Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle

61: Faith-Driven Planning for the Year

• Leanne • Season 5 • Episode 61

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What if a quiet hour with a planner could change the next decade of your life? We open season five with a clear, faith-centered approach to planning that moves beyond hype and hustle. Picture a cozy chair, a warm coffee, and a few honest questions that help you remember where God met you, what rhythms brought life, and which distractions stole your peace. From that posture, we zoom out to ten years and let that future inform today’s choices.

We walk through a simple framework built around three pillars—relationships, energy, and wealth—so you can cast a grounded vision for your family, friendships, and prayer life; your mental, emotional, and physical well-being; and your approach to work, money, and generous giving. You’ll write ages next to names, imagine the kind of connection you want, and name the skills, habits, and investments that will matter most down the road. Along the way, Scripture keeps us anchored: abiding in John 15, numbering our days in Psalm 90, and staying steady in Proverbs.

Then we make it practical. Instead of chasing endless goals, you’ll choose only two intentions for the year and add quarterly check-ins to your calendar to review, adjust, and keep going with grace. We share examples—from mentoring women and studying the New Testament to planning family visits and honoring the Sabbath—that turn lofty hopes into small, repeatable steps. Through it all, we return to prayer for wisdom and direction, trusting God to establish our steps and bring the growth.

Ready to plan with purpose and peace? Hit play, grab your planner, and join us. If this encourages you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show.

Recommended Resources:

Casey Graham creator of the Decade of Destiny

Overwhelmed Mom by Jamie Erickson

Episode 23: Discovering Freedom in Personal Struggles (Spotify)

Episode 23: Discovering Freedom in Personal Struggles (Apple)

Connect with me!
You can find me on Instagram @mrs.leannetuggle or you can email me at leanne.tuggle@gmail.com. I love hearing from you!

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Leanne Tuggle:

Welcome back, friends. Today we are kicking off season five of whatever is excellent. It is such a joy and honor to be able to show up here week after week and simply share the lessons that I've been learning or things that God has placed on my heart. It is my prayer that you are encouraged, inspired, and challenged with every episode. I cannot wait to find out what we will learn together over the course of these next 15 episodes. So without any further delay, let's get season five started. And I have to say, there is something about having a birthday on New Year's Eve that really sets you up for being a contemplative, reflective type of person. One of my favorite birthday activities is to sneak away from my family for a couple of hours, settle into a cozy chair at a coffee shop with my old planner, my new planner, a notebook, and a whole bunch of colorful pens. And then I spend a few minutes flipping through my old planner as kind of a way of remembering or reflecting on all that has happened throughout the year. It's actually kind of amazing how much I forget. And so this little act of going through is such a great way to remember and just be thankful for some time of reflection. Some questions that I explore during this time are things like: where did God meet me? What rhythms were life-giving? What distractions stole time or peace? And what did I avoid that I was actually being called to? So those are some of the questions that I look over and think about as I'm reflecting on the past year. And then after thinking through those questions, my favorite part is opening up that brand new planner and then dreaming about all of the possibilities for the new year. The shiny stickers, the blank pages. It just warms my soul. And if you are a paper and pen planner girl, then you I know that you understand. So with my cup of coffee and a pretty colored pen, I start dreaming and imagining. I use the notebook to record my thoughts and ideas as I go. And it is from this time of reflection and planning that I am able to envision my year and work on cultivating what matters most for my family. So for this episode, I want to invite you to join me in this little coffee shop to bring your planner, your pens, and all of your dreams. Let's settle in and get cozy and begin to practically plan out our year together. I want to give you a sort of framework that you can use and apply to your own life, and perhaps you will find excitement and joy in the midst of the ordinary too. So this exercise that I want to lead you through is something that is going to take a little bit of work, but I promise that it is worth it. And so if as you're listening to this, you start feeling overwhelmed, I just want you to hit pause and just take a deep breath and know that this is something that you can do when you have the time and space that allows for it. It doesn't have to be at the beginning of the year, it could literally be at any point, but it is a really helpful exercise to really narrow down what it is that really matters to you and what you really want to focus on for this year. So just know that this is going to be a lot in this episode. I'm telling you that up front, giving you a little disclaimer, so that you can be prepared to soak in all the information. So I was first introduced to this decade of destiny that was developed by Casey Graham through a sales skills course that I took when I lived in Japan. And since then, I have adapted his philosophy to work for me as a wife and mom. He originally created this for entrepreneurs, which it works fantastically well in that regard. But I also think it is a helpful exercise for those of us who maybe are just a wife or mom or homemaker. And I say just, even though it is a very special and important job, and you know that. But I have learned how the intentional choices that I make in one year can really shape the decade ahead, and it helps create a tangible vision of what my life could look like in 10 years. And this has helped me zoom in on exactly what matters most to me and my family. It has especially helped me to become a better steward of the things that God has entrusted to me. And yet, before I dive into all this planning goodness, I do want to remind you of a couple of crucial points. First, as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under the sun. And I share this with you because what you are being intentional with this year will likely look different from what others are cultivating, or even from what you were focused on last year. You are not the same person that you were last year. You have grown as God has been teaching you new things. So each season of your life is going to bring with it new joys and sorrows, new difficulties, new victories. So keep this in mind as we move forward. Also, as I have mentioned on this podcast before, it is so important to remember that apart from God, we can't do anything. John 15, 5 says, I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can't do anything. It is far more valuable for you to abide in Jesus than any other thing. None of your planning or dreaming or goal setting matters if you are not abiding with Jesus. And like it says in Proverbs 4, 25 through 27, let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. This time of planning or reflecting needs to always begin with your eyes fixed on Jesus. Pray for wisdom. Pray for your plans to be in alignment with God's best for you and your family. God cares about our obedience and faithfulness more than our plans or resolutions or goals. And finally, Psalm 9012 says, So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. And this verse to me is the reason why a time of reflection and planning is so beneficial so that we can be intentional with our days and grow in wisdom. So now that we have that biblical foundation, let's dig in to what it means to cultivate what matters. I was recently reading this book called Overwhelmed Mom. It's by Jamie Erickson, and I'm going to read to you just this one little paragraph she has in here about where the word culture comes from, which is where we get the word cultivate. So culture is cultura in Latin, and it means the act of preparing the earth for crops. Any farmer will be quick to mention that throwing seeds at a patch of earth won't ensure a healthy harvest come fall. Those seeds have to be planted with intentionality, watered, nurtured, and protected from predators. It takes time for things to grow. It takes patience. It takes dedication. It takes laying aside other good work to do the very best work. And I want you to keep that definition in mind as we talk about the word cultivate as we go about this next few things. I went to school to be a teacher, and I have a master's in curriculum design and instruction. And I tell you this because I am a big fan of what the teaching world calls a scope and sequence. It's like an overview of everything that you plan to teach for the year. So, in other words, it's like a vision plan. And apparently old habits die hard because I still have a scope and sequence for every year. And I haven't been a teacher since my kids were born. But now every good teacher will tell you, and she knows, that her plans for the year will absolutely change depending on the needs of her students or unforeseen circumstances. Her plans will be adjusted all throughout the year. However, it is much easier to check out a plan or even revise a plan than have to create a plan on the fly or make it up as you go. So even if you put in the work now and you create a beautiful scope and sequence for your year, please know that it is just a guideline. As Proverbs 16, 9 says, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. So hold your plan loosely in the palm of your hands. God will ultimately direct your steps. You need only to trust him. Okay, back to the scope and sequence, though. So borrowing from Casey Graham's Decade of Destiny, I want us to consider three categories for this planning exercise. We're going to take a look at relationships, energy, and wealth. Those are the three categories. And each of those three categories has three subcategories that I will explain as we go along. So for each of these categories, I want you to imagine 10 years from now. So think about where you are right now. Think about how old you are right now. And I want you to imagine 10 years from now. Get out your notebook, your pen, and I want you to jot down your answers to a few of these questions. So in 10 years, what will be the ages of every person in your family? You, your husband, your children, your parents, your siblings, nieces, nephews. I want you to write everyone's name down and then write their ages in 10 years next to their name. And then next to each person, I want you to think about what your relationship is like with each person. And again, you're imagining 10 years from now. So this might take some imagination, and I don't want you to rush this. Describe in as much detail as you can. Okay, so I'm going to take this opportunity right here to remind you that at any time you can pause this episode and spend some more time writing down your thoughts. This exercise is meant to take some time, and the more reflective and thoughtful you can be, the more effective the outcome. So think about your family, write down your age, their ages, and describe a little bit about your relationship with them. What will it look like in 10 years? Now think about your friends. Describe how you will interact with your friends in 10 years. What will they be like? Who is still in your life? And think about your relationship with God. What will your walk with the Lord look like in 10 years? Will you be involved in a small group? Will you be in a Bible study? How will you be giving back and helping people in your community as a result of your faithfulness to God? What does your time alone with the Lord look like in 10 years from now? Okay, so that was all in the first category of relationships. The category of relationships has family, friends, and God. Those are all the subcategories underneath relationships. So moving on to the next category, we're going to be talking about your energy. And in the energy section, we're going to look at mental energy, emotional energy, and physical energy. And remember, we're looking ahead 10 years from now. So in 10 years, how are you consistently maintaining a growth mindset? Have you learned any new skills in the last 10 years? Who are you learning from? Who is learning from you? These questions remind me of Titus 2, 3 through 5, which says, Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. So when I think about who am I learning from or who am who is learning from me, I'm reminded of that verse and just thinking about who are you reaching up towards and who are you reaching down towards? So that's something to kind of keep in mind as you're answering those questions. Now, if we look at the emotional mindset, in 10 years, what is your mindset about yourself? Or how about those closest to you? Are you maintaining an emotionally healthy mindset? And what about your physical energy? What activities do you enjoy doing in 10 years? How does your body look? How do you feel about how your body looks? And what do you do consistently now that you can't imagine not doing? So those are all questions underneath that category of energy. Now, this last category is a little bit tricky because it may not feel like it directly applies to you unless you work from home or even if you have a career outside of the home. However, I include this category on wealth because I think making wise financial decisions either on your own or with your spouse is always a good idea. And Proverbs 3, 9 reminds us to honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. So in this section, you might jot down the questions and then plan to talk it over with your spouse later. This might be a great time to take a note of the timestamp here and then come back to it later with your spouse. So when it comes to your work, in 10 years, what financial goals would you hope to have achieved? So that might be maybe that's something you can discuss with your husband, or if you do work and have income that you bring in, maybe that's something that you can consider too. How do you feel about your career or the work that God has entrusted to you? And again, you're imagining 10 years from now. And even if you are a homemaker or are raising your children or that kind of thing, this is still a good question that you can ask yourself and consider how you feel about it. How do you feel about being a stay-at-home mom? And then this question I actually find to be super helpful. What investments did you make 10 years ago? And how are they paying off now? So again, you're imagining 10 years. Did you go to anyone for advice in this area? Okay, so let me give you an example to kind of help make this make sense. So when I first did this exercise, this decade of destiny, it was actually two years ago. So my daughter was eight. And when we were imagining, when my husband and I were imagining her in 10 years, we realized she'd be 18 and she'd be about ready to start college. So that was actually an indicator to us that we wanted to consider what investments we were making so that in 10 years, when she's about to start college, we could afford to send her to college, or that we had some money to be able to match the scholarships that she may receive or whatnot. So we were thinking about investments in terms of college when we first did this exercise. And I think if you are a mom with littles, sometimes college seems way far away, but it comes sooner than you think. And so this exercise is great to realize that, oh wow, we're gonna be there in 10 years or maybe just a little bit over 10 years from now. And so what can I be, what can we be doing now? What investments could we be making now that in 10 years will benefit our whole family? So that's why those questions are in there is for something like that. And then the last question to ask yourself in this category of wealth has to do with giving. So in 10 years, how will you feel about giving? What have you modeled for your kids or for those around you regarding giving generously? Okay, I know that that was a lot. That was a lot of questions on a lot of categories. But the good news is that once you work through this exercise, you don't have to keep redoing this every year. Like I mentioned, my husband and I walked through this two years ago, and we just relook at it over the last couple of years just to see if we need to make any revisions. So it's a great exercise to do and then just kind of refer back to yearly. And it is simply a way to establish a sort of scope and sequence for the next 10 years, just to give you a little bit of an outline for the direction that you're heading so that you can be really intentional with your time. It's a great way to be able to visualize and put into practice what Psalm 9012 says about numbering your days. It's really easy to just get into the flow of the day to day and then forget that each of these days adds up to years and decades, right? And so this exercise helps to give you a little bit of an idea of the direction you're heading in. And once you're You have this very broad scope and sequence, your next step is then to choose which area you really want to be intentional with this year. So, for example, last year when I did this exercise, I was really focused in on that energy category. And I wanted, I was looking at two parts of that energy category, the mental and the physical. Those really stood out to me. So, for example, I wanted it to be more intentional with mentoring other women. And so I focused on my mental energy, reading more nonfiction books, being a woman of the word, and really studying my Bible. Those were intentions that I set to help me grow in the area of mental energy. I also was convicted to work on my physical mindset. And picturing myself in 10 years was actually the catalyst that led me to seek out a nutritionist and to develop some healthier eating habits for my body, which actually led to me losing a decent amount of weight to get myself in a healthier place. And you can actually hear about my entire journey with that on an episode that I did earlier in a previous season. I'll link it here in the show notes. But all of that came about from just doing this exercise and recognizing that I wanted to be a good steward of my body and I wanted to be present and available and healthy and active with my kids as they get older. All of that can come from doing an exercise like this and kind of seeing, like, oh wow, this is an area where I really want to be intentional this next year. So you see, having that big picture or scope and sequence, it helps you narrow down on the things that matter most. When I first worked through this exercise, I mentioned my daughter was eight, and imagining her at 18 encouraged me to start doing a tea time discipleship with her on a regular basis. I realized that I had 10 years left with her at home to really pour into her. And so visualizing where you might be 10 years from now helps to point out the things that really do matter and then can help you find the things to be really intentional with in the next year. So once you have an idea of the things you would like to cultivate, you can start to make smaller intentions or goals if you want to do it. Some people call them like 90-day goals. I would suggest making one or two intentions. I like to call them intentions, and then I check in with myself. I check my progress quarterly. So here's an example because I really do think examples help make all this make sense. So, for example, one of my intentions this year is to study the New Testament. I really want to study the New Testament and be a woman of the word. So I already have in my calendar by the end of March, I have a little date already scheduled at the end of March to check in, to check in with myself. And it's kind of a way to hold myself accountable. I will check in and see, am I studying the New Testament? Have I gotten off track? Have I been distracted by things? Am I not able to study the way that I was hoping to? Are there any adjustments that I need to make so that I can continue to study the New Testament like I had imagined at the beginning of the year? So having regular check-ins is a way that you can keep yourself accountable to the intentions you set at the beginning of the year. So I check in at the end of March, at the end of June, at the end of September, and then again in December when I start setting intentions for the next year. So here's another example. Let's say that you want to be intentional with your relationships. And let's say that doing this exercise, you realize that in 10 years, your parents are going to be kind of up there in ages. And so you want to be more intentional with the time that you spend, especially with your family that lives out of town. And so then you would put on your planner quarterly to follow up with yourself and ensure that you have a trip scheduled or that you have blocked off some time on your calendar to go on a road trip to visit them. Let's say you decide you're going to visit your out-of-town family at least twice a year. You would want to check in quarterly to ensure that you are doing what you said you would do. That's just one example. Here's another one. Let's say that you have been feeling overwhelmed emotionally and you want to be in a healthier place in 10 years. So you might set an intention to honor the Sabbath every week. Maybe you delete your social media apps from your phone every weekend. You would check in with yourself quarterly and see if you notice an improvement in your emotional state. Are these things working? Have you been consistent with taking a Sabbath rest every Sunday or Saturday or whatever? Or have you been consistent with deleting the social media apps? So this is kind of how you can take this scope and sequence and then narrow it down to the things that are most important. So let's jump back to our coffee shop where we just started this journey earlier. You likely have notes all over the place. Highlighters are spilled out all over the table, and your mind is swirling with so many things. The last step in this reflection process is to bring it back to God. James 1:5 says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. This verse is such a comfort to me during this time of planning, because whenever I start to feel overwhelmed by all of the good intentions I want to set, I am reminded that God has all the answers. And all I have to do is ask him to show me the way. And then you simply do the next right thing with excellence and for his glory. Bottom line, the main question I want you to take away from this is 10 years from now, what do I want my faith, family, and character to look like? That's what I want you to think about. And based on how you answer that question, some examples of intentions might be to have a deeper prayer life, a stronger marriage, intentional discipleship with your children, creating margin and Sabbath rhythms, maybe health and stewardship, or saying yes only to what aligns with what God is calling you towards. And friend, you would only pick like two of those to focus on for the year. Not all of them, like two. In the next couple of episodes, I will unpack a bit more about what it means to be consistent and disciplined with your intentions. I also have an episode planned on building rhythms to help you know how the habits that you need to cultivate help you become the woman that you want to be 10 years from now. I also want to invite you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, which is called Whatever is Lovely. I always provide more details in my newsletter that kind of coincides with whatever you're hearing on this weekly episode. So that is also an option. And you can find the link to subscribe to that newsletter in the show notes. This is a fantastic way to be able to get additional encouragement and also some more insight into what I've been talking about for this whole episode. For now, remember that God has given you this year as a gift. Steward it with purpose, cultivate what matters most, guard your heart, walk with wisdom, and above all, remain on the vine. Then you will bear much fruit. Remember that earlier passage when I told you about what the word cultivate means or what culture means. It takes time. You don't just throw seeds out and hope for the best. You really want to prepare that soil. You really want to discipline yourself to really think about these things and know that when you remain on the vine with Jesus, that is the only way you're going to bear fruit. Colossians 1, 9 through 10 is my prayer for you as you begin this year. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. God is faithful to grow the seeds we plant. You are not responsible for the outcomes, you are responsible for walk in obedience.