This is the time to start thinking about your business in the upcoming year. While everyone else is about to start getting busy with buying groceries and making family plans, this would be a great moment to dedicate some time to your personal and business goals for the upcoming year. Once the holidays come and go, it’ll be the beginning of January before you know it.
Personally, I think we should all hibernate for the entire winter and just cozy up and eat soups by the fire, but apparently the rest of the United States wants to get super productive in January… and there are certain things so massively dictated by cultural norms, that we’re going to feel the pull of that tide no matter how much we want to stay cozied up in our little warm caves.
So from a business perspective, the best thing is to get your duckies all lined up before Thanksgiving, if possible. With that amount of lead time, you can: 1. Actually enjoy the holidays and feel really accomplished and 2. Run a Black Friday special and get pre-sales for whatever you’re launching at the beginning of the year and 3. Start the year off ahead of everyone else.
So, what does getting “your duckies lined up” actually look like in real practice? It means looking at your business through the lens of core values, intention, and systems.
Core Feelings and Values: Ask yourself: What are my most desired feelings next year? Expansion? Ease? Impact? Joy? Freedom? Most people start with numbers and goals, but the deeper, more sustainable magic comes from aligning your strategy with the frequency you want to embody. If you lead with that, the logistics will organically take shape around it. For example, if you want more freedom next year, it might be time to hire an assistant or really dial in a more systems-based business.
Heart-based Intentions: What business offerings really light you up? Which ones feel stale or obligatory? Be ruthlessly honest. This is the time to refine, not just repeat. Sometimes the best business move you can make is deciding what not to do next year.
Systems and Strategy: Tuning back to #1 above with your core feelings and values—if you want more flow and freedom, build structures that support that. Get a calendar and schedule out your year or at least the first quarter. Find ways to automate the admin stuff or hire it out. When we take time to build structure and sprinkle in some strategy, the creative things have a solid platform to stand on and a direction to go in and that makes all the difference in the successfulness of it all.
This moment right now—just before turkeys and holidays shopping and NYE outfits—is the one to do your 2026 planning so you can actually enjoy the upcoming festivities and still casually roll into the New Year feeling really prepped, unstressed, and accomplished.
