaways in the works)
As usual, that’s a lot. And as usual, I don’t really expect that I’ll 100% succeed at all of these things. But I personally believe that goals are intended to be a little aspirational. They should make us stretch, and keep us moving in the direction of our dreams.
My dream – beyond the North star above – is simply to be able to keep doing this work and to afford to be able to continue doing it. A lot of my growth goals for coaching and classes and patreon are tied to financial goals for this reason.