The Create Your Day Podcast

115. How to Finish the Year Strong (With Only 22 Days Left)

• Jenn Cody | Productivity & Systems for Entrepreneurs • Season 1 • Episode 115

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Remember that 90-day plan from October?

The one where you picked your one professional goal and one personal goal. Where you committed to blocking your calendar, building systems, protecting your energy, and showing up strategically for the final quarter of the year.

How's that going?

If you crushed it—amazing. If you started strong and then life happened—you're not alone. If you listened and thought "great idea" but didn't actually do anything—no judgment.

Here's what matters now: you've got 22 days left.

In this episode, I'm checking in on where you are, connecting it back to our conversation about self-trust, and giving you a practical plan for finishing the year as someone who keeps their word to themselves.

Because January 1st isn't a magic reset button. The patterns you're running right now are the same ones you'll carry into the new year—unless something changes.

Let's use these 22 days to change something.

What you'll learn in this episode:

Why the last 68 days matter less than the next 22

How broken promises to yourself erode your confidence and your ability to execute

The real cost of not following through (hint: it's not about the goal)

Why self-trust is the foundation that everything else gets built on

How to reframe these final weeks as an opportunity to rebuild

A simple 5-step plan for finishing the year strong

Why who you become matters more than what you accomplish

This week's action plan:

Do a quick audit of the last 68 days—what promises did you keep? What promises did you break?

Pick one small, specific, achievable thing to do every day for the next 22 days

Tell someone your commitment and ask them to check in with you

Track it daily—a simple checkmark is enough

Take your CEO hour this week to review and plan

Key takeaways:

Every decision is a vote for or against the person you're becoming

You can't build a business or a life on a foundation of broken self-trust

These 22 days aren't about cramming—they're about rebuilding

The goals take care of themselves when you become someone who trusts themselves

January 1st isn't a fresh start—you carry yourself into the new year

Thanks for listening!

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody and I am your host. I am here today because we are going to talk about an episode that I put out in October, which was all about the 90-day game plan. If you have not already listened to that episode, please feel free to hit pause, go listen to it. Yes, it is about the last 90 days of the year, which we have gone through quite a few of them. Still worth listening to because on that episode, I talked about a lot of things. How to get strategic, how to pick your goals. We picked one professional, one personal. We spoke about how to build systems around those goals, how to protect your energy, all of it. I laid it out really step by step. And now we're at the point where there's 22 days left in the year. 22, okay? So I want to check in. Not about shaming you, not in a guilt trippy thing, but in a real way. What you do in these next 22 days matters. Even though it's we've gone through 68 days, these next 22 days, it's it's still important. We still have time to get things done. And more importantly, I want to know what you've learned about yourself over the past 68 days. So that's what we're here to talk about today. So I want to start with being super honest with you. Back in October, right, I asked you to pick one professional goal, one personal goal. And I did really try to encourage you to be specific, to tell someone about it, right? Set up accountability, um, how to block your calendar, how to do your priority purging, track like what are the fires you have to put out and what systems have to be built around it. So, how did it go? I really want to know. I'm asking genuinely because here's the thing. I know some of you absolutely crushed it. I know because you reached out to me and told me, Jen, great episode. I wrote down, you know, I took notes, I put things into practice, I'm really going to stick to this. You took the episode, you ran with it, and now you're sitting here potentially with real results to show for it. And if that is you, I am super duper proud of you. Seriously, it's it's amazing. And I love when simple things, because I never said it was easy, right? But it is simple, they really have big impact and they can make a tremendous difference. So that's one group of people. And then I know there's another group of people who potentially started out strong, and then what happens? Life happens, shit happens, the fires all come back, your calendar gets hijacked, your momentum fades. Somewhere around, I don't know, week two, three, four, those goals quietly got pushed to the side. And then there's a third group. And these are the people who listen and think, oh my God, that's such a good idea. And then don't actually do anything. So there's no judgment there because we've all been there. Here's what I want you all to know. No matter which group you're in, we have 22 days left and they matter. Why do they matter? It is not because you have to cram everything in, it's not because you have to like, um, what is it, like white knuckle your ways towards the end of the year to this imaginary finish line. But how we finish this year is how we start the next one, right? We have 22s to 22 days left to decide how we are finishing this year because that is how we start the next one. So the patterns that you're in right now, January 1st doesn't come and they just magically reset and disappear. However, you're showing up or not showing up for yourself right now today is the same way you are going to show up in January, unless something changes. So why don't we use these 22 days to change something together? Okay, so let's just go back to last week. And we talked about something last week that I think is really important to bring into the conversation here. We talked about how every single decision is a vote, and those votes are either for the person you're becoming or against the person you're becoming. And I have been really, really sticking to this. I mean, I go to class at uh Pilates Studio every morning, and I did not feel like going. I just, you know, I really did not, I was tired. It was I just did not feel like going. And I could hear myself on last week's episode talking to me in my head, saying, okay, staying in bed right now, who is that a vote for? Who is it a vote against? And you know what? I got my ass out of bed and I went to class. So I want to connect that directly to where you are right now. Here's what I totally understand. This is like, you know, what's that Oprah book? Things I know for sure. Here's something I know for sure. The reason a lot of people don't follow through on goals, whether it's 90-day goals or any goals, it's not about discipline. It's not about motivation, and it's not about your time management. Okay, flashing back again to last week. It is about self-trust. So I want you to think about this in the concept context of these last 90 days. If you've spent the last several weeks, or you know what? If you've spent the last several months or years making promises to yourself and then breaking them, what happens? You stop believing in yourself. You set a goal and part of you immediately thinks, yeah, but maybe I will, maybe I won't. You make a plan, you half expect yourself to abandon it, and you half expect yourself to follow through with it. So this is the actual cost of not following through. It's not just that the goal doesn't get achieved, it's that you erode your confidence in yourself, right? You're teaching yourself that your word means nothing, at least not to you. So why is this a problem? It's a problem because you can't build your life, you can't build your business, you can't build relationships on a foundation of broken self-trust. So if you are sitting here feeling frustrated that you didn't stick to the plan, the last 90-day plan, I don't want you to beat yourself up for it because that certainly is not helpful. What I do want you to do is get honest about what happened. Where did that trust get broken? At what point did you break the trust with yourself? Was it the routine that you committed to and then stopped doing after a week? Was it the time blocking that you, you know, put strategic work on your calendar and then you let, I don't know, like meetings that felt more important creep into it? Or scrolling on Instagram or whatever it is that takes you away from what you really need to be doing. Maybe you said you were gonna focus on one thing and then you got distracted by 17 other things, right? Because there are days and moments where everything feels urgent. So I want to ask you to really reflect back on this. I don't want you to feel bad about it. I want you to know that you can't rebuild trust without first acknowledging where it was broken. So the good news is we have 22 days left, right? So we're going to start rebuilding that trust right now, right now, today. So let's reframe the next 22 days. This is not going to be about getting frantic. So I don't want you to think like, oh my goodness, I only have 22 days. If the goal that you set back in October still matters to you, great, go after it. But you know what? To be quite frank, that's not really the point anymore. The point is, who do you want to be when you wake up on January 1st? Okay, so reframe this. Not what do you want to have accomplished? Who do you want to be? Do you want to be someone who kept their word to themselves even when it got hard? Do you want to be someone who finishes the year strong instead of limping across the finish line? You know, you can be someone that look back on these 22 days and say, I showed up for myself. And that's really what I want for you. There are important things at stake here. We're not talking about revenue and business launches or anything that, not the number on the scale or all of those things matter. But what matters more is the relationship you have with yourself. So there's an opportunity here to repair that relationship. We are going to make deposits into our self-trust account to prove to ourselves that when we say we're going to do something, we mean it. So I want you to think smaller than you think you should. I don't want you to resurrect your entire 90-day plan. Don't try to cram three months of work into the next 22 days. This is a recipe for burnout and even more broken promises. So let's not go there. Instead, pick one thing, a small, specific, and achievable thing that you are going to do every single day for the next 22 days. Maybe, I don't know. Is it getting some movement in? Is it um doing 15 minutes of something else, whatever that something else is, before you check your email? Maybe it's just going to bed at a reasonable hour. Right? Whatever it is, make it small enough that failure feels almost impossible. Okay, that's how small I want it to be. Just let failure not be part of the equation. And then I want you to keep that promise to yourself every single day for the next 22 days. That's it. That's your whole plan. Right, really simple. So when you think about your actual goals, because there are some of you, right? That first group, even the second group of people who set goals and maybe you're working towards them, crushing it, all of that. What about hitting your revenue targets? What about that thing I was supposed to do? What about, you know, the changes I was making for my health or to your relationships, whatever. I totally get it, and those things matter. I don't want you to abandon them. But I want you to understand the goals are going to take care of themselves when you become someone who trusts yourself. That really is how this happens. Your goals will take care of themselves when you become someone who trusts yourself. So think about this. When you fully trust yourself to follow through, what changes can you expect to see in your life? I'm pretty sure you're going to stop procrastinating because you know you're going to do it. You don't overcomplicate things anymore because you trust yourself to figure it out as you go. You know, that that overthinking really does dissolve when you trust yourself because you know that you're you're capable of figuring it out, even if it takes you longer than you think it should. Something else that you'll find will kind of fade into the background is seeking validation from other people. Because when your word is enough, it doesn't matter what other people think. It doesn't matter if other people are judging you. That that's not part of the equation. You don't need their validation because you understand that your word is all you need. This lets you make decisions faster. It lets you take action sooner, faster, and it helps you recover from the setbacks because those setbacks are coming, no matter what, no matter how much you trust yourself, there still will be setbacks, but you can recover from them so much faster. So this self-trust is the foundation, right? Everything else gets built on top of it. So if we don't have it, without that self-trust, it doesn't matter how much strategy I give you, doesn't matter how much you learn how to do things, you're not going to execute it because there's no foundation to build on. So yes, go after those goals that you set, close the, you know, gaps if you can, launch the things, hit the milestones, all of that. But I don't want you to lose sight of what's actually happening underneath it. You're not just trying to accomplish something, you're actually becoming a different version of yourself. And who you become in the next 22 days is going to be what determines all that's possible for you in 2026. Okay, so let's get practical. Here's what I want you to do starting this week. First thing you're going to do is take a look back at those 68 days that just passed, right? And think about the promises that you kept to yourself and the promises that you broke. This is for everybody, right? Whether you're part of group one who is crushing it, or you're part of group three who didn't even give a shit about what I had to say last on the 90-day podcast, I want you to think about in the past 68 days, what promises did you keep, what promises did you break? Write them down, right? Because I want you to see the whole purpose of this step is to see very clearly where you are. And the next thing you're going to do is pick that one thing. What is the small daily promise you're going to keep for the next 22 days? And remember, failure needs to feel pretty much impossible. It should be very, very specific, very, very achievable. And I want you to make it something that you can do either right now or at least by tomorrow morning. And the third thing I want you to do is to tell someone. We spoke about this in the 90-day podcast, right? Text a friend, post it in the um leadership Facebook group, tell your partner about it, tell your coach about it, anything. Accountability matters. We talked about this in October, and it matters even more now with the last 22 days. So if you have not already shared these things with someone, at least make this small, you know, failure-proof daily achievable thing that you're going to do. Make this be the thing that you do decide to tell someone and share. Okay, fourth, you're going to track this. So every single day, you need to mark down whether or not you kept your promise. You could figure out what works for you. I don't really care. You're going to put a check mark in your planner if you're like a handwriter. Um, you could put a note in your phone, put a little emoji on your calendar, whatever works for you, just track it because you want to be able to see the evidence accumulating. Right? I actually was listening to um a podcast this morning, which had nothing to do with warning labels, but they happened to be talking about warning labels during part of the podcast. And they were saying how um we've become so immune to warning labels, right? Like we'll see something that says may cause cancer, or may do this, may do that, or you know, here are some side effects. And we think that we're always part of the population that that's not going to happen to. Or I know there are people out there who think they're always part of the population that that will happen to, but that's a totally different subject. Anyway, my point is they were talking about how some of the warning labels that have actual photos on them, right? So, like the um cigarette warnings that have pictures of like diseased lungs and things like that are much more effective to the people who receive information easier visually. So that might be you. So you want to put something somewhere that you can look at and see a visual representation of your progress when you're doing this. You want to see the evidence that you are moving forward in doing what you promised to yourself. Okay. And the fifth thing I want you to do is I want you to take an hour this week and make it your CEO hour. Remember, we spoke about how it's I don't care if you own a business. I don't care if you're an entrepreneur for 25 years or if you've been a stay-at-home mom and you're running your household. You are the CEO of your life. So you deserve to have a CEO hour. And I want you to do it this week. If you've already been doing this, great, keep going. If you've stopped, start again. But this hour is for you to review and audit what is working in your life, what is not working in your life, and what are you going to do differently. This is a game changer. It is this action, this little tiny bit of action that happens in this one hour a week that changes the next week. So I want you to think about that. Like if you are doing something over and over and over again and it's not working the way that it should, and you never stop to think about how could you potentially do this differently so that it does work, you're just going to keep doubling down on the activity that does not get traction. We do that in our lives all the time. This hour, this audit for us to look at what is working. Okay, great. I'm gonna do more of that. What's not working? Well, okay, I'm not gonna do that anymore. And then what can I look at that I've been doing that maybe I should be doing differently? Like not eliminating completely, but shifting it a little bit, changing perspective, going in a different direction. This is what is going to make you see your future differently and make different choices. So that's it. Audit, pick one thing, tell someone, track it, do this hour. Okay? These things are what is going to finish the year for you as someone who kept their word to themselves. And I'm gonna tell you something right now. That is worth more than any financial goal you could ever have. Knowing that you can trust yourself and that you are going to follow through on the things that you say you're going to do is life-changing. It is something that is going to seep into every area of your life. So as we come to a close, I want to come back to something that I did say back in October on that episode. I said to you that 90 days from then, you were going to be somewhere. The question was, where were you going to be? Okay, so now 68 of those days are gone. Can't get them back. Poof, gone. And you are somewhere. Maybe you're not exactly where you planned to be, but you are somewhere. And now you've got 22 days left to decide where you end up on December 31st. And what I really want you to hear is this this is not about the destination. It is about the direction. Okay? It is about the direction you're choosing to go in. Are you moving toward the person you want to become? Are you moving away from the person you want to become? Every decision you make in these next 22 days is a vote. Remember that. Every kept promise is a deposit into your self-trust bank. Every single time you choose the hard thing over the easy thing, you're building evidence that you can be trusted. And that evidence compounds, like in any bank. It carries into January, it carries into February, it carries throughout the next year, and it becomes slowly but surely who you are. It just embeds itself in your life, into the fabric of your being. So these next 22 days, remember, they are not a sprint to this imaginary finish line. They are the foundation for everything that is going to come next. And I want you to think about that really practically because even for those of you who have been going full speed ahead with your last 90 days and you've been crushing your goals and getting exactly you are becoming that person every single minute of the day, you know that this doesn't end on December 31st, right? Like the whole point is for this to carry over. So we never lose the opportunity to become someone new. We never lose the opportunity to do the work that brings us closer to the person that we actually want to be. So who do you want to be on January 1st? How can you start being that person today? Okay? So here's what I want you to take away from this episode. You have those 22 days. Left, think about it as opportunities. You have 22 opportunities to keep a promise to yourself, to you. 22 chances to vote for the person you're becoming, 22 deposits that you can make into that um self-trust bank account. So do not waste any time trying to cram in the things that you didn't do. Do not waste any time beating yourself up about what you didn't do or what didn't happen. Use these 22 days to rebuild. Use them to prove to yourself that you can finish this year as someone who shows up even when it's hard, even when the motivation is gone, even when no one is watching, just when it's you by yourself, be true to you right in that moment. January 1st is not a magic reset button, that's for sure. So you don't get a fresh start just because the calendar page changes. You have to carry yourself into the new year. The self that you carry in is being built every single minute that you're in each day. So this week, do those five steps, right? Start by looking at where you are. Pick the one thing that you're going to do. Tell someone about it, track it in your calendar visually, whatever way that works for you. And then take that hour to audit your life, that CEO hour. Be in charge of yourself. Be the CEO of your life. And then show up tomorrow and keep that promise. And then show up the next day and keep that promise. Do it 22 times, 22 days. Let's make them count together. Okay? I hope that this was valuable to you guys. I will see you back here next week. Until then, go out there, be strategic, go be bold, go create your day in the best way possible. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I will see you next week. Have a good one, everybody.