7 Powerful Questions For Planning Your Week16 min read
Ever feel frazzled, brain foggy, and unfocused in your business? These 7 powerful business reflection questions will help you create clarity and maintain momentum toward your business growth goals. Whether you want to launch a brand new business, land your first few clients, or grow a thriving purpose driven business to 6 figures and beyond, using this strategic planning agenda each week to sit down with yourself, reflect, and set intentions, will allow you to achieve your business goals faster.
Has entrepreneurship ever felt like trying to complete an endless list of to-do’s while juggling a thousand balls in the air?
When I started my business, my kids were both under the age of 5 and I was balancing a full time job. My time was stretched thin across many competing priorities, so I had to get really good at prioritizing where I was spending it and ensuring that it was going to create the biggest bang for my buck.
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I built a habit of reflecting on my week every Sunday by asking myself powerful questions and setting intentions for the coming week. It was a way for me to make sure I was moving the needle on all of my most important goals.
This is a habit that many of the most successful entrepreneurs maintain consistently, and there are many articles published on how to end your work day through powerful reflection questions.
Through this, I was able to build my business up to multiple-5 figure months, in less than a year, because I was always focused on the key drivers of my most important goals, and had no time to devote to busy work that wasn’t going to move the needle forward.
Do you ever find yourself putting in the hours but not seeing your sales go up?
Maybe you’re feeling lost and unsure of where you should be focusing your time and energy in your business each week…
Maybe your confidence in your ability to achieve your goal is waning, and you are constantly trying to get out of a negative emotional state that makes everything in your business feel like an uphill battle…
Maybe you get distracted throughout the week and struggle to follow through with your plan…
If you struggle with staying focused on your top priorities, and sometimes feel like you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to do all of the things, this article is going to be super supportive for you in identifying the powerful questions to reflect on each week.
I’ll be sharing the 7 powerful reflection questions I ask myself each week in order to create massive momentum on my goals and mind blowing results in my business.
How to set up an end of week reflection practice
Before we dig into what the powerful questions are, let’s talk about what it might look like to get into the habit of reflecting on your week and planning the following.
Step one: find a consistent time & place to devote to reflection & planning
You’ll want to block out time in your calendar each week, preferably at the same time each week, to get in the zone. I love to spend 30 minutes on Sunday evening at 7pm reflecting on my week, asking myself these powerful questions, and creating a plan for the following week. Some people love to do it on Friday before they end their work day, or on Monday morning as they’re settling into their week. There is no “right” day, just what works FOR YOU. I do my reflecting in my home office, with a candle burning to make it a really enjoyable practice. Some people like to head to a coffee shop, or sit outside with a paper and pen. Again, find what works for you!
Step two: have your questions & a place to process your thoughts ready
I love to print out a physical copy of the powerful reflection questions with ample writing space to process my thoughts on the paper. I have a few of these agendas printed out each month, ready for me to grab and dive into reflecting. Make it as easy as possible for yourself to stick with this habit by having everything you need ready to go at the scheduled time (instead of running around trying to find a journal and pen, or trying to deal with printer issues to get your agenda ready).
By the way, I’ve gone ahead and created a printable PDF of the agenda for you so that you can get started with reflection right away. Drop your email below and I’ll send it straight to your inbox. 🙂
It’s not any more complicated than that, so let’s dig into what powerful questions you can ask yourself each week in order to create focus and clarity in your business, and achieve your most important goals.
What are you celebrating this week? What went well?
Celebrating wins in your business, big and small, creates the motivation and energy you need to keep taking action and moving toward your bigger goals.
Our brains have been programmed to look for gaps, and so we often spend a lot of energy ruminating over the things that aren’t working, feeling the challenges we face, and falling into patterns of overwhelm and anxiety in business. Does this feel true for you?
Training your brain to look for everything that IS working allows you to see just how far you’ve come, rather than focusing on how far you still have to go.
I remember sitting and reflecting on the first 12 months of my business, completely baffled that I could create $30K monthly, only a year after creating $374 monthly…
It’s tricky for our poor little brains to grasp just how much we are capable of.
Because success is exponential, not linear, it’s all the more difficult to imagine how far you’ll be 12 months from now compared to where you sit now.
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So that’s what makes this question so powerful: actively looking for all of the small wins you’re creating trains your brain to notice all of the progress you’re making, rather than dismissing it in favor of the uphill climb still remaining.
This is a big piece of what allowed me to stay in business after all the $0 months, and to even make it to a place where I was generating multiple-5 figures a month – celebrating all of the foundational work that I was accomplishing each week in my business and making that count, even if it wasn’t a big “milestone” in my business.
Consistency compounds! Those little wins are exactly what make up all of the big wins – so give yourself space to celebrate all of the little things as you work toward your big *ss goals.
What is the big goal you’re working toward this quarter? What progress did you make toward it last week?
There are a thousand things you could spend your time doing when running a business – the list never really ends, does it?
Keeping a clear goal post in mind week after week (for me, this is a quarterly goal I set for my business) helps you stay laser focused on that which will move your business forward the most right now.
The key to creating wild business results without burning out, is to make progress each week that directly ties into your quarterly goal, and avoid busy work.
Reflecting on this powerful question each week allows you to celebrate the momentum you’re making toward your goal, and also to catch yourself on the weeks where you worked many hours but didn’t actually move the needle forward in your business.
Related post: Are You Working On The Right Goals?
So, unless your goal happens to be “rewrite my Instagram bio 10 times this month”, you can stop focusing on polishing your presence, and focus on quantum leaping your growth!
Do you ever find yourself hiding behind the easy work of polishing your website, or rewriting your content, or planning your next offer – and avoiding putting yourself out there and selling your services? Yeah… you’re not the only one. I can support you with working through this – book a time to chat.
What challenges kept this week from being the best it could be? What can you do differently next week?
There will always be ups and downs in your entrepreneurial journey.
Taking the time to get specific about what challenges came up last week allows you to intentionally put in place a plan to do things differently next week.
Maybe you let something slip because you’ve been manually running an ad hoc process (like when I used to schedule all of my client’s calls with me in a calendar, rather than using a scheduling tool that let them do it themselves) and now it’s time to automate your process through software.
Or maybe you didn’t complete a task that was important to you because there was too much on your plate, and so the following week you know to build in white space in your calendar and lower your expectations of how much is sustainable within a week.
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This powerful question is amazing because it creates a snowball effect in your business.
If, each week, you remove an obstacle that has held you back, you will soon start to feel ease in your business. (Not to say challenges won’t continue to come up, but now you’re dealing with the things that are slowing you down, instead of letting them pile up.)
What was your mindset this week? Where do you need to focus your mindset work?
In a world focused on tasks, to dos, and lists, we rarely take the time to reflect on where our headspace is at.
Mindset work was a game changer for me in my business. It’s single-handedly the biggest contributing factor to my success. From $0 to multiple-5 figure months in less than a year – it wasn’t my knowledge of business that changed, it was my ability to notice & direct my thinking.
When I started creating awareness around my thoughts and learning how they generate patterns of behavior that don’t always bring me closer to my goals, I was able to solve the right problems in my business.
Procrastinating sales? It’s not because you actually need to spend another 5 hours tweaking your script or funnel, it might be because on some level you’re terrified of being seen as pushy, or actually landing the sale and having too much work to do, or a wide array of other thoughts and feelings that are making sales feel sticky.
Avoiding working on your business? Again, it’s not because you don’t know what to do, it’s because seeing yourself as an entrepreneur might feel foreign to you, or taking the time to put your business first might generate massive waves of mom-guilt, or maybe you don’t feel worthy of financial abundance and so you’re pushing away the thing that will help you create it.
Taking the time to reflect on what thoughts took over your brain last week is the first step in intentionally choosing thoughts that serve you in the pursuit of your happiness, fulfillment, and success in the coming week.
You’ll know the specific problems to bring to your journaling routine, or the kinds of affirmations you need to prioritize in order to get used to thinking differently.
What one thing do you need to focus on to take your business to the next level? What will you commit to doing this week to move the needle forward on that one thing? When?
Again, creating success doesn’t have to be challenging.
Reducing the noise inside your brain by focusing on the ONE THING that actually matters this week allows you to create bigger results by doing less work.
Time and time again I see my business coaching clients overcomplicating what’s required to create success (because subconsciously, so many of us believe that success has to feel hard).
Challenging yourself to simplify your approach to ONE focus for the week allows you to quantum leap your results because you’re moving a mile in one direction instead of a millimeter in a million directions.
Typically, this is a key driver of your quarterly goal. (Here’s a deeper dive into how I set goals and break them down in my business, if you’re feeling a little lost right now). You can’t complete an entire quarterly goal in one month, so you typically break it down into 3-5 key drivers that you focus on each month.
Every time you plan your week, focus on the ONE key driver you’re prioritizing right now, and create your plan for the week based on that.
This helps you stay laser focused on the things that actually matter to hit your goal. These commitments come first when you’re working toward your business.
What do you want to get done this week?
This question serves as a placeholder for any other ideas you have of where to spend your time this week.
It allows you to empty your thoughts out of your brain so they’re not taking up headspace.
And it also allows you to separate these ‘want to do’s’ from the important actions above that will get you closest to your goal.
Yes, updating your sales page would be nice to do this week, but it can’t come before following up on your conversations with potential clients and getting the promotional content written for the new program you’re launching next week.
The way we avoid dropping balls in business is by being very intentional about how many balls we decide to pick up at once. Separating these two questions allows you to very easily prioritize your time, making momentum on your goals so that you actually hit them, and getting to some of the other fun ideas your creative genius comes up with in the run of a week.
What can you do to free up brain space this week? What will you delegate?
Your brain space is your most valuable asset.
Especially when you’re growing a thriving business, success depends on you having the capacity to dream the big visions, solve the challenges that come up, and prioritize your focus.
Intentionally making a plan for freeing up head space each week allows you to have more spaciousness in your calendar for being the CEO instead of filling every minute of your day with tasks.
If you’ve got a team member (like a virtual assistant, etc.), think about what you can delegate to create space for you to do the things only you can do.
If you’re still riding solo, there are many ways to free up headspace even if you can’t delegate. This might include going for a walk at lunch time, practicing meditation, brain dumping all your thoughts into your journal, meal planning so that you have fewer decisions to make throughout the week, etc.
The little things we have to keep track of in life tend to add up to one great, big, mental load. Doing what you can, each week, to free up headspace allows you to use your most valuable resource (your brainpower) to make momentum toward your biggest goals.
I work with entrepreneurs at all stages – from those launching brand new baby businesses that want to land their first clients and get their business off the ground, to those already leading million dollar + businesses who want to continue growing their empire – and what I see time and time again is that the entrepreneurs who intentionally set up their week for success by asking powerful questions consistently create results faster and easier than those that fly by the seat of their pants each week.
I’ve put together this list of powerful reflection questions for you so that you can start creating clarity and focus in your business each week and hitting your business goals faster.
Intentionally taking 15-30 minutes to sit down at the end of the week to reflect, ask yourself these powerful questions, & set intentions will allow you to create bigger results by doing less work.
If you’re ready to collapse the timeline to your business growth and quantum leap your results, I’m here to support you with the heart-centered business strategy & mindset mastery you need to hit your goals this year (whether that’s to launch a new business and land your first few clients so you can escape your 9 to 5, or to scale your current business to 6 figures and beyond).
Book in a time to chat with me about what it could look like for us to work together and for you to hit your wildest goals faster than you thought was possible.
I’d love to know, so comment below, do you take time to plan out your week each week?
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