Be honest: How many vision boards have you made that ended up as pretty collages forgotten by February?
Two years ago, I was at a massive inflection point. I had just walked away from my 12-year corporate tech career, was knee-deep in negotiations to acquire MNTSTUDIO, and was trying to figure out what New Modern Mom would actually become. My life was completely up in the air.
Instead of diving into the New Year on autopilot, I did something I’d never done before: I scheduled a personal offsite.
We escaped to Tahoe during that quiet first week of January (one of my favorite weeks with no tourists, just snow and silence). For the first time, I had the actual mental bandwidth to run a real internal audit on my life. I asked myself nine questions about where my energy was leaking and what I wanted my year to look like across my 6 pillars: family, career, self-discovery, health, marriage/relationships, and finances.
That week set my year up with clear priorities, boundaries and definition of success. It turned my overwhelm into a wish list into an Annual Operating Plan… and it’s the process I still rely on today.
In today’s new Toolkit episode, I’m giving you the exact framework I use to turn those big dreams into measurable results and daily habits. We’re moving past vague New Year’s resolutions and into intentional design.
Please leave a quick ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ after listening. It takes seconds and helps me keep this podcast going! Bonus points for a written review.
TLDR, inside this episode:
You’ll learn how to run a personal offsite, ask the right reflection questions, and translate your goals into an actionable 2026 Operating Plan, complete with built-in accountability so it lasts all year, not just in January!
🧠 Vision boards for clarity: Use visuals to crystallize what you want your year to look like.
📝 The 9 questions: A step-by-step internal audit to define true priorities for 2026.
🏔 The personal offsite: Why you must block time now to plan with deep intention.
🎯 Vision to execution: My “Pillar System” for turning big ideas into a real operating plan.
📆 Make it stick: Schedule non-negotiable Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to stay aligned.
BONUS: Get My Exact Workbook
I know this is a big exercise, so I did the heavy lifting for you. I built a 2026 Annual Operating Plan Workbook to lead you through these exercises. It includes the nine audit questions, my pillar framework, and the “Lagging vs. Leading” indicator tracker so you can lead your whole life like a CEO.
💬 Drop a “Scheduled!” below if you’ll be doing your own Personal Offsite in the New Year! (nothing like putting something in writing to hold yourself accountable!)
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Thanks for listening,
Barbara
