Marisa Porter

Passion Planner made my 2019 amazing and transformative.

Near the end of 2018, I was depressed, anxious, completely overwhelmed, and suffocated by life. I had been saying “there’s no way out” to myself for so long, I believed it.

I saw a post about the Passion Planner on social media and asked for one for Christmas. My husband bought me the beautiful rose gold passion planner in December of 2018.

The Passion Planner is so-called because the founder doesn’t just want you to get more organized or better yourself—she wants you to discover your passion and take baby steps towards that achieving it. Calling, purpose, passion, whatever you call it, the logic is sound. Taking baby steps towards your calling makes more sense than taking giant leaps in the wrong direction.

So I did the five-minute mind map exercise in which you envision your ideal life at various stages (an exercise so life-changing I couldn’t stop telling everybody I met about it), and, like so many others, I was startled by what made it onto the page.

I wasn’t spending my time doing any of the things that mattered to me!

I was settling for lesser dreams, obligations, false guilt, and busywork.

I was a Mom without a moment’s peace about my parenting or my child’s welfare. My marriage was strong underneath but stressed out. Work wasn’t jiving the way I wanted it, too. And I barely even had time to clip my toenails, much less get pedicures.

But everything in my mind map was the opposite of that. In the “alternate reality” I built, I had a romantic relationship with the man I loved. I had time to stare out the window with a cup of coffee and craft the next scene in a novel I had always wanted to write. I snuggled with my daughter on the couch and read to her—one of the most enjoyable experiences in life. I worked smarter, not harder, at work, and envisioned profit and peace on the team of which I was a part. I was paying off debt every month and would someday live on author royalties. And I was healthy and fit like I used to be before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and the year afterward (before stress took its toll on me). The only problem was, these dreams were dreams, not reality. They were like another Earth in the Multiverse.

Queue the Barry doppelganger scene from my favorite show The Flash.

There was more, but you get the idea. Everything was the opposite of the life I was living.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Using my passion planner, I broke down my first gamechanger goal into baby steps. First step in the first goal in the first dream—I had to join a yoga class again. Simple as that.

And the rest is history. Starting with my health (a very good place for anyone to start), I started rebuilding my life. I stopped putting everything else but what truly mattered to me at the top of my to-do list, and I started planning for success.

 

This year I’ve accomplished the following (with help from God and others):

• lost 15 pounds (booyah—this wasn’t even one of my goals but was the byproduct of prioritizing my health)
• finished two drafts of my novel and found a smarter way to write the next one
• found a writing coach and started working on the parts of writing that are most challenging to me
• bought a house with my husband
• found a way to spend more time with my precious daughter and accomplish more at work at the same time
• paid off a few small credit card bills and our car
• rediscovered how my husband and I can emotionally support each other and listen to each other from a place of compassion and care
• finally published “A Calisbury Christmas” and blew my launch plans out of the water (buy a signed copy here)

My passion planner continuously brought me back to my plans with inspiring quotes, helpful goal-tracking tools, and reminders of what was important in life. I loved the weekly “personal” and “work” dream lists. Making these weekly lists is a habit I hope to continue into 2020.

What about you? What do you hope to accomplish in 2020?

Scratch that.

What do you envision as your ideal life in the next three months, year, three years, and in a lifetime?

Start there.

And then, use a passion planner to help you get to where you want to go.