Twice a year I take myself on a business planning retreat.

Because of Omicron, the last one looked a little different than previous retreats.

This time I stayed home, but usually I find an inspiring hotel to hole up in for 48 hours.

There are several reasons the hotel is important.

1. Inspiration fuels creativity and allows me to tap into dreaming up greater possibilities and ways to expand my business. (More on the difference between inspiration and motivation here.)

2. It puts some distance between myself and my everyday responsibilities, like cooking meals and doing laundry, so that my only focus is my business planning.

I surround myself with legal pads, pretty colored pens, stacks of post it notes, my computer, a very large calendar (I am obsessed with my very large calendar!), a lot of snacks, definitely some wine and I become a master creator.

Treating myself well is an incredibly important part of the process. So in between planning, I’ll order room service and watch a movie or treat myself to dinner out or drinks at the bar or spend some time lounging at the pool. I have fun meeting people and having random conversations.

It's like a productive vacation that leaves me feeling energized, nourished and super excited about the year to come.

But there is another reason I find my business retreats so vital.

One of my strengths is my ability to envision. I’m great at seeing the big picture and imagining how things could be.

Admittedly, one of my weaknesses is breaking that big picture down into smaller steps in order to turn that vision into reality.

It’s part of why I love my business retreat so much. Not only do I get to daydream and play and create, I get to crunch all the numbers, write all the lists and break down my yearly goals into quarterly goals and then monthly goals.

And that's secretly the part I love the most.

Because all of that "unfun" planning is actually the empowering part that turns my dreams from a hope into a reality!

Your life, my friend, is your business.

And it’s the most fun and empowering when it’s created with intention.

Not with resolutions that are being done because you feel like you need to fix or change something about yourself, but because you have desires and want to keep growing and experiencing new things.

When you set a resolution it generally looks like a goal that you will either accomplish or you won't. It sets you up for a pass or fail situation.

Intentions, on the other hand, can be fluid. Intentions allow for you to be human and can be modified, so in truth, there really is no way you can fail.

Once you have your intentions set you can take actions.

Repetitive actions will always get results.

Change doesn’t happen because of something you do once.

It happens because of the things you do all the time.