The Best Tool for Aligning Your Daily Habits

Welcome back to the Crank It Up Podcast. And here we are at the beginning of summer heading into that season of life, the season of the year where it kind of feels like everything’s a little bit looser, routines change, goals and structure sort of change.

Habits can kind of change. And one might ask, is this a good time to release a brand new planner that is literally based on connecting your habits with your goals? Well, I don’t know the answer to that.

However, I do think habits are essential at all times of year. I don’t care if it’s summer or any holiday, any other time of year. The habits we have literally build the life that we live. And the

Project100 Planner Is Based On Habits

It is based on connecting those habits that we have every day with the goals that we have for our life. And I know, listen, I know that the schedules and the routines and the structures of life shift and change and recalibrate in the summer.

I love that about summer actually. It doesn’t mean sometimes that we get completely off schedule. Right? We’ve got camps and travel and all the stuff that kids are in and just all the pieces of summer that make it different from the school year or the regular time of year.

Project100 Overview: Connection Between Daily Habits And Life Goals

But there generally is a looseness to summer and that looseness can lead itself to us getting off track. And suddenly, it’s been a week and that habit that we committed to just hasn’t happened yet.

And that’s really what my Project100 Planner is all about. So if you will indulge me for a little bit, I thought I’d share the backstory of the Project100 Planner because it is out in the newest iteration of this planner. I’m very proud of it.

It’s kind of this dream project, no pun intended. It’s kind of this dream project that I thought about for a long time and then when it actually finally happened, it was kind of surreal to be holding this planner in my hands.

And how did it all come about? Because of this project 100 methodology, the way the planner is set up is something that I’ve done for as long as I can remember. I just didn’t really have a name to it until 2020.

Origin of the Project 100 Planner

Yes, the year that was 2020, living in the pandemic and being locked down, I was out on the back porch. We were still living in Indiana. I was doing a workout called morning meltdown 100. Why is that important? Because it was the number 100.

For whatever reason, as I was doing this workout, it was very early fall. So it was maybe the 1st 1st week of September, maybe the last week of August, 1st week of September, something like that.

And something about that number 100 and, of course, something about the absolute chaos that 2020 was. Something about 100 caused me to think, gosh, I wonder when the last 100 days of this year would start.

The concept of simple, accessible habits for 100 days

When would we start the last 100 days of 2020? So as one does, I asked Alexa, and it happened that it was, like, 10 days from that particular day.

At the same time, this kind of time period, this early fall season of 2020, the popularity of a program called 75 Hard was rising. Lots of people talking about 75 Hard.

And I think it was a real craving to bring back structure to lives that felt so completely off the rails. Right? I think it’s why we really love summer and then we look forward to going back to school because we love bringing that structure back to our lives.

And this program, 75 Hard, if you’re not familiar with it, is the set of habits that you have to do for 75 consecutive days. Drink x amount of water. Read x amount of pages. I think… take a cold shower. Do a couple workouts.

Anyway, this set of 5 or 6 or 7 or so habits that you have to do every day for 75 consecutive days. And if you miss a habit on a day, you have to start all over again. And, that was kind of popular this time.

And I’m working out on my back patio in Indiana, and I’m doing this program with the number 100 in it. And I’m thinking, gosh, I wonder when these last 100 days are. And it was, like, 10 days from now.

And I thought, well, what if there was something that helped us dial in some simple habits for 100 days and did not have the word hard in it.

Because I don’t know about you but in 2020, the last thing I wanted was more hard stuff in my life. Right? Like, 2020 was hard enough. The last thing I wanted to do was a program called 75 Hard. I did not want more hard in my life.

I wanted something that helped me navigate the unknown, navigate the uncertainty, but I didn’t want it to feel more hard than the year already was.

But my wheels started turning.

How Did I Choose The Habits That Someone Could Do For 100 Days?

So 100 days, some simple habits, but something that everyone could do. That was also the key, something that everyone could do.

So I started thinking about the habits that really keep me on track in seasons of transition, kind of like I’m in right now in 2024,

in seasons of uncertainty,

in season of loss,

seasons of grief,

are there habits in that keep me feeling my best, whatever that looks like in that particular season?

And I came up with, yeah, there are actually 4, 5, 6 habits that I tend to do, and these are the same habits that I’ve been doing throughout 2020, this crazy hard year.

So I ran them through the test of could my 96 year old mom do these habits? And one of the habits was to drink more water. Okay. Could my 96 year old mom drink more water? Yeah.

She could. Okay. So that habit can stay in. Another habit was to move your body every day. Could my 96 year old mom move her body every day? Yes. Actually, she could.

Another habit was personal development. Could you read a personal development book? This is before the Growth Day app.

Could you read a personal development book every day? Could my 96 year old mom read a personal development book every day? Yep. She sure could.

So I came up with, like, 5 or 6 habits that I thought anyone could do. That’s why I ran them through this litmus test, if you will, could my 96 year mom do it?

Could anyone do these, and could they do them for 100 days? And would at the end of a 100 days someone probably feel better, because you know how strongly I believe in the power of the morning routine. Right?

The power of a morning routine

You get up in the morning, and you step into an operating system, kind of a protocol, if you will, a set of habits that help you set up the rest of the day so you feel better the rest of the day.

And I thought, gosh, I wonder if we could just come up with a set of habits for 100 days that would help us navigate this wild, crazy, uncertain year that people could track, could track them for a 100 days. And let’s see how everyone feels at the end of the year.

That was actually the start of the Project100 Planner, because one of those habits was you had to write down your goals every day.

You had to move your body every day. You had to write down your goals every day. So you had to start connecting what you did in your day with what you want to do in your life.

Want to join me writing down your dreams and goals each morning, no matter where you are?

This planner was created for the woman who wants to develop habits that will help her stay focused, organized, and on track towards her goals and dreams.

When you create a foundation of sustainable habits, you will create a life by your design.

Project100 Planner Initial Launch and Feedback

We had a tracker and people checked it off, and they would share it on Instagram stories, and it kind of took on this life of its own, and the Project100 name was born just from a simple desire to try to take control over a wild crazy year to tap into habits that I knew from my lived experience had helped me during other times of transition and uncertainty and chaos and grief and loss

… and then serve others with those habits and maybe help people put some structure back in their days in a time when there just felt like there was no structure.

So we kicked it off and for 100 days people tracked and shared. And at the end of the 100 days the overwhelming consensus was I just felt better. I felt better, because I woke up every day and I knew I had these habits to do.

And if nothing else happened today, these habits happened.

So, that made me think. I think there’s something more here, Right? I think that this needs to be something a little more developed, a little more robust, maybe a little more vibrant.

And so the first Project100 Planner was born. And, listen, she was a beast. If you are one of the few that had the first project 100 planner, you know, girl was big and heavy and spiral bound.

And here’s the thing, I didn’t know anything about publishing a planner. You don’t know a thing until you learn a thing and then you know the thing, right? I didn’t know anything about publishing a planner.

I just sort of figured it out on my own with the help of some really amazing people and we just kind of got this iteration of the Project100 Planner out.

And, again, it was simple habits done every day that included writing down your goals and dreams done for 100 days. And I really believe if you connect your daily habits with what you want to do in your life, you can do that for 100 days.

You can make massive progress on your goals and dreams, because you have to write them down every day. Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year or in a life.

They’ll put all kinds of things on their to-do list in a day but yet not make any real progress on their goals and dreams. The vision that they have for the life that they want to live, this one shot. Right?

Practical Use and Benefits of The Project100 Planner

We get this one shot. And we found through my little experimentation in 2020 that if people wrote their goals and dreams down every day as part of this Project100, the last 100 days of 2020, if they actually had to write their goals and dreams down every single day and then had some other small simple habits that they had to do, drink more water, move their body, read some personal growth.

If they did that every day, they made more progress on their goals and dreams because they saw them every day and they wrote them down every day. They were in front of their faces every day.

They weren’t some vision board that they made on January 1st and then forgot about it. No. They actually had to look at them and physically write them down every day. There’s such power in the writing down. So the first Project100 Planner was born out of that, and she was large and in charge. She was spiral bound.

She was 8 and a half by 11. She was huge. The pages fell out of the spiral bound. The cover fell off. Like, it just was not the beautiful planner that you see today, but we had to start somewhere.

We had to start somewhere because you had to get that first iteration out to learn from it to go from there.

And ever since then, each iteration of the planner has gotten a little bit closer to the vision that I have in my head of what this planner should look and feel like in your life. You know, I want it to have this beautiful book feel.

Broader Vision for the Planner

I want it to be something that you can tuck into your bag and it goes with you everywhere. So in this summer season when we tend to get off schedule a little bit and routines get a little more loosey goosey, if the one thing you do every day is write down your goals and dreams and line up a few simple actions to coordinate with those goals and dreams. That’s pretty good stuff.

I have a feeling you’ll make more progress on those goals and dreams than someone who’s not doing that, simply by virtue of the fact that you’re writing it down every single day, you’re looking at it every single day, it’s top of mind every single day.

So, as the Project100 Planner continues to evolve and go through these iterations and go through these evolutions, we continue to take feedback from the amazing humans who are using the Project100 Planner.

And I’m just so grateful that this iteration, the brand new Project100 Planner that is out in the world right now, literally just launched a couple weeks ago, is so co-created with the vision that I have in my head and the requests from the users.

It’s got more blank pages at the end. The first one didn’t even have blank pages.

The first one’s pages didn’t even stay in the spiral bound. Okay? But you gotta go through that to get to the thing that looks and feels a little better. Right? You gotta start. You gotta take the first step.

The very first step was going, I wonder what day the last 100 days of 2020 starts. That literally was the first step of the Project100 Planner.

And then creating a PDF of, like, a tracker and have like, you have to start somewhere and it has to be messy and not perfect because nothing ever is. You just got to start.

The 2024 Project100 Planner

And this planner, this iteration of this planner, the newest release of this planner has more blank pages at the back of it that came straight from users’ requests, because they want the planner to function as also kind of a free writing journal.

So they’re writing their goals and their dreams and they’re writing their focused 5, you know, really what they’re dialing in on today.

And then maybe they’re reading about their personal development or they’re listening to Growth day and they wanna take some notes, but they want it all in one place.

So now the new Project100 Planner has so much more blank space available for you to take those notes so everything can kind of be in one place.

It’s got more daily habit tracking so you can really stay dialed in on those small, simple daily habits that help you feel your best.

It’s got stream lined reflection so that you can take a moment and go, okay, is my morning routine working? Or is this still the goal that I wanna work towards?

Or listen, is my big vision dream still relevant to me right now? Or do I need to actually dream even bigger?

So, these pieces that change in every Project100 Planner literally come straight from the users. That’s what makes it so cool, because it’s really come from my brain, my head out into the world, then co created by all the brains of people using it, and it becomes something better. Because now it’s not just my tool that I thought of.

Now it’s ours. It’s our tool. It’s yours as much as it is mine. And I think that makes it way cooler than just being this one vision of this one planner that I had in my head. I would much rather it be this shared tool that is helping all of us get a little bit closer to that life that we’re dreaming of.

So, that’s the backstory on the Project 100 Planner. And if I can tell you anything, it’s this, just start. Just start.

I often get asked this in terms of my health and wellness business because I’ve been in it for so long. People will say to me, gosh, if you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself all the way back in time?

And it’s that exact same advice. Just start. You know, with my health and wellness business, I was so new. I had no idea what I was doing and I kind of messed around with it for 6 or 8 months and didn’t really dig into it like I should have and I will never get that time back.

Now it’s part of my journey, so I give myself grace for it, but I won’t get that time back. And I think about, gosh, how many lives did I not reach out and serve?

How many lives did I not connect with because I was nervous just to take the first step and just to try and to to figure it out kind of as I go along.

We know that everything’s figureoutable.

And we know that anything we wanna do, someone’s done it. Someone’s already done it. So it wasn’t like I was putting out a planner and no one had put out a planner before.

There are plenty of planners on the market. I just had to dig in and know that success leaves clues and figure it out and how it was gonna work for me. And then I had to get it out in the world so that you could use it and together we could create something more.

So it’s no different than the advice that I say when I think about my business. I wish I would have started sooner.

Long-term vision for widespread use of the Project100 Planner among women

I wish I would have started, you know, connecting people with these amazing products and programs in my business sooner. And yet, here we are, still here, still trying to figure it out, still trying to get better.

Whatever it is that you are thinking of, if you’ve been dragging your feet on it, just start. That lesson I took into the planner. And while it started with just kind of a PDF, I hadn’t had no idea really it was ever going to become a planner.

Once we got into it, and I could see the difference that these simple habits and connecting them to the goals and dreams we’re making in people’s lives, I’m like, well, we gotta make a planner.

And it’s gonna be ugly and it’s we’re just gonna get it out there and that’s what we did.

So do you have a dream, a goal, something that’s sitting in your heart right now, and you’re like, oh, I just stood on you kind of been dragging your feet on it?

I’m telling you, just start.

Take small steps.

Start with the PDF.

Start with a tiny little group.

Start with a text message.

Start, because you don’t know what the ripple effect will be when you share that gift and you get it out into the world and then you start co creating it with other people.

And then as you do that, the thing that was in your mind just like my planner that was in my mind, it becomes even better, even bigger.

It can affect more people than when it just stayed in your brain. An idea is really awesome, but an idea out in the world actually making a difference…. well, I think that’s even better.

And by virtue of writing down their goals and dreams in the Project100 Planner, actually giving themselves permission to have goals and dreams and put them in a planner and look at them every single day and think I can do that.

And then to be in community with other women who are doing that too, be supported and inspired and challenged even to maybe dream a little bigger with other women who are doing that too.

I want that for women all over the world, women that I’ll never even meet. I wanna see this planner all over the world and women just waking up in the morning, pulling out that planner, giving themselves permission to dream big, writing down those goals and dreams, aligning these small simple habits with those goals and dreams, and moving forward on the vision for the life that they have.

Like that all started on my porch wondering when the last 100 days of the year was, that’s incredible. That’s thanks to you as well, the users of this planner who are putting it out into the world and who are talking about it.

And over the next episode or 2, I’m gonna share with you some of those testimonies of people using the planners. And I just really appreciate you taking this planner and running with it, taking it out of my brain and into your life and letting it serve you in ways I don’t know that I even could have imagined.

So if you haven’t gotten your hands on a new Project100 Planner, I hope you do so today.