This Is Soul Therapy

12. Anchoring Your Year: Crafting Intentions and the Art of Intuitive Planning For Inspired, Creative Goals

• Jennifer Hulley

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Have you ever felt the buzz of a fresh start when the calendar flips, only to find yourself adrift in a sea of expectations and resolutions? Let's chart a course together toward a year of intentional living and creative fulfillment.

In this episode, we'll sail through the importance of balancing ambition with self-care, guided by the wisdom of Julia Cameron's "The Listening Path." It's about making room for inspiration while setting sail on our creative quests. Embracing the notion that transformation is not confined to January's gate, we'll navigate toward aligning our goals with our deepest desires, taking cues from the emotional guidance scale to create a vision board that truly resonates with us.

I'll reveal how anchoring our year with emotions rather than resolutions can lead to unchartered territory of personal growth. I'll recount how my own anchor of freedom in 2021 unfurled the sails toward a year of significant transformation and invite you to consider 'flow' as a guiding compass for the new year.

For those of you juggling a multitude of passions, we'll hoist the idea of an "anchor system," inspired by "The Renaissance Soul," to harmonize your varied interests into a single, fulfilling career trajectory.

I'll introduce you to a new product, an interactive creative productivity planner that can help you support your creative visions and bring them into fruition this year.

BUY IT: Get It Done: Interactive Creative Planner


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Speaker 1:

This is Soul Therapy. I'm Jen Hully, your host and therapeutic arts practitioner, creativity coach and photographer, obsessed with empowering others to build creatively fulfilling lives. Creativity has the power to heal, to transform and uncover new depths within us, and this podcast is dedicated to the art of building a soul-fulfilling, creative existence. This week, we're talking about the pressure and excitement that comes with the new year and how we can navigate and find balance between the excitement to set new goals and plan out new projects or experiences, but also make sure that we're taking care of ourselves and that we're supporting our life and our bodies and souls with the things that we need to be able to be present in our day-to-day and to let go of things that we need to let go of. I am a firm believer that in order to create new things, we often need to release stuff. That might look like releasing expectations, demands, beliefs. It might be a logistical thing, like getting rid of hobbies and habits and things that don't serve you anymore, but there is this like crescendo of excitement that happens in January, where everybody's like, oh, my god, I'm gonna change my life and everything's gonna be amazing, and you might have, like big ideas and sometimes the pressure of that is enough to just make you collapse. And when things seem too big and too overwhelming, even when you're really excited for them, if there's no structure to the idea, there is no way forward for you. Like, your brain cannot see the path. And I'm reading this book right now, called the Listening Path. It is by Julia Cameron, who's the artist of the artist, the author of the Artist Way, and she's talking about how the creative process is this balance between putting something out there, requesting and then letting go, and receiving and making space. And we have to kind of like balance our efforts in both of them. Right, we have to put out requests, we have to make plans, we have to make decisions and sort of create outlines or visions for things that we're going to do. But then we also need to create the space for inspiration to strike, for our brain to connect the dots. And it's a process Like it's not something that we intuitively can do, because, I mean, I think we can intuitively do it.

Speaker 1:

I think, on a basic level, this is how humans operate and this is how we are created, like this is our makeup, but I think it gets fucked up through our programming and society and how we grow up and what we're taught as children and what is reinforced as adults Like we learn that you must be producing all the time and no play is not important and forget rest. Rest is not important. All of that stuff and it can slip us into this mindset of thinking like we have to do more, be more, experience more, put more on our plates, and that doesn't always work right, it doesn't always work. So when we enter into a new year or it could literally be February or March when you're listening to this, it doesn't matter. But when you're entering into a new phase of your life, you're like I want to establish some things, I want to experience some things. I am a huge, huge advocate for getting really, really clear with yourself about what that looks like Like.

Speaker 1:

If we take the example of making a vision board, it's an amazing process and it is such a good tool to use to work with your subconscious mind and to program something called value tagging in your brain. That works in your subconscious mind, where you pay attention, or more attention, to different things because it's in line with something you're pursuing. So that's a whole other thing. We could do an episode on why vision boards work and how to make them work. But the little blurb there is that when we put things on a vision board, it tells our brain like this stuff's important, this is valuable. Pay attention to it and you're more likely to find, seek out, respond to opportunities that are in line with that.

Speaker 1:

But here's where the problem happens. If you create a vision board without carving out the time to sit down and do the deep soul searching and find out what you actually want to feel and experience, the things you're going to put on your vision board might not line up with your desired expectations. And I say this because Any goal that we're pursuing, even if we think it's a thing like I want a new car or I want this amount of money or I want to sell my painting here, it looks like a tangible object or a tangible experience, but what we're actually seeking is this feeling that comes with it. Right, when we're wanting more money, we're probably seeking the feeling of security, comfort, ease, things like that. So it's really important to take the time to sit with yourself and go deep and be like how do I want to feel in this year? What do I want my emotional state to be like? And a reminder. There's that resource. You can go Google, get that image of that spiral, the emotional guidance scale by Esther Hicks, which shows sort of the continuum of different emotional experiences, not necessarily from like good to bad, but I think of them in terms of density, to really heavy and dense to more light and expansive, and check in with like where am I, where am I operating most of the time and where do I want to be vibing at in the new year or this next phase?

Speaker 1:

Like I said, this doesn't have to be new year, new you. This can just be like it's Tuesday in October and I'm going to change my fucking life, right. So what I'm going to do here? Actually, excuse me, I had to clear my throat there for a minute. I haven't been recording for a few weeks because I've had no voice and it's coming back, but you'll hear like little remnants of what the last few weeks have been like. It cracks in and out still. But what I'm going to do here, for this reason that my voice is still healing, but also because I think that this conversation I had two years ago is still so, so relevant, I'm going to put in an episode from a podcast that I hosted way back.

Speaker 1:

I don't even know what the name of the podcast was at that point. I had a podcast previously that had like seven different variations. It was my play space where I was figuring out what it is that I wanted to do with podcasting, but that's not important. What's important is the episode is all about creating annual anchors emotional, energetic anchors for your goal setting in your life, whatever it is that you want to create, right? We are very powerful creators. We are very powerful manifestors. We can create works of art, we can create habits, we can create experiences all sorts of things but we need to anchor that in a really authentic emotional and energetic experience so that the little variations and expressions of it are meeting the needs that we're seeking, that, like our soul is seeking. So I'm going to pop in an old episode from two years ago that you can listen to it's super relevant and encourage you to listen to it and apply this process to your planning and to think about like, well, what do I actually want to experience this year? And maybe come up with an anchor, an overarching vibe or energetic state that you really want to encompass in the next 12 months, and I want to let you know that in my shop I have a product called the Get it Done Creative Productivity Planner, and this is an OG product that I had available a couple of years ago when I was doing specifically business coaching, but I've tweaked it to have a lens of creativity and, whether you're an artist or a hobbyist or an entrepreneur or just somebody that wants to bring more creativity into your life, this planner has pretty much everything in there that you need to do that with.

Speaker 1:

It has a bunch of templates that will guide you through this process that you're going to hear about in this episode. So there's like planning templates, there's journal prompts, there's an annual review process that you go through, there's big visionary brainstorming framework that you work through and then there's a step by step procedure to be like how do we take this big ass idea and these big ass visionary feeling and energy that I want to embody and how do we make it into Manageable micro steps? So it has all these things in there and it's got some additional stuff, like, if you're in the sphere of making online content, there's a little bit in there like how do you translate that into steps on social media? How do you translate that into steps in your own personal life. But the thing that I love about it is it is just rampact with coaching videos so it's like a printable. It's about eighty eight pages, I believe, or like eighty five Pages, but there are fourteen coaching videos in there, so it's interactive.

Speaker 1:

So when you get to a suit excuse me when you get to a certain part in the planner, you just click on the video and you watch this video. It's like me, I pop up in the corner, basically, and I talk you through it and I coach you through it and it's kind of like having your own personal creativity coach that you can like just take out of your pocket or like tap in when you need that support. Because you know I love a planner, I will like go to the bookstore and buy all those like beautiful, pretty planners because I like Nice looking stuff. But the problem with them always is it's just a planner and it's like if you don't change your mindset and you don't change your behaviors and your beliefs, then A template isn't going to help you, right? So that's the process in this planner is that it's not just templates. It is supported with actual directives and inspiration and guidance and things for you to think about and, frankly, it is a steel. You can get it on my shop. You can go to Jennifer Holly dot com and click on the shop, or you can go to the link in the show notes. I'll put it there for you. Eighty five, eighty eight pages of printable templates, fourteen coaching videos. It will hold your hand through the next twelve months to help you Confidently create whatever it is that you want in your life.

Speaker 1:

I am all about empowering people to create Fulfilling, creative lives that, like, nurture us on a soul level, that are fulfilling. Like I said, they match our soul needs energetically, intuitively, but also allow us to tangibly experience in the physical world the things that we want to experience. So this is a great merging of those, those things, all those things, wrapped into a nice little resource that you can tap in and, of course, you get it, you download it. You have any questions? You can always email me or DM me. I love to chat about this kind of stuff, so Let me know how it goes as you're working through it.

Speaker 1:

All right, I'm gonna stop gabbing here, cuz I can feel my voice is starting to wobble, and we're gonna dive into this conversation about how to set Energetic and emotional anchors, which is really important. Whether you use the planner or not, don't set a goal, don't set a resolution, don't do anything, a vision board, any of that until you sit down, you listen to this and you go through this process of having that conversation with your higher self, with your soul, with your intuition to be like what do I actually want to feel this year? How do I want to be existing in an energetic state and use that information to create your anchors, and you will start to carve a path and you will start to uncover a framework or a little bit of a map that's going to guide you forward in all the things that you're going to make in the coming year. Alright, so let's dive in. Everyone thinks we need to talk about goals and resolutions and all of that stuff in like December and January, but did you know that most people actually don't sit down to start to write their goals until February? True, really, really true.

Speaker 1:

January is not the month that most people have their shit sorted out, contrary to what social media would make you think and believe. The majority of people are getting their shit together in January and then February hits and they're like okay, let's do this and I don't know if you notice that in your own business, that perhaps things quiet down a little bit from your customers and clients in January, and then February it's like they wake up and they're like, oh my god, you know, and they're like fuck, and they're trying to get their shit together really quickly. But that's why it's just like there's this lull that tends to happen in January, and I think it's important that, instead of, you know, be rating ourselves for taking a slow period or thinking like what the hell is happening, why is nothing working, let's just embrace it and like say, you know, say what it is and be okay with it that maybe January was not the month where you got your shit together. You hit the ground running and you're just working at your own pace and that's fine. So we're hitting it off in February.

Speaker 1:

We're talking about anchors. We're talking about anchors over resolutions and, like I said, why are we talking about resolutions and anchors now, in February? Because here's a fact that kind of sucks, but 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions. Why are we talking about this now? Why are we talking about it in February? You know, 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions 8%. That is it. Like I said, social media would make you think that like 98% are achieving and you're like in the bottom two. That's not performing bullshit? It's not true. 8% of people achieve their resolutions and so that means 92% of people are, probably right now in February, off track.

Speaker 1:

There's a good chance that you set a new year's resolution or you set an annual goal for your life or your business and you've gotten off course. Maybe you've forgotten about it or you've gotten distracted and now you've gone down a path that's like totally unrelated. Or maybe you just like decided to throw your hands up there and be like fuck it and you've abandoned ship altogether. It does not have to be so black and white. Okay, I want you to remember that just because you like air quotes, drop the ball or whatever you know self-imposed hard line you've drawn up, it doesn't mean your entire year is a wash. New Year's Eve is such an arbitrary date when really the truth is that you can reinvent yourself, you can pivot and you can change course whenever you want to or whenever you need to.

Speaker 1:

So this is where we come in and say, like anchors over resolutions, why anchors? So let's step back a bit and talk about what goal setting is. Goal setting is really just like outcome setting Okay, and outcomes are things that we want to have and be an experience. They're based on a desired emotion, a feeling or a vibe, and creating an anchor instead of a resolution is going to create a direct connection in your brain between your actions that you take and the feeling that you're actually chasing. So let's talk about, say, you set a goal of, like I want to make more money, cool. You want to make $10,000, whatever. You probably don't actually care about the amount of money. You want the freedom, the security, the safety that comes with having that money. And so when you have an anchor, it's going to help you connect it a little bit better. So I'll get more into this in a minute, but let's let's go back a bit.

Speaker 1:

So, like, like I said, there's the goal setting. Is the outcome right? The outcome is the thing that you want to have, whether it's like I want this many clients or I want, you know, 5k months as consistent. I want to sign six new people, I want to launch a new product, whatever. There's that emotion behind it that you're actually chasing. So if we say that you know you want to scale to 5k months. A lot of people look at that. They go like I want to scale to 5k months and then their next goal is I want 10k months. It just seems to be the way that our brains work, or it's the content that people put on social media. If you say that you want to scale to 5k months, fantastic. But I bet you 5k months could be 6k months or an 8k, or you could even make 4k that month and it wouldn't matter. You would still feel as successful or unfulfilled as you you know were, depending on what the emotional outcome was that you were actually chasing. If you're chasing security or safety or freedom or power, that's the underlying thing or vibe behind you saying I want $5,000 as standard each month for my income.

Speaker 1:

So when we set an emotional anchor or an annual anchor, it is there to hold ourselves to the feelings that we're chasing. The anchor is a filter, like it's a great filter to use against all your choices, your options, your pathways that are going to present themselves to you over the course of the year and there is going to be a lot so you can use it as like a hang on hold up. If my annual anchor is power and this is an opportunity that's come into my place. You know, come on my plate or been served up in front of me, whatever I'm running out of metaphors right now or puns, but whatever lands on your plate or your mental desktop, you can look back and be like is this an alignment with power? And if you've engaged in the planning process that I have established and shared with you in the get it done business planning framework, you'll know that your anchor then creates phases. Right, your phases will say if I'm looking at power, maybe I'm going to look at revenue, community connections, income and whatever, whatever. I think I said revenue and income, but you get what I mean. That anchor is the thing that's going to hold you to that feeling, because it's like this umbrella, right. So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1:

My anchor for 2021 was freedom, and I looked at freedom in different ways. I looked at it in terms of revenue and I looked at it in terms of my work, like just moving out of my nine to five and getting full time into coaching so that I had the freedom to grow my business. I looked at freedom in terms of social media content. A big part of why the podcast came into fruition was to free myself from what I feel are the chains of Instagram and feeling like I have to compete and feed the algorithm. All these things that happened for me over the course of 2021 came because I established this anchor of freedom and I did a lot of things, like I looked back I don't know if you listened to go back to the last episode in season one. I talk about, like all the things that actually happened over the course of a year and it is wild and it happened because I had this anchor guiding me throughout the year.

Speaker 1:

This year, I'm going to be doing or using the anchor flow. My word is flow for the year and for me, flow means a lot of things. It means connection, it means revenue, it means creativity, it means joy, it means ease and simplicity, it means streamlining and systems Like. There's a lot of things embedded in the word flow. Right, it even means energy. So that was the word that came out when I was doing all the brain dumping at the end of the year and just reflecting on what had happened and where I was and where I wanted to go, I really realized that what I was craving over the next year is this sense of flow.

Speaker 1:

Um, and having this anchor has helped me establish those themes right. Like I'm going to be working on systems as one of my quarters. I'm going to be working on connection and creativity and scaling those are the sub themes within flow. But that concept of flow is going to be that like stop, do not pass go, sort of like border security, where I'm going to be like do you or does this help with flow or does it compete with flow? So I really encourage everyone to consider ditching the resolutions and bringing an anchor into your life.

Speaker 1:

So what I want to talk about? So let's talk about anchors in more depth. Let's talk about, like, what they're not and what they are, and how you can go about creating an anchor for yourself and why you really really need to consider doing this as a multi-passionate person. Let's start with what an anchor is not Okay. So establishing an annual anchor is not a box that you try to shove all your energy, all your directions and all your passions and interests into. It is not a label that you apply to yourself, your business, your life, your personality, to downplay your energy and your personality traits. It is not a checklist or a rule that you're going to use to restrain yourself or to quiet down what you want to do. It is not restrictive. What it is, though, an annual anchor is freedom, it is direction, it is guidance and accountability, it is a roadmap, it is your internal check-in point, your compass, your lens, your filter, whatever you want to envision it, as it's that internal system that you're going to basically upload, or download upload, I guess if you're a computer to put into your, you know your operating system to make sure that you make aligned decisions and you take aligned action.

Speaker 1:

Now here's the 411, and why anchors are, in my opinion, the best solution for a multi-passionate entrepreneur, and why you've probably bailed on your resolutions before and also like why that's totally normal and expected. So there is a book called the Renaissance Soul, and in it the author talks about this concept called umbrella careers, or just even umbrella terms, right, but she talks specifically about an umbrella career as a space that you create to house all the things that you love, all the things that you're interested in, all the projects and the pathways that you want your business and your life to expand, in all the things that you want to do and you're interested in. She uses an example in her book of somebody who is multi-passionate, that loved like everything interior design, finance, food and cooking, writing, television. Like they loved everything and they decided the solution for their life the best strategy for them was to build a life around becoming an innkeeper. And you're probably, like, what the hell does being an innkeeper have to do with loving interior design, cooking, wine, television, writing, finance, like what does that have to do with it? But the innkeeper became the umbrella through which that all of those elements of her personality that she loved, all her strengths, could sit in. Like it's the house that they could all be inside of.

Speaker 1:

And because, as an innkeeper interior design she was designing the rooms. In terms of cooking and wine, she was developing the menu, she was developing the wine list and doing some tastings and pairings. She got to engage in graphic design by creating social media graphics, her website details or whatever finance. Like, anyone that runs a business knows that initially, in the beginning, until you hire somebody, you are going to be your own bookkeeper. And so for this person who loved all the things, becoming an innkeeper was the umbrella that they needed to fit everything in and to keep themselves engaged and happy and satisfied and able to do all the things they love but still be making progress and making contribution to the world right and their life through using their energy to create something.

Speaker 1:

And so the anchor system, like the annual anchor system, is exactly the same. It's an umbrella term that your multi-passionate brain can set all your goals, you can try all the things and you can create that flexibility for you to follow your energy and interest throughout the year as they develop, without totally losing your way or becoming like completely off track. That anchors gonna keep you rooted to that overarching feeling or the emotion or the state of being that you wanted. Right, if you're looking at freedom, like I said, freedom from you know, one of the things was social media, instagram I want to look like. What does freedom? What's freedom gonna look like for me In terms of content creation? And I developed an email marketing list. I got the podcast going, I started dabbling, researching at YouTube, because these are all things that are on my list.

Speaker 1:

Like when you're multi-passionate, I bet if you took yourself, like give yourself like 10 minutes and make a list of everything that you want to do this year, all the things you're interested in, you're gonna have like a zillion things on there and when you cut off the energy and the creativity that's in your soul and your brain and your being that wants to like express itself through all those things, when you cut it off and you say, like I'm gonna, my annual goal this year is to launch a group membership program or whatever you are gonna get fucking bored so quick, like, so quick. But if you establish an anchor that's about strength or expression or knowledge or whatever it is and you set that anchor and then you establish your phases, one each quarter. Think about it you've now got four big topics within your you know your annual anchor and in each quarter you've got three months. You've got 12 different sub topics throughout the year that you can focus on. That you can focus on. You can do all the things. You just can't do everything at once.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that is where we get really off track, as we try to do everything at once and then we do a lot of things, we burn a lot of energy, we don't make a lot of progress and we don't get the feedback that we need to keep going. And that's where the doubt, the confusion, the disbelief, the thinking like I'm never gonna be able to leave my nine to five because I can't get my shit together or I'm never be able to scale my business to the next level or, you know, I'm never able to take my family on vacation because we're not working smartly and we're trying to either have no strategy and do everything which doesn't work, or we're employing somebody else's strategy and saying, cool, pick one thing. I'm gonna niche down three offers maximum, that's it. I worked with a business coach side note, that's why I'm calling this podcast side notes. I say side notes all the time, but side note.

Speaker 1:

I worked with a business coach years ago who learned a ton from them really, really dead, but also really fucked with my head by telling me that I could only have three services. And can I tell you what the pressure did to me of thinking I gotta pick three and that's it. I change my service guide like every week, every month. There was something else I never committed and I never made progress. So that's a good example of like taking somebody else's solution or somebody else's strategy which is built for we'll talk about this more throughout the season Zogs zone of genius.

Speaker 1:

People were not Zogs, were MPs, were multi-passion entrepreneurs and, like I said, you either do everything haphazardly in your goddamn mess, or you take somebody else's word of advice that was designed for a different type of brain and you try to niche down and you try to laser focus and have one annual goal and one new year's resolution, and you're never gonna do it because, like I said, it's going to suck the energy and the creativity from you and that is the life force that you need to be who you are and to do the things that you're supposed to do. So, as you find yourself now, the first week of February, if you're like freaking out because you're like I didn't set a goal or I did set a goal and I've already fucked it up, remind yourself that that's not true, right, and that you can. You can establish an annual anchor. Sit back, relax brain, dump some stuff out and try to figure out what it is that you're really craving and wanting in your life. One of the ways that I love to do this is our.

Speaker 1:

I suggest to people as well as to just Write everything. Take a big piece of paper and write all the things that you want to achieve and do an experience this year, and then get some pens that are different colored and start connecting lines between them. You'll see ones that like connect up. Well, you like, oh, that's related to this and this, this is related to that and that, and you'll find you'll have like clusters of things. And when you look and see how many clusters you have, you can start to name them and look at, okay, these clusters really represent this or this, and then you can establish a big word, you can establish that umbrella or you know, sometimes, just sitting with yourself quietly and asking, like what is it that I actually crave and what is it that I actually want? It might just come to you right, like me, with the word flow. I just knew in my gut I was like it's flow. I know I'm craving flow. I didn't know what it looked like, I didn't know what my quarterly phases were going to be, but I knew that that was my word. But I want you to understand that if you don't know what your word is right away and it's not in your gut, you can way find your way to it.

Speaker 1:

You can do some brain dumping, some brainstorming, mind mapping, whatever strategy works for you and start to see patterns of themes, like I said, or phases or subtopics that you want to focus your energy on over the course of this year. I would love to know what you uncovered through this process, whether you decided to do some art journaling or like traditional written journaling letters to yourself, whether you went through meditation or a walk to get your introspection, or maybe you worked through the template in the productivity planner. I'd love to know what you uncovered about yourself and about your intuitive desires, and whether that surprised you, because sometimes, speaking from my own experience, you might find that you are desiring a certain feeling and emotion, but you're actually putting into action things that take you to a different result. So when we have a really wide and depth analysis and awareness of what's going on, we can make some decisions and start making action towards the things that we really want to be creating. So I'd like to say I'd love to know what did you discover? You can send me an email. I'm at contact at jenniferhullycom. You can catch me on social media. My handles are at Jennifer Hully on TikTok and Instagram. I would love to connect with you and if this episode was helpful and you know somebody I know you do, I know you do, I know you know people like you I would really appreciate it if you would share this episode with them, share the podcast with them.

Speaker 1:

It is a new podcast. Growing a new podcast is like growing anything from a seed. It takes a while and when we share episodes and we let people know that this exists, it helps grow the community and it helps getting more people to listen to it and whatnot. So sharing is caring. And also, if you feel like it, give me a little feedback. Drop me a review on your favorite podcast platform. Those really, really, really help. I'm looking. Ooh, it's January 11th at 111. Ooh, there's like so many ones in my corner. That's all good vibes. That means you're gonna go do it. Leave me a review, leave me a rating. I so appreciate it. I hope you have an amazing week and I will talk to you soon. This is Steve with the D�uration.