Slow Business: Plan with me for Spring

*This is a raw and unedited transcript.

Melanie Knights (00:11):

Hey Outlaws. Welcome to episode number 65. Today we are going to have another cozy episode, and I feel like I've said this a lot over the last couple of months, but this episode might be a little bit different. And so I'm actually going to be going through my planning by the moon planner, kind of in real time with you. We're going to look at some of the ways in which we can celebrate and evaluate the last three months of our businesses, but also what we can look to plan out in the spring, how we can the moon cycle and this upcoming new season to really help us thrive and flourish in our businesses. I've also got my camera recording at the same time. I'm kind of recording my workspace. So we'll just see how this goes. But right now in front of me, I have a candle lit.

Melanie Knights (01:01):

I am praying that I don't set any paper inadvertently on fire. I've got my blue crystals out blue crystals, or the blue color blue is represents the throat chakra and with the throat chakra, this is very much about advocating for my voice this year. So every time I sit down to record a podcast, now I wear my blue crystal necklace and I grab my blue crystals and place them out in front of me. If you wanna plan with me as you listen, get yourself cozy, go grab any stationary you might need. Obviously pause the episode. If you can grab your planner journal. If you've got a copy of planning by the moon, go and grab that. If you don't have a copy of planning by the moon, firstly, you can still 100% listen to this episode and plan with me. If you would like your own copy, you can head to the show notes.

Melanie Knights (01:51):

And as usual we will link to the shop over there, but planning by the moon is a three month undated planner. And one of the reasons that I wanted it to be OND and, and three months in, in length is because I wanted to allow people or to embrace whichever cycle they want to. So if you want to plan your business quarterly, you can still absolutely use planning by the moon. You can still integrate this into your quarterly planning. If you want to start it on the next new moon and just go from there. Absolutely fine. If you wanna go see like I do also. Absolutely cool. So as we head towards March, we're heading into spring, I'm feeling very giddy about spring. I don't think I usually get this excited about new season other than autumn, but here we are. And I've got my my winter version of the planet in front of me right now.

Melanie Knights (02:46):

So December, January and February, this is almost finished at the time of recording and I have my new planner underneath. Now. One of the things I do with my copy of planning by the moon is because it's OND. I like to just go through a mark out the three months at the beginning and I use these little index tabs. I'm gonna show these over on Instagram. So make sure you're following me on Instagram, Melanie underscore nights, 87. And over there, you'll see that I actually use these little index tabbies and I've kind of chosen this like neutral, almost like yellow theme for this month. But that just helps me so I can easily go to the correct month. So I'm planning for March, April or may, but obviously whenever you're listening to this, it's absolutely fine. So take a moment to grab anything you might need. If you wanna get cozy and light a candle, grab some crystals, incense, whatever it is. And we will start to plan for spring.

Melanie Knights (03:54):

Okay. Outlaws. So one of the first things I like to do, and just to be clear, you may hear some paper shuffling because I have my plan in front of me. One of the first things I like to do before I even plan out my business for the next season. I like to look back. I wanna look back at the winter, look back at everything. I created anything. I launched anything that I was designing, any ideas I had, and this may mean that I have to pull from different journals because I do have a habit of writing in my journal about my business and making creative spreads. And I allow that to happen without being, without forcing it to go into one particular place. I like to allow my creativity to lead me wherever it's going. So I do go through some of my other journals just to look back over the last three months and see where I had ideas for my business.

Melanie Knights (04:47):

When I'm writing them down, I do try to put little markers in the journal so that I can go back and reference them. But I like to look back. And the reason I wanna look back at the last three months is because I want to know what went really well. I wanna celebrate all the things in my business that I achieved big, small, and in between. So encourage you to take some time before you even start planning, look back, look at everything you have achieved since December, right, December, January, and February or whatever season it is that you're looking back at, look back and plan. Sorry. I can celebrate everything you've achieved. And if that means that you need to give yourself a little bit, extra time to go through some journals and maybe look at even some data and look at the projects that you created, then do that.

Melanie Knights (05:37):

Give yourself the time to look back and celebrate because half of planning is actually celebrating what you've already done. And when we allow ourselves to look back, when we allow ourselves and encourage ourselves to be curious about what has already been working for us, we can take that into our planning for the next season, diving into planning without really celebrating and evaluating. It means that we're almost allowing ourselves to start fresh every time. And maybe we need that. And that's absolutely fine, but you know, as well as I do that, there are things that you're doing really well in. Even if you don't know it yet, or you can't see it, there are other people who look at you and are like, wow, you know, they're killing it. They're doing this thing really, really well. They really inspire me. There are people who consume your content and engage with you, whether they're clients or people in your community, people who follow you on social video or on your email list.

Melanie Knights (06:38):

And they're inspired by the work you do. And I'm saying this knowing hand on heart, that I don't always pay attention to these things. We are our own worst critics, which is why we have to celebrate first. We are gonna be really, really great at looking at all the things that didn't work well. Right? It's it really great habit that we all have of looking at it and saying, this didn't go to plan. I didn't do this. I wanted to do this. Why didn't I do it? And that can lead us into this spiral of shame. So when it comes to looking back and celebrating lead with curiosity, be curious, ask yourself really curious questions about what it is worked and what it is that you're celebrating over the past three months. So what we're not gonna do is focus on what we didn't achieve, right?

Melanie Knights (07:26):

We're not gonna look at the last three months and say, I didn't do this. And I didn't do that. And this didn't happen or go to plan. We're gonna look at the things that we did. Look at the things even outside of your business, that really helped you to thrive the last three months. Think about any habits or routines that you created, things that have helped you to maybe feel more in flow or aligned during your day. Look at the ways in which you said no over the last three months, what did you say no to? And what did that allow you to say yes. To even if it was more time with your loved ones, more time, yourself, more time for hobbies or creativity, what did you say no to? What did you say yes to what are you celebrating? And that's where I really like to start with my planning.

Melanie Knights (08:11):

So in planning by the mood, we have this section at the end of each month. So the last month I like to actually look back at the previous three. And for me, what I can say is over the last three months has been really, really interesting. I feel like I've worked less, honestly in the last three months, I have done it in years and that was entirely by intention. But one of the things I've started to notice is how that has felt in my body. I've started to notice that I'm doing all the things that I wanted to be doing for a really long time. I'm really commend to putting my health first in the day, putting my hobbies first, not diving straight into work and feeling overwhelmed by deadlines. And this is a really big, positive thing in my life. This is something I'm celebrating because I was getting really tired of my own.

Melanie Knights (09:01):

I was talking about this and saying this to my coach, but most of last year I wanna put my health first. I'm tired of always feeling like my deadlines are more important. Why do I always go straight to my desk? Why do I always tell myself that I'm go going to do these things? And I got really curious about why this happens. Why do I do this? Why do I feel that work is more important? Even though I know that putting my health fast is going to help me be more productive, it's gonna help me feel more focused. It's gonna help me be more creative. It's gonna put me in a better mood and slowly but surely, this has happened. And I wanna be really curious in my own planner and on my own journaling about why this has worked suddenly. I wanna look at what I've been doing differently.

Melanie Knights (09:48):

And so I want you to ask yourself some questions. I'm gonna give you some journal prompts as we go. So when you look back at the last three months, you're looking at what you celebrated, you know, start by just writing a list, write a list of all the things that you are celebrating from winter or from the last three months, whenever it is, you're getting round to doing this planning, look back and celebrate, write that list out and also be really curious. Is there anything that you've been doing differently? Is there think that changed at the beginning of December, that meant that you were able to maybe focus more on self-care or focus more on creative projects. Did something change earlier in this three month period that allowed you to really celebrate these things? What worked really well for you over the last three months, right?

Melanie Knights (10:41):

Go back to any projects or launches. What did you decide you were going to commit to? What were your intentions and celebrate those, celebrate those intentions, celebrate those things that you've been working towards. So once we have worked through this kind of celebratory phase, it is time to evaluate, but we don't need to be hard on ourselves. We don't need to tell ourselves that we didn't achieve all our goals. Right? Most of the time I don't achieve everything that I set out to do. And instead I want you to look at what could you do differently in the next three months, if anything, that will only align you even more towards your intentions. So rather than looking at it saying, I didn't achieve X, Y, and Z, and that it's not great, and I should have done this. And I should have done that. Be curious about what it is that you could adjust ever so slightly.

Melanie Knights (11:48):

Maybe it's your schedule. Maybe it's saying goodbye to a client, maybe it's that program, or course that you've been, you've been running and you haven't been feeling it. And you're like, I maybe want to end this. Maybe it's a way that you are bring an email or the amount of content you're creating. Maybe you're feeling frustrated by your social media platform. And you wanna adjust how much time you spend on social media maybe is about creating better boundaries with social media or content creation, but whatever it might be, take a look at what it is that you could adjust ever so slightly and do it lovingly so that you can get further into alignment because look at all these things that you're already celebrating, all these things that you've already achieved in the last three months, you can do more of that. You can do the same amount of that. You can focus in and go deeper on one of those particular things and really, really expand. It, become more visible if that's what you want. There are so many options and I think we can get so booked down when we look at planning, because we think we have to do it in a certain way. We have, it has to look a certain way. It has to be very structured and data oriented,

Melanie Knights (13:24):

But your evaluation of the last three months doesn't have to be focused solely on data. And in fact, I would actually guess that if you were able to lean into more of how you feel rather than what the data is telling you, you'd have a better understanding of what has worked and what hasn't and where you need to align yourself further. Because when we know how we, when we know what we need, when we know how we feel or want to feel, we're able to recognize the ways in which we can meet our own needs. And that's so important as entrepreneurs and as business owners, because as business owners and many of us, even if we have a team it's a small team and we are still running the day to day of our business, we're still the person who does, you know, the main core work because it's our business.

Melanie Knights (14:16):

You know, we are the one that does what we do best when that's the case. There's still the lot of focus on what we can achieve, what our output is. And so with that we wanna make sure is that we are meeting our own needs in our businesses and every layer of that business. We also wanna make sure that we know how we want to feel over coming weeks and months. And we wanna recognize what that looks like. So it, if you are the, if you're planning with me for the first time, then you may not have looked at this in your planning. And this is kind of the first phase of actually planning for spring is recognizing what you need. So once you've done that celebration and that evaluation, it's time to start planning. And the first thing I ask when I do my workshops, planning by the food workshops, and one of the things that is inside of planning by the moon as a planner, is what you need recognizing what you need from your business. And that may seem like a strange question, but most of the time, we don't know, we don't recognize what we need. We're so bombarded with, what do you want? Right. We're constantly asked what do you want on, but do we ever really take the time to know what we need? And I have this, this theory that when we recognize our own needs and we work to meet them in our businesses, and we know what our core values are, our business values

Melanie Knights (18:54):

When we know what we need, we recognize what we need from each layer of our business. And we lead with our values, those two things, they're part of the outlaw method. And these two things will help us anchor in and they will guide us through our business. And this is the way I like to approach my planning for my business is by recognizing what it is that I need over the coming weeks and months, you know, look at it from a financial point of view, what do you need financially? What do you need emotionally? What do you need mentally? What do you need, physically? All of these things are really important. So what do you need from your business? What are the, what are your values right now? Because we can have value. We, we all have have many, many values, but you can have core values that you're focusing on right now. The things that are most important to you. We talked about this in back in January, in our planning, by the moon episode sorry, by our slow business episodes. And we talked about recognizing, you know, what you need, what your values are and using those to guide you. And so I want you to write out what you need from the coming weeks and months in your business. What do you need

Melanie Knights (20:07):

What are your core values right now? Just list them out what your core values are right now in your business. And as you're exploring what it is that you need from your, I encourage you to think about if your needs are met, right? If you meet these needs that you have from your business, how will this change your relationship with your business? If, if it will, right? If it will, but how would it change your relationship with your business? How would it change your relationship with your client, your community, yourself. And so if you want a little bit more structure, I know some people will really work better with a little bit more structure. So if you want a bit more structure as your writing, think about what you need financially, right? So everybody like nobody's ti down a million dollars. And if that's what you need right now, absolutely cool.

Melanie Knights (21:00):

Write that down. But what do you need financially from your business? You can look at it from whole three months. You could look at it from a month by month. Point of view, absolutely up to you. How you wanna write this down. There is no right way, but look at it from that point of view, what do you need financially? What do you need emotionally? Right. And this can also come back to how you want to feel. How do you want to, as you're working with your clients, how do you wanna feel as you are creating products? How do you want to feel when you sit down to create content or to work on that project that you've been planning for spring, how do you wanna feel? How do you want to feel over the next three months? And this is intention and it's okay. That how you want to feel right now may not be the same way you want to feel in a month, which is why it's really important to check in with ourselves on a monthly basis. But just think about it right now. How would you like to feel over this next three months over spring?

Melanie Knights (22:05):

So we've done financially and emotionally. What do you need mentally? Right? What do you need of mentally by this? I mean, are you someone who needs to be learning something new? Are you somebody who needs to be studying? Are you someone that needs to be do you want to be connecting and networking with people? Do you want to be reading? What is it that you need mentally? What's gonna help you to say mentally focused, but also to help you really feel like you're meeting that need, if that's something that you need, we can also look at it from a point of view of, you know, professionally, what do you need, right? What do you need professionally? There's different ways to approach this. So really find the way that suits you the best, but Spencer's time journaling about your needs and your values, because that's gonna help you to really plan out your spring and your business, and really focus on what is the, the path that you are on rather than the path I'm on or anyone else.

Melanie Knights (23:05):

So, as we're talking about this, I feel like for spring I'm feeling right now, I'm feeling quite buzzy. I'm feeling quite high energy. That doesn't mean I'm going to feel that way next week or even tomorrow. But right now I know that I feel really buzzy about spring. I'm really excited to get that slightly warmer weather. I don't like hot weather, but this winter has felt a little bit wet and miserable. And I'm really looking forward to taking the time over the next three months to dig in. I've talked about this. If we hang out in your inbox, we've talked about this on Mondays. I send a Monday newsletter and I may have mentioned it in a previous episode, but I'm really exploring, digging deeper in my business and the things I've already created, and I'm gonna be doing that over the next three months.

Melanie Knights (23:56):

So my spring is going to be really focused on digging in, exploring what I've already created, looking at how I can really grow those areas of my business and expand those. Right now my team and I have just started working on Pinterest. This has been something again that I've been talking about in my business for quite some time that I wanted to get back into the habit routine of pinning frequently. So this is something we're starting again. And this time I asked for help from my team. So there's actually three of us involved in the whole process. And that's been really nice to not, to be able to outsource the areas of Pinterest that I don't love and allow myself to focus on the really creative aspects, which is the part that I really enjoy. So that's part of my spring as well as I think about what it is that I need from my business.

Melanie Knights (24:52):

I really need to feel grounded. That's the word that comes to mind straight away grounded? I don't think that I, it doesn't mean that I haven't been grounded, but for some reason that word appeals to me is so I'm definitely gonna do some more channeling on that after I finish recording and look at why grounded is the word, but yeah, that's the word that comes to mind grounded. So as we kind of close out this chapter of winter and look forward to spring, I'm just switching to my spring planner. One of the things that we can really focus on planning out is where are we going to be, you know, launching or promoting. And we've talked about launches here on the show before, and I really love a long drawn out launch because not only does it give my community time, it also allows me to manage my energy throughout a launch phase launch period.

Melanie Knights (25:55):

And it just feels so much more delicious to actually launch three weeks, right. Maybe, and especially with a new project, right. Something completely new. It gives me time because my energy ups and flows, and I can say that in a three week period, at some point I'm probably gonna have some good energy. So we're right. So as I start to look at my launches and my knees and my values one of the features inside of planning by the moon, and as I said, you don't need a copy of this planner. You can do this in your own channel or planner, but think about your vision for the next three months. So there's a vision board spread in planning by the moon. And I encourage you to spend some time just thinking about what your vision is for the next three months for spring. You could do this by, you could write, you could put a quote on there, a quote that you really want to embrace.

Melanie Knights (26:53):

You can print out pictures, color, draw, doodle, whatever it is, a mixture of all of those things, but really think about the vision you have for your business, for the coming months and how you want to embrace that. And what I find is that by starting to think about those needs and my values and creating this vision, and then actual vision board that allows me to look at my business in this way. It really helps me to anchor into what it, what is I want to talk about in my business over the coming weeks and months, it helps me to formulate almost like a content idea bank and allows me to look at, you know, different types of content themes. So I like to focus on two types of themes, storyteller content, which is that connective story between me and my community. So, you know, looking at life experience, the things you struggle with, your hobbies, your quirks, your passions, your lifestyle, your dreams, your goals, all of those things make you who you are.

Melanie Knights (27:50):

And if you are someone who is a multi passionate, you know, that it can be really hard sometimes to spend a lengthy amount of time focused on one area. And I, if you haven't listened to the episode with joy Spencer, go back and listen to that because we talked all about being a multi passionate and that episode just blew my mind, but being able to write out all of these ideas and all of these content ideas that you have and storing them in one place allows you to come back to them. You know, that they're safe, you know that you're not gonna lose anything. And now you can come back to these things and actually pick which areas you're gonna focus on in that month and that season. So you have the storyteller content, which is that connective story between you and your community is also something I like to call seasonal content.

Melanie Knights (28:47):

And this isn't those like holidays like national donut day or whatever it is. This is content that relates to your seasonal goals. So if you have intentions for this coming season, you have goals for this coming season. It's likely to be more of that kind of educational or promotional content that helps your people decide if they want to buy from you your business, or if they wanna work with you in your business. So you can see how both of these are really important. The storyteller content allows people to get to know you. It builds that connection. It allows people to decide if they're interested in what you have to say. And I know that can sound really, you know, that sounds quite harsh, but I know that when I share, when I share things like about country music, which I do every week in my Monday newsletter, if, if you scroll to the bottom every week, I will share a song that I have been listening to something that's been on repeat.

Melanie Knights (29:44):

Sometimes I can't pick and there's more than one, but I always do that. And I do get responses from people who say, I love that you share this people click on this like every week, right? Cuz obviously I can see the data as to what people click on every week. People click on this, right? They wanna know what song is. And people respond to me and say, you know, I really love learning about different types of music that you share, whether it's on social media or in my email. So sharing these little parts of you, these quirks, they help people to connect, right? We all have those people that we connect with online line. We kind of, we are like, so we, you know, we'll talk about them as if we're friends, knowing that they have no idea who we are and I do this frequently and this is because they share parts of themselves.

Melanie Knights (30:36):

Now I'm aware that there is, there are boundaries. There are limits on how much we want to share about ourselves. I'm very cautious nowadays about sharing about my family, sharing about where I live. I'm very cautious about these areas personally. So I do take care when posting that kind of information, but when it comes to myself and talking about my interest and the things I care about, I try to be more forthcoming with that. And I'll be honest, it's sometimes really it's really scary. I get really nervous to share things about my stationary obsession or what I'm working on in terms of my bullet channel and planning. And that has been really holding me back, right? That's something that's been really holding me back over the last probably six months. And so as we head into spring, that's something I'm embracing. It's something I'm working towards because I really want to show more of that creative side because I know that people do care and know that people are interested.

Melanie Knights (31:37):

And I've just got these kind of voices in my head telling me that they don't so expect to see more of that from me buts in the meantime, start to think about your content ideas, think about your themes and the ideas that you have. And you don't have to fill pages and pages. You might have tons of ideas, just leave some space in your channel, start to write out some ideas. If you have them and you can always come back, right? This is not a like finite process is you have to complete right now. You can come back to this in time. But you can start to, you can start to fill out your content idea bank and start to think about different types of content. And right now they might just be a quote. It might be a word. It might be a, a very broad topic that you want to focus on.

Melanie Knights (32:21):

But remember that once you plant that seed, you can all has come back to it and kind of evolve it and, and really allow it to grow. So I have some content writing prompts for you. These are straight out of planning by the moon. The first one is, what do I need from my content? What do I need from my content? What do you need when you're creating that content? What do you need from it? What do you need to feel? Right? What do you need to feel as you're creating your content? The next writing prompt is I create content because this is really important. Okay. It's a really important prompt. I create content because why do you create content and not the stock answer? Like why do you create content by a year ago? Well anecdote here about a year ago my, a friend who also happens to be a marketing Wiz and it works with me on my marketing.

Melanie Knights (33:29):

We were talking about my email list and I was writing my email newsletters every week. And I said, you know, I just, I feel like I don't like doing it. It feels like this task that I put off. And she said to me, why do you write your email newsletter? And I paused and I said, I have a response, but I don't wanna tell you that because I know that it sounds ridiculous. And I said to her, because I was told that I should have an email list. And I said, oh my gosh, no, like that, isn't why I do things that is not why I do things in my business. And instantly I realized that I needed to step back. So what I actually did at that point was repurposed about eight weeks of content. And didn't look at my email list for eight weeks.

Melanie Knights (34:13):

And I realized in that eight week period that it wasn't my email list. It wasn't the people who read my emails. It wasn't anything to do with them. It was all about me. And what it was is I, and embracing my kind of outlaw style in my email newsletter. I was still following the rules. And so I realized in that moment that for me to continue writing an email, I had to change the way I did it. And so I completely switched up. However, I, my email newsletters, and now I create those email newsletters to connect. I create content to build connection between myself and other people. I create content to inspire. I create content to encourage, to give permission slips, to remind people that they can do things on their own terms. I create content so that when people are scrolling through Instagram and feeling overwhelmed by their business or by all the things that they have on their to do list or they're feeling like they should do something differently than what they really want to.

Melanie Knights (35:19):

I hope that my content serves as a reminder to put their middle fingers up and do it on their own terms. That's why I create car. That's why I write my email newsletters. That's why I share music at the EV every week. That's why I don't have a consistent style of my email, email newsletter, because some weeks I have other things to share some weeks. I just wanna tell a story, but that's why I create content. So you can see how just by challenging yourself, to be very honest about why you create content and maybe you wanna break it down to each piece of content you create. Right? I create social media content because I create email content because I create a podcast because I love you guys. That's why I do it. But write it down, really think about it. Why you create content.

Melanie Knights (36:10):

The next prompt is when people read my content, I want them to feel when people read my content, I want them to feel, what do you want them to feel? How do you want them to feel? Think about this in terms of, you know, someone's scrolling and they're having a crappy day or they're feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, whatever the word is. You know, this, we can think about those quote pain points. We can think about those things because the reality is you and I have probably lived through those pain points, but we can do this without having to like put pressure on a wound, right? That's, that's the reality of it. You can be aware of someone's quote, pain points. You can be aware of the things they with because you've probably struggled with them too, but that doesn't mean we have to highlight them and use them as a weapon. What it means is we can build awareness of it, but we can also remind ourselves that we want people to feel really great. When they see our content, we want people to feel positive. The last thing I want is to feel triggered. If you trigger me that way with your content, it's, I'm out. That's just, it I'm gone. So, you know, think about how you want people to feel when they consume your content.

Melanie Knights (37:39):

And the final content writing prompt is what do my community need to know right now? What does my community need to know right now? How are they feeling? This prompt is something that I have come back to repeatedly in the last two years, because there's that saying? We're all in the same storm, but our boats look really different. I think that's really true. And we have to remember that when we create content or we are engaging with people online, we have no idea what they are going through or what they are experiencing. No idea. And because of that, we wanna remember that there are humans behind those likes and, and when we're creating our content, it's really important to really think about how our communities are probably feeling.

Melanie Knights (38:46):

I know that for a good year, 18 months, my community have been getting increasingly frustrated and fed up with Instagram, not just because of algorithms and all that kind of stuff, but just the general feeling that you have to put so much energy into creating content that you are giving away so much of yourself free. I know that I have felt frustrated as well, but at the same time, one of my core values is community and connection. And because of that, I find it really hard to step away from that platform because I really love the community and the connection I have. So for me, it's a case of what can I put out into the world that's still really helpful, but minimizes the time and energy I'm spending on that platform.

Melanie Knights (39:40):

So think about your community from that perspective as well, think about what they need right now, what they need to know and how they're feeling. Those things are gonna be really important as you create your content over the coming weeks and months. Now you can take these ideas if you've, you know, if you've had lots of ideas and you know exactly what you're gonna be working on over the coming months, you can form a content calendar. Mine is a simple week by week it's on day to calendar. You can just write the themes in and any notes you have. I like to do this specific words, elude me specifically to the podcast. So I actually use my content calendar in planning by the moon for the podcast. And I plan out my episodes and I've been really enjoying doing these monthly theme episodes.

Melanie Knights (40:22):

So I think we're gonna continue this in, into March and April and maybe may, and we'll see where we go. Which is a good segue for me to say that if you have any questions or any particular ideas or guests that you would love me to interview, please reach out and let me know. You can send me a message on Instagram and I will have a look at if I know the answer, then cool. We can record the episode. And if it's something that I need to find a amazing expert to come onto the show and talk about, then we will do that as well. But yeah, if you have any ideas for episodes, questions or guest ideas, please reach out and let me know. So yeah, as you start to plan your content, you start to look at what you're gonna be talking about over the coming weeks and months, you've looked at your knees and your values now in planning, by the mean time we really get into kind of month by month.

Melanie Knights (41:15):

So if you have a copy of planning by the moon, you'll know that we have our monthly nurture tracker. This really helps me to look at how I've been taking care of myself day by day throughout the month. It is a visual representation of my selfcare is visual representation of meeting my own needs. If you don't have a copy of planning, by the mean you can download a free copy of the nurture tracker, the link will be in the show notes and that nurture tracker is a PDF. You can download it and start using it. You can stick it straight into your existing channel, or if you choose to. But the nurture tracker is a really nice way. As I said, to be able to recognize my own needs. Did I take a moment to nurture myself today? Am I doing the things that I've committed to for my own health and for my own wellbeing?

Melanie Knights (42:07):

Because those things are really important for me as a business owner. And I feel like for the most, I take pretty good care of myself. I'm usually somewhere between a seven and a nine, a 10, I don't know what would have to happen for me to be a 10. I don't think I've ever I'm like that person that never gives five star reviews, which isn't true. I do. But it's just, yeah, it's funny looking at my track where I feel like I'm never giving myself a 10, which I feel like is Aing prompt in itself. Actually that's a good journaling prompt. What would, what would 10 out of 10 look like? Right. What would for me to be fully nurtured 10 out of 10? What would that look like? It's almost like planning out your ideal day, but what's like your ideal nurture routine.

Melanie Knights (42:53):

And then from the there, I like to look at the month ahead. So if we're looking at March of 2022 inside planning by the moon, we have things like the Astro Astro astrological season, the new moon and the full moon. But the other, the, the things I really want you to focus on is how, how you wanna feel this month. So how do you wanna feel in March what your upcoming projects are? So what do you have? What do you have that you're gonna start or projects you're working on? My upcoming project is to revamp my website. I need to break this down task by task and then give myself little rewards so that I do not get completely well, but that is my project for spring is to focus on tidying up the backend of my website, actually get my copy in line because it is, it's not aligned with what I actually do.

Melanie Knights (43:47):

And then I love to pull Tara and Oracle card and do a little reading for the month ahead. I do this sometimes I do this more frequently than just a month ahead, but I do like to kind of complete some spiritual admin helps me to really just pause. And it be, it's an intuitive tool for me. That's how I use Tara Oracle. It's an intuitive tool, helps me to really lean into what the lessons will be for the upcoming month. The cycle ahead. I record what, which deck I'm using. I always seem to be drawn to the same decks, which is funny, cuz I have quite a few. But the deck I'm gonna be using for this month ahead is going to be the sacred traveler deck. It's an Oracle card deck. And I also love using the power of surrender cards.

Melanie Knights (44:42):

So the power of surrender cards obviously focus on things that you need to release. So you surrendering to something and then the sacred traveler cards they're a real mixture, but they're really, really beautiful cards and each card has a specific meaning. So there's a book that a accompanies those, I will link to both those decks in the show notes, but that's the power of surrender cards and the secret travel or Oracle cards. And I use those to help me plan out them month ahead. So what I'll look at is what do I need to release surrender to in the month ahead? And then what do I need to, what do I need to know? What's the lesson? What do my audience need or my community need from me? So I'll pick a spread. That's going to really link back to my intentions and my focus for this month.

Melanie Knights (45:29):

And then I write out what the cards are that I pull and what the meanings interpretations are for myself. Because again, TA and Oracle is so intuitive. So one of the things I also like to do, depending on which deck I'm using, but both these decks allow me to do this is I'll look at the card first. I'll just really look at the card and what do I get from the card? Know, depending on the question I'm asking, what does this card really speak to? How does it speak to me? What does it tell me? And as I do that, I will maybe make some notes of what I feel. And then I will look at the meaning in the book just to get a sense of if there's any journal prompts or writing prompts, that link back to that. And I feel like this is a really good way, way of building some intuition as well, because really practicing business from an intuitive perspective, it is a practice.

Melanie Knights (46:21):

It is something we are so used to doing it from a strategic point of view, focused on data, focused on all the things that we're told we should be doing. So to actually step back and use our intuition and allow our intuition to guide us using TA on Oracle with your planning, allows you to tap into that, especially if you're gonna look at the cards, right? So if you've ever looked at even the the original rhino weight TA deck, if you look at those cards, there is a lot of symbolism in those cards. If you look at the cards in relation to the meaning, there is so much symbolism there, but sometimes we are so quick to look at the book or to look at the meanings from that are written down and given to us that we don't recognize the symbolism. And so that's why I like to take some time to really look at the card, really see how it speaks to me and look at that symbolism, because I think that gives us a better understanding of our own intuition because at the end of the day, terror and Oracle for me are an extension of my intuition.

Melanie Knights (47:18):

They're an extension of what I'm looking for. They help me to recognize things. They help, they serve as little permission, slips and reminders. And so that really helps me to come back to that as I go through the month and look at what it is that I'm intending to do and what I need to remind myself of, because I'm, I'm someone who needs to be reminded of my strengths because I'm so quick to judge myself, which is why I try to lead with curiosity.

Melanie Knights (47:44):

So once we have completed Tara and Oracle for the month ahead, it's then time to start, you know, adding whatever you want to your journal or planner, your planning. If you wanna do some more focus on journaling prompts there is a whole bank of journaling prompts planning by the moon. So I actually create an entire section of journaling prompts inside the planner. They are focused on business strategy. We have intentions and then new moon and full moon channeling prompts. So don't forget that if you do wanna get a copy of planning by the moon, the links will be in the show notes, but you're able to pull from these channeling prompts. You can use them inside your planner. You can use them in your journal is completely up to you, but I wanna leave you with final journal prompt for today. We're getting to almost 50 minutes for this episode.

Melanie Knights (48:35):

So I want you to finish up with this journal prompt. What action steps can I take this season to glow with the energy of my true passionate self? What action steps can I take this season to glow with the energy of my true passionate self? We'll make sure that the journal prompt is written over in the show notes. And I will make sure there is a post up on up on Instagram with this journal prompt for you. But I think that's a really beautiful way to end today's planning session. What action steps do you need to take? Because here's the thing.

Melanie Knights (49:28):

Manifestation is a result of inspired action, right? Manifestation is a result of inspired action. You need to know what it is that you need, what it is that you want from your business, what it is you need from your business and practical steps are how you, how you get there. Nobody manifested anything from just staying around and wishing, even though that is what bro marketing and so much of this toxic love and light washing culture wants us to think the truth is that we have to take some action, but we can take action at our own pace. We can take action on our own terms. It does not need to look like anybody else's business, because it's your business. We have to mind our own businesses and we have to take practical in our businesses in the way that feels right for our own personal journey. So what action steps can you take this season to glow with the energy of your true and passionate self until next time Outlaws.