92. Feeling Stuck? A Simple 90-Day Review & Planning System for SLPs

Raise your hand if the last 90 days have felt like a blur. 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️

If you started the year strong but now feel like your goals are a distant memory, you are NOT alone. The truth? Most of us set goals, but we rarely take time to reflect, adjust, and reset.

💡 That’s where quarterly planning comes in.

In today’s episode, I’m walking you through my exact quarterly review & planning process so you can:
✅ Look back at what’s working (and what’s not)
✅ Identify what’s draining your time & energy
✅ Create a simple, flexible plan for the next 90 days

PLUS—I’m giving you this free quarterly review worksheet to help you take action! 🎉 Grab yours inside the SLP Support Group on Facebook

🎧 Listen now and let’s get your next 90 days on track!

🕒 Timestamps & Key Takeaways:

🔹 [00:00] Why Most People Struggle with Goal Follow-Through → You set big goals, but do you ever check in on them?

🔹 [03:00] The 3 Questions You MUST Ask Every Quarter → Simple but powerful questions to reflect on what’s working (and what’s not).

🔹 [06:00] How to Identify What’s Draining Your Time & Energy → A mindset shift that will change how you manage your calendar.

🔹 [10:00] My Personal Wins (and Surprises) from Last Quarter → A behind-the-scenes look at my own quarterly review—including the unexpected things I almost forgot!

🔹 [19:00] What Didn’t Go Well? (And Why That’s Okay) → I’m sharing a personal setback and what I learned from it.

🔹 [25:00] How to Plan the Next 90 Days with Intention → A step-by-step framework to make goal-setting simple and effective.

🔥 Want help customizing your 90-day plan? I opened up 5 coaching spots this month and 2 have already been snagged!! If you’re ready to make real progress, let’s chat! Click here to book a free consult. 

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists. I'm Theresa Harp, an SLP and Productivity Coach, and this podcast is all about how to build a successful career as an SLP and still have time for yourself and the people and things you love. So if you're ready to ditch stress and burnout for a more balanced and fulfilling life than you are in the right place, let's dive in.

Hey, SLPs, welcome back to the podcast. It is awesome to be back recording episodes today. I'm squeezing this one in, in between appointments and uh, just before I have to sneak off for the day to go get the kids and do the real work, as I say. 'cause. Seriously, parenting is truly the hard work. But I am recording this episode towards the end of the first quarter.

It's not [00:01:00] officially Q2 of 2025 yet, but this is, I believe, going to be the last episode that's released in. Q1. And so with that timing in mind, I wanted to take today's episode and dedicate it towards reviewing where we are and planning where we want to go. Okay. Because let's face it, this is the time of year where it feels like we are well into.

I think for most of us anyway, we're well into 2025, right? January, new Year's goals. All of that just feels like a distant memory. Okay. Raise your hand if the last 90 days have felt like a blur. I cannot see you if you are raising your hand, but they have definitely felt like a blur for me, so you may have.

Started off the year [00:02:00] strong and then life happens. Winter comes for most of us in the States anyway. And you get into the, you know, routines of the year and the plans and goals that you had are a distant memory. And now you're wondering where did the time go? How was it? April already. Okay. And. The truth is that many of us at the beginning of the year love to set goals.

We love to set goals. We love to envision what those goals will do for us, and hopefully we also enjoy dedicating the time towards hitting those goals. But the thing that we don't take time to do, most of us anyway, is review. We often. Fail to review throughout the process, [00:03:00] what's working, what's not working, and what do we need to do differently?

And this is where quarterly planning is a total game changer. So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through my exact quarterly review process. It's very simple, and I'm gonna also walk you through my quarterly planning process so that by the end of this episode, you will have. A very clear process for how to plan out the next 90 days for you.

So whether this is, you're listening to this episode and it is the start of a new quarter, or you're listening to this at any time of the year, it is never too late. It is never, you know, you don't need to wait till Monday, right? You can get started today. So take this. And figure out how you can apply it for exactly where you're at right now.

Okay. And side note, I also created a copy of this, uh, I don't know, review this, this [00:04:00] sort of process that I am, that I completed for quar, my quarterly review and that I'm gonna be sharing with you today. I've got a copy that you can download. So if this is something that. Is interesting to you or something that you really wanna take to the next level?

I don't think just reflecting on it internally is enough. I really think this needs to be action oriented, where you are writing down reflections and you can see it on paper and you can map it out. Trust me, I've done this in my brain before. It's. It pales in comparison to what I do when I actually sit down and fill out the prompts.

So I've got that resource for you. It's inside the SLP support group, which you can grab by if you're in the group, you can grab it in there. If you're not yet in the free Facebook group, then click the link in the show notes to join and to get access to that. Or you can also just pop on Facebook and search [00:05:00] SLP support group.

Alright, so. I think that's all we need to know to get going, so let's do this. Okay. Now, I mentioned a couple of minutes ago how we don't review, right? So many of us drop the ball when it comes to reviewing, whether it's because we don't think to do that or we don't think it would be effective to do it.

Trust me when I tell you it is. And so I want you to just sort of think as we are getting this. This episode underway over the past three months, what went well? What are three wins that you can identify from the last 90 days? What didn't go so well? Was it a challenge that was unexpected? Was it something that you thought was gonna go very smoothly but it didn't?

So what were some challenges? What things didn't go so well over the past three months and what. Needs to change, and I will take this one step further. For those of you who are [00:06:00] listening in terms of what needs to change, you can also ask yourself this, what's draining my time? What's draining my energy? I.

Okay, because there are events, there are activities, there are habits that will provide energy. They will give us an energy boost, and then there are those that will drain our energy. They will just take energy from us. And when you start thinking about your calendar and how you spend your time and reflecting, is this giving me energy or is this taking energy, it may start to shift something for you and help you become a little bit more intentional, maybe a little bit more selective over how you spend your time.

Okay. So the way that I do this is, and if you have the, the free [00:07:00] download and are stationary and safe, you can open it up and take a look at the free download for the quarterly review. If you're not, if you're driving, if you're walking, if you're outside, I don't know, wherever, whatever you do, when you listen to this podcast, then download the resource so that you can look at it after.

You know, download it later when you can, but you wanna come, you wanna download it and make sure that you can follow along. Okay? Uh, but here's what I essentially do. I start with. A brain dump. I've tried to do quarterly reviews in different ways, and for me, the brain dump is the fastest way for me to access the information that's floating around in my mind and in my distant memory.

So I start out with a brain dump and just write down anything that comes to mind. That I can recall from the past three months that stands out. Okay. [00:08:00] I'm not talking like the regular, you know, get up, get the kids ready for school type things. I'm talking about the events. I'm talking about the accomplishments, the tasks, the outliers, and one of the things that helps me do this.

This brain dump is looking at my calendar, so I flip back. I use Google Calendar primarily, so I flip back through my Google calendar and I scroll and it helps me remember what I was doing and it sort of like. Puts me back at that place in time, and then I'm able to remember so much more about that period of time.

And believe it or not, over the past three months, there is stuff that I absolutely would've forgotten about if I hadn't done a brain dump and if I hadn't poked around in my calendar. Okay. Such as I'm looking at my notes and I'm trying to decide which ones. I will share. So I believe it or not, uh, one thing that I [00:09:00] almost did not think to write down was the fact that we got a puppy.

Obviously this is something that takes up a whole lot of our time, our energy, it is both draining and, uh, it is also provi. It also provides energy too. But I just, that wasn't where my mind was when I was working through this. Review. Review. So I would've remembered that eventually, but that was on there also, I completely forgot that in.

The beginning of the year, I decided that I wanted to work towards a new certification. Uh, I want to earn the, I wanna become a certified A DHD productivity coach. I'm currently a certified productivity coach, and I have had a lot of training in A DHD, but there's two more classes that I need to complete in order to, and then complete the application in order to earn that [00:10:00] credential.

And that was something that I. Just I was not aware of, I, I wasn't really thinking about when I made that decision and how I made that decision. And as I was looking back on the quarter, I was like, oh yeah, that was something that I, I landed on early on this year, and that drove me to take another course.

It also drove me to sign up for an online program all about executive functioning skills. So I've boosted my. Training and my education in the A DHD world over the past few months. It's been there over time for sure, but these past three months have been a big boost. Also, side note. I am recording this episode before the official end of the quarter, so there's still a couple of weeks left for me as I'm recording this, and there may be still some time left for you as you're [00:11:00] listening to this.

So. I, what I plan to do is go back in about a week or two and just complete the quarterly review for myself, but I, I've got most of it here. Okay. So once I go through that and have that brain dump complete, then I sit down and look at that list and identify the biggest wins you get to decide what constitutes a win.

That's up to you. One thing that helps me, and I encourage my, my coaching clients to do this as well, is to think about all of this that we're talking about in buckets. So if you are, if you've been a listener for a while, you may have heard me talk about the time buckets system. If not, essentially what it is, is each sort of area of your life that takes up.

Uh, certain amount of time and, [00:12:00] and it's like a category of how you spend your time. It takes up time and energy and you have tasks that are devoted to that thing. That thing becomes a bucket and everyone does this a little bit differently. For me, my time buckets, what makes sense for me in my head is personal.

Family. So my time with my husband and my kids, my coaching business, my teaching or related work that's not necessarily under the coaching umbrella, but I still do for, for work and our home. I. That's the other one, our home. So it's helpful for me to think about wins for each of those areas. And I love this strategy especially because it prompts you to zoom out and look at all aspects of your life, not just what you do as an SLP or a PT or ot, because that's just [00:13:00] one part of what we do.

Yes, we spend, for most of us, we spend the majority of our time at work. However, you are way more than your work. And so when you have buckets like this, it really helps you look at a well-rounded view of wins, what's working, what's not working, and what you wanna do differently. That's just my take on this.

Okay. So on For me, some of my biggest wins. In our home, my home bucket. This is, this might sound mediocre for some of you, but remember what I said, you get to decide what's a win. The light fixtures that are in the upstairs of our house in the upstairs bathroom and a couple of the bedrooms desperately needed to be replaced.

The fixture in the bathroom had to be replaced, and then the light. The lighting switches needed to be updated. There's like some electrical stuff that had to happen. And the one [00:14:00] painful point of this was the bathroom light fixture, because not only was it ugly, but it really wasn't even working. So the lighting in that room was horrible and I would get very annoyed when I'd be in there helping the kids or doing whatever.

So finally we updated that light fixture. It's brand new. It's nice and bright. I haven't painted around around there yet, but the lighting is divine, so that was a big win. Another big win for my business bucket. Okay, is. January for me when I look at the month of January. I had mapped out all of my content for the podcast, for the Facebook group, for Facebook Lives.

I went consistently live. I went live consistently every week. We did group coaching, free group coaching for SLP support group members. I did [00:15:00] a webinar all about chat, GPT. We did weekly coworking sessions. So in the month of January, I feel like I really showed up consistently. I had fun connecting with members of the group and with, uh, clients, current clients, past clients, maybe future clients, and that felt really good and it was all mapped out in advance, so that was a win.

Stay with me though, 'cause we're gonna come back to that a little bit later. Okay. Then I look at my personal wins for sure. I was overdue on a couple of medical appointments, which I finally forced myself to take care of, and I also dedicated some time towards figuring out what's going on with my back. I always have back pain.

Off and on, but more on than off. And I finally said, okay, I need to just go get this figured out. So I've been, I had an a [00:16:00] couple of evaluations done. I've started pt and I am just proud that I prioritized those things because they are the things that I. Honestly, moments of truth will put off for sure, because I can, right?

And no one's gonna be checking in on me except me. So I prioritized those things. And then in my family bucket, this is gonna sound weird, but I, I went through old artwork from the kids. And collected it, organized it, and put it in an archive box. So I don't know if you've, if you've ever heard of archive, if you have kids, I had bought this, uh, this package on archive.

Over a year ago, by the way. Okay. Over a year ago. They sent, they send you a box and you basically send in the artwork and then they create stuff with the [00:17:00] artwork. Like they can do a, a book, I think they can do like canvas or something. Canvas prints or whatever. I don't know. I have. Artwork and stuff from the kids that I have saved over the years, and that all was organized.

I, I went through, that was a while ago that was organized, so it was relatively easy for me to go and pull out pieces for this thing. But I remember distinctly putting this on my list. My to-do list and my calendar for last spring break when my kids were off from school and that fricking box sat in our garage for a year, and I just kept looking at it.

It was like the box of shame. I was like, oh my gosh, I have to get this done. It was hanging over my head, so I finally mailed that puppy out. Check back with me in about a year from now to see if I've ever taken the next steps that I need to in order to close the loop and get the damn [00:18:00] thing printed. But stay tuned.

And then a couple other, uh, one other family win. I'll count this as a family win, was buying gifts ahead of time. We had some birthdays in the family. We had birthday parties for some of the kids friends, and so I. Usually and a last minute, Lisa, where I'm like racing to the party and we're like grabbing a card or you know, before we leave we have to wrap the gift or the gift comes in the mail the day before.

It's just. Chaos. No, no more. I'm not doing it. So I successfully bought Andra some presents well in advance of the actual birthdays. I'm counting that as a win 'cause it feels really good and it's definitely not the norm for me. Okay, so those are my wins. I want you to think about what your wins are, right?

What went well? I came up with one or two wins for [00:19:00] each bucket. I asked you to come up with three wins from the last 90 days, however works for you, whatever way you get this information. As long as you get it. That's what matters. Identifying those wins, right? We look over, we overlook, I should say. We overlook those wins all the time.

We forget about them. We're like, boom, boom, boom, onto the next. And we don't often stop to celebrate and this will really help you to do that. All right. The next thing on the, on the quarterly review is a section about setbacks. And so I brain dumped a co, well, actually, I looked at my brain dump and identified some setbacks and what I learned, one setback, and you can define by the way, setback however you want.

For me, setbacks almost implies like it's outside of your control. It's like something that happened that wasn't. In your control. It was [00:20:00] unexpected, but I didn't fill it out that way. I was really thinking about, um, what didn't work, like, what didn't go well? What, what am I not so proud of? What are the non accomplishments?

And I'm doing this from a place of not shame or guilt. Or, you know, trying to force myself into something to do better. This is really coming from a place of like, okay, here are some areas that didn't go as well as I would like them to go. And what am I gonna do differently? It's neutral. So the two things that I noted for this one is I had presented, I had submitted a proposal for a presentation.

I actually don't know if that was in this quarter or the quarter before, but I'm counting it here. And that proposal was not accepted. So. Minor disappointment, I would say, although if I'm being honest, that proposal was subpar for my, for my [00:21:00] work. I definitely didn't give it the normal thought and attention that I would, that I typically do for proposals.

So. That was a, a learning, a relearning for me. Just a reminder to dedicate some, some more thought and planning into that. The other area that I would like to do better in was the. Content for coaching in specifically in the month of February. So remember I, I mentioned earlier January was a big win for me in my coaching business because I felt like I was showing up often and consistently.

And then February was like the opposite. It's like I got to the end of January, I lost steam, and then in Jan in February, all I really did was the. Weekly coworking sessions that I do every Tuesday at noon, and I didn't do a, I didn't do any free group coaching. I didn't go live as much or if at all, so that, that, I'm not [00:22:00] proud of that.

I'm like, okay, we need to. We need to make some changes there. And when I think about what I learned from this, I really looked at, okay, why? Why was February different than January? And part of it at first, I thought was kind of like a loss of energy. Like, okay, I, I went hard in January and then I just sort of fizzled out for February.

But that really wasn't it, if I'm being totally honest. The reason I think I was, I dropped the ball in February was because I think I expected different results at the end of January. I think I expected to have maybe more, um, more interest at the events, more attendance at the events, maybe more, I don't know, more impact with the events and for whatever reason.

True or not true, my [00:23:00] brain is telling me that those things didn't happen, and so I didn't show up as much in February. I mean, that's just me being totally authentic, open, honest, not holding back. And what I learned from this is, again, a relearn really, is that when I am focused on the results and not the process.

I am missing the mark. I'm missing the point. And I'm not benefiting anybody. So number one is to focus on the process and the, the why and not what it's gonna do for me, what it's going to accomplish. Like not looking at what the outcome is gonna be in, in terms of success. Like very, being very, very particular and intentional about what is the success measure and how do I, how am I gonna measure that?[00:24:00] 

Because I don't think I did that ahead of time. And then also. A relearn here is that results take time. I mean, you can't show up for one month and expect to move mountains. That's just not how it works. And typically, what I tell my coaching clients who are private practice owners, when we're working on stuff, we usually talk about how the things that you're seeing right now in your practice are often a result of what you were doing three months ago.

So I. I did not take my own advice there, and I intended to stick with it for three months, and I didn't. I also found that in FE or in January, I was so focused on showing up and providing the content. That I had mapped out during the week that I didn't dedicate a whole lot of time and energy to the chat GPT webinar that I hosted at the end of [00:25:00] January.

So one of the things that I'm gonna work on is synthesizing the content a little bit more so that I can make sure that everything that I am doing feels good in the Facebook group on the podcast. And I feel proud of the work. And. I know that I'm showing up and giving value. Okay, so those were setbacks, things I learned.

And then the next thing on this quarterly review is a section that talks or walks you through things that you wanna start doing, things that you want to stop doing, things that you wanna continue doing. So I'm gonna just give you one thing here. One share of what I came up with is I want to stop. Or reduce some of the negative self-talk that I catch myself doing when it comes to my capacity and my capability.

I'm [00:26:00] not gonna go off on a tangent and tell you what I mean by that. I actually want to plan some content in the upcoming quarter around this topic. So if this is peaking your interest, if you're wondering what I'm talking about, stay tuned. 'cause I will do a deeper dive on that later. Okay. And then the last thing on this review sheet.

Asks you to identify your priorities for the next quarter. So you can do this a number of ways. I essentially thought about my buckets and identified what are the things that I am going to focus on for each bucket over the next three months. So I've got some fun things in the works. I've got something in for the home bucket that we're excited about, A home project, very excited for.

Some business content that I'm excited for. And then in my personal bucket, I am going to read two books. I have like fallen off the wagon when it [00:27:00] comes to reading and so my goal is to read two books in the next quarter. That seems super achievable. I think I can do it. Alright, that is a quick, well, not that quick, but that's an overview of the quarterly review, uh, resource that I created and.

Guys, guess what? That is just the first page of the review. There are also three more pages of this review, and don't panic, I'm not going to go over them with you here on this episode. I feel like I'm talking to my students when I, when I'm teaching, I'm like, don't worry, we're almost done. I'm not gonna go.

I'm not gonna, you know, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now, so, but. This resource has a few other pages that I will just kind of give you the highlights of so that you are. You know what you're in for and you know what value this resource [00:28:00] provides. So there's a section in here that, um, where you can list what your goals are.

So I take my priorities from that first page and I'm gonna make them into goals. And I'm just brain dumping the goals for the quarter, and then I start kind of mapping them out for what month I'm gonna work on them. Sometimes I do one goal per month. Sometimes I work on. All of those goals across each month.

It depends, but you can do this however works for you. And then on the third page you'll see, I walk you through how to break down each goal into sub steps. So if you have ever set a goal and you're like, I have no idea how the hell I'm gonna make this, how I'm gonna hit it, I don't know what to do. This page.

The resource will be very helpful for you. And then last but not least, I've got a one page calendar that is a map of April, [00:29:00] may, and June. So it's a tiny calendar. There's little boxes for each day. It's not gonna be your calendar that you use for everything in your life, but it's a great. Place for you to mark some of the tasks that you wanna work on, or you can do what I do, which is I set a goal and then I track my data on it.

So Nerd alert, but you can go in and you can just write on the. On the calendar, you know, okay, if you, let's say you have a movement goal, you can write down how many minutes of movement you did on that calendar right there. I wanted to see all 90 days in one spot. That, for me, is really motivating as I start tracking my data to have that there and see the progress and the growth.

Okay, so that is an overview of the 90 day planning packet that I have created for you. Reminder, if you [00:30:00] want access to it, pop into the SLP support group and you can download it in there. And when you're in the group, I would love to hear what some of your wins are from you from this review. So let us know.

We can celebrate with you and you can drop those in the SLP support group. For, uh, yeah, for just extra celebration, extra fun. You can brag. It's sometimes really motivating to do that. And if you want help customizing your 90 day plan, if you really want help with this, I've got. Three coaching spots left.

I have three, one-on-one coaching slots that are open, and I would love to talk with you about like how I can help you. I do one-on-one coaching for three months at a time, and I also do it for six months at a time. So this 90 day plan is a perfect. Support. It's a, it's a perfect sort of framework for the coaching that [00:31:00] we could do together.

So if you're interested in learning more about that, click the link in the show notes to schedule a free consult and I can talk you through how I can help you find out more about where you are and where you want to go. Okay. That's it for this episode. Hope to see you in the Facebook group and I will talk with you all next week.

Thanks. Bye.