If Your Planner Is Dusty, So Are Your Dreams!

Ready to stop making promises you already know you won’t keep?

This is about stepping back from a noisy year and rebuilding properly. Not hype. Not motivation quotes. A simple framework you can actually live by. One that turns a vision in your head into movement in your day.

It starts with honesty. Real honesty. Looking at what worked, what didn’t, and the quiet stories you’ve been telling yourself that keep your life smaller than it needs to be. That part can sting a bit. But clarity always does. And clarity is freedom.

From there, we bring the future into focus. Not some vague “one day” idea, but a written vision you come back to often. When you know where you’re going, distractions lose their grip. You stop chasing everything and start choosing what matters.

Then we zoom out and look at life properly. Health and fitness. Business or career. Money. Relationships. Family and friends. Personal growth. Fun. Spiritual life. Each one matters. Neglect one long enough and it will eventually tax the others. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s balance and intention. Three clear goals in each area so you grow without burning yourself out.

Next comes strategy. This is where dreams turn practical. Three priorities for the next quarter. Clear actions. Simple measures so you know if you’re winning or drifting. We talk about the skills you need to earn your next level, because growth is never accidental.

Energy matters too. Who you spend time with. What you give your attention to. What you allow into your head. Gratitude that you actually feel. Affirmations that sound like you, not something copied from a poster.

And then we lock it all in with small rituals. A simple morning setup. Five minutes at night to plan tomorrow so your future self wins. A weekly reset to clear stress and keep momentum. Nothing complicated. Just consistent.

Along the way, I share lessons I learned the hard way while scaling an engineering business, why discipline always outlasts motivation, and how tiny actions repeated daily quietly build extraordinary lives.

If you’re feeling stuck, scattered, or just tired of starting again every January, this is your reset. Not a fresh start that fades by February, but a structure that holds.

If this resonates, follow the show. Share it with someone who needs a nudge. Leave a quick review so it reaches the right people.

Then grab a notebook. Block out an hour. Map the next 90 days.

One question to start it all.

What is your first non negotiable?

Transcript

Year-End Reset And Return

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I've been session in the quantum.

Why Plans Beat Wishes

Tools And The Legend Planner

Vision, Scripting, And Self-Belief

Life Pillars And True Balance

Strategy, Skills, And Your Tribe

Rituals, Routines, And Accountability

Gratitude And Affirmations That Land

Quarterly Goals And Action Steps

Monthly, Weekly, Daily Systems

Discipline Over Motivation

A Simple DIY Framework

Business Milestone And Momentum

Purpose, Persistence, And Inspiration

Closing Push To Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yo, welcome back to another episode of the Wills Way podcast, and it's been an incredible, crazy year. We've kind of just literally just had Christmas. Boxing Day today, this is when it's being recorded, and yeah, what a crazy year it's been. Do you know what I mean? One of years of many triumphs, many learning lessons, loads of pivots along the way. But this is kind of where I want to kind of pick up the back back the podcast, pick it back up again. I've been kind of in a massive grind mode with my business, but I haven't been sharing enough knowledge with people. And I've always kind of in this scenario at the minute, and you'll notice this, where I'll dip in, I'll dip out, and I'll dip in, I'll dip out. And obviously, the the engineering business has been the prime focus, but these other things are so important to my life. So um I'm dipping back in, but with accountability this year as well. And this is kind of where I wanted to do this podcast as a first one. Just before the year's up, we still got time to plan, and I think everyone right now should really be reflecting and planning for next year, getting all of their goals kind of set up and ready to go. How to do that is difficult if you haven't got a thing or a place to put them goals and put them things into a process. Because goals are great, and goals are very effective when you do a certain process, when you do a certain number of things to make them happen. If you just write them down or just have them in your head, I don't think you'll achieve them because you haven't got enough clarity behind what you actually have to do to get to A to B. And that's what life is, right? It's a process of how do we actually get the things that we want. But there must be an element of knowledge, understanding, skill, and also implementation for us to be able to go and achieve what we need to achieve. So I don't do this in terms of a plug, I don't I'm not selling these or anything, but the legend planner here is a game changer, okay. So the reason why I love this planner, okay, is because it's not overcomplicated and it also allows you to be able to dip in every single day. There's a bit of pre-work that needs to be done, but I think if you're not willing to do that, then you're not willing to improve, are you? So the first part of the legend planner, again, you can get this on Amazon, right? It's like 25 quid, I think, something like that. And that investment in yourself for 25 quid is crazy, and a lot of people won't do it. Do you know what I mean? But if you are out there and you're looking to be able to put right out how do I improve next year? If you want to literally look back from 2026 next year on this day, and say, Do you know what? I smashed A, B, C, D all the way to F in my goals, and I did it consistently, amazing. But do you want to be sitting there again? Maybe had a fairly good year, but didn't quite improve on the things you wanted to. Do you know what I mean? Quite do the things you wanted to go, didn't quite go the places you wanted to go, you didn't quite earn the money you wanted to earn, didn't quite look as as good as you wanted to look in terms of that. So this here allows us to be able to do that, okay? So the first kind of pages to this is really awareness and self-discovery. So when we want to have to be able to make a goal, we've got to be honest with where we're at, okay? This is a real struggle for people to be able to self-reflect and actually have a real kind of accurate response in terms of how bad they've been, okay? Because as our human brains work, we don't like to hear criticism or negative feedback about ourselves, and the confirmation bias at times will try to be able to almost save you in your head from the actual awareness that you didn't quite do things the way you wanted to or didn't achieve what you wanted to. Do you know what I mean? So we've got to be able to be very self-aware of what we're doing. So there's some questions in here. Basically, you know, what brings you joy? What are you most passionate about? Okay, what would I do if money wasn't an issue? You know, so getting you really thinking about certain things. Also, what does a successful life look like for me? So the next page is vision, and and I generally think a lot of people don't have a vision of what their life they want to look. They've got ideas and they'd like to do things, they'd like to go places, but they haven't actually played out or written down what does it want it to look like, what do I want it to look like, and visualise the outcome within the head, okay? And these two things are probably the most powerful things you can actually pull into motion because when you start to visualize, when you when you A write it down, it's a different type of pull to it, okay? Really difficult to understand, but there's another pull to it because you put it down somewhere and you've scripted it in within the kind of universe. And we did a podcast about scripting a long time ago, and how effective that scripting element is. So the scripting element isn't is in with that vision, but the visualization of that and the reminding yourself of that every single day elicits your self-kind of subconscious mind, like infinite intelligence, they call it, to be able to imprint that image and almost feel like that's becoming before it's kind of come into your head. So this part is really important, and a lot of people, you know, you can't really make your goals unless you know what you want within your life long term. And I think even the five to ten year goals are hard to kind of visualize. But if you do really want to have that bigger house or have more time with your family, or be able to go more holidays or have more financial freedom, you've got to be able to say, Well, what does that look like to me? Because I I need to create goals that are around that personal vision, and then whenever in life I'm offered an opportunity somewhere that doesn't align with that personal vision, which you will, you'll go down roads, you can then kind of say, Do I want this right now or do I not? Do I want to be able to rethink about this situation and pivot back to your goals? But if you haven't got a reference point, it's really difficult to make goals if you haven't got a reference of where you want to be. And this is where a lot of people struggle because they almost feel they don't deserve more. And it's crazy you say that, and it's so true, and they feel like, okay, well, I'll just get to that and then I'm happy. And I think this is one of the biggest boundaries human beings have to overcome is that is that guilt for wanting more and being able to say, you know, I want to put myself in the position where I am abundant. That's a real harsh belief right now, with a lot of people where they don't feel they're worthy for that abundancy that they see in their head, because they can't see because if you if you know you're worthy for it, you can see the vision in your head and how you're gonna get there and how you're going to generate that value back for the universe when you put in the work, you know, in this physical plane, and then you get the rewards. Because when you believe that, you go out and do it. But this is the thing is about self-belief is not being able to believe the vision that you're trying to set for yourself. So these these are the things that obviously in this book are important, but set awareness and self-discovery, like you don't just do this one exercise and you're aware. This is an ongoing daily like thing that you have to do every single day. As if you don't, you're never gonna be able to get in that that space of actually having that reality with yourself, just if that makes sense. So the vision bit's really good, then goes on to basically saying right now, 50 dreams, and you know, 50 dreams that you've got, they could be quite wild, and this is really fun. And when you have this exercise, you're kind of you're fantasizing about certain things, but it's funny because two, three years ago, I think in here I put like a Range Rover, whatever, and that came true. And like you look at the previous books that I've done, I've been doing this for years now, and you can see some of the dreams and goals that was put in then start to be achieved, and that gives you more faith and knowledge of that. This is working. Do you know what I mean? Then it goes into the different pillars of life, okay? So this is really important, and something I want to talk about in a little bit of detail because success for some people may be one vocation or one area where they're crazy successful, but real success comes with balance, it comes with being able to balance all the wheels within our life, and the spectrum of these kind of pillars are health and fitness. I always say that number one because without your health, it's nothing. Career and business, okay, so they can be two things. If your career is if you're in a job and you're trying to climb the tree or whatever, it's a career if you have got your own business and you're building it that way, it's business. Finance and net worth is completely separate, is your own personal finances, not your business finances, it's your own. What are you doing with that? How you invest in. Uh, romance and relationships, obviously, very important. What is that part of your life doing, if there is any, and hopefully there is, because uh we all deserve a bit of love. Family and friends, again, that is another separate one because what you're doing with your like, how many times do we forget about having friends and having people with us? Do you know what I mean? This life has got so many people on this planet, and you can't go alone with your journey. If you want to be able to get somewhere important and successful, especially if you're running the business, you're gonna probably need people to help you on that journey. So, friends, family, really important. Personal development, you know, what are you doing to improve in terms of that? Fun recreation hobbies, I think that's a really good one as well, and spiritual. So, spiritual could be even religious if you're religious, or if you're not religious, it's spiritual. What what connection are you trying to build with the other side? So, really important that you set them you know pillars out. And the beautiful thing about the pillars is what this book allows you to do is after you've done the kind of first beer, is pick three goals in each area for the year. Okay, and this is so different because when you talk about money, so I want to earn this much money, but when you'll say, like, well, what is a goal for romance of relationships? Like, well, am I spending time with my wife? Are we doing things together? Are we are we enjoying life? Are we actually taking time out to improve that area? And a lot of the time people don't think about that. Do you know what I mean? Family and friends is also like another one of this is is here again, holiday to Japan. I've put in here. I really wanted to go there, love the culture out there, it looks cool, looks like a place I want to go. And um, we're probably gonna book this for this year, which is really exciting. But again, this is something that I've written last year, and this is in this one, okay? So, this is also so great, you know, finance, net worth, personal development, health and fitness as well. So, three goals for each one of these, it's like, well, what am I gonna do to be able to make sure I'm fit and healthy? And you don't think about these goals until you start doing it in this fashion. Because when you say, Oh, I'm gonna set my goals, you generally don't think about you know the obvious ones that are so important to you. Like, health and fitness is so important. You don't think about goals like that. So, what I love about this, it allows you to be able to gain real abundance, you know, real balance and real yin-yang kind of energy where you're just saying, Look, I'm not just focused on one thing, I'm not just focused on money. Obviously, it's important, but I'm not just focused on that. I'm focused on my family, I'm focused on being a good father, being a good husband, doing these things that I'll be honest are so easily able to be improved. On a daily, we don't think about doing half of this stuff. We don't, and you know, I admit, when I'm not writing this down on aware, you don't, when you go into automatic mode, you're not thinking of the small things that make a big difference in the end. And this is where the compound effect really works, not just purely on terms of like, okay, I'm gonna do 10 push-ups a day. The compound effect works when you're doing, for example, small little comments to your to your wife and really just paying attention and really trying to, you know, be there in the conversation, be present when you're giving that feedback back and you're really just giving that all the time, every single day, that will 100% improve your relationship. How many times are we so like you know unaware of them type of thing? So these goals really allow us to balance out that wheel, which is so important. So, obviously, when you've set the goals, strategy. So there's no point in setting the goal. If you've set a target and you don't know how you're gonna get there, then it's just the target, and you don't know how you're gonna go onto the process into the map. You need a roadmap of how of where you're gonna go, and a roadmap is built through that strategy. So the strategy is kind of like more about well, what do I need to learn? What skills do I need to learn to achieve my goals? What bad habits as well did I do you know this year that stopped me from achieving them? Positive people to spend more time with, and here's really cool. This is because it makes you think about who your tribe is. Do you know what I'm saying? Negative people to avoid as well. So people that maybe not quite sharing your vision, maybe people that are kind of holding you back a little bit, and it's sometimes difficult, but you've got to say goodbye sometimes when it's not really giving you anything. Do you know what I'm saying? It's not giving you any kind of any energy. If you if you're in that kind of zone, you need to kind of find a way to be able to alleviate yourself from these conversations because it can be very draining for your energy, and your energy is so important to be able to be harnessed and to be able to be concentrated, to be able to give other things in your life. Because if you're giving that energy or you're leaking it, you can't generate stuff to be able to be passionate about the things you're really going to want and be able to achieve in your lifetime. So, again, energy suckers, you know, negative people that are called or call it energy suckers, that's kind of what I've called him. Um, because sometimes I don't mean to even be doing it, and that's that's another thing as well. Um then it goes on to your rituals. So your rituals are kind of like, what do I need to do every single day to make this work? And morning routine is kind of in one, which is really cool. Because a lot of people just get up, they have no plan. They just the alarm goes, they snooze, and just ah, I'm into the day, throwing myself in there with no plan, with no understanding. You're going into that day with this kind of like, I don't know, you're just unprepared, aren't you, for life in general. Do you know what I'm saying? You don't know what's coming up, you don't know what you're doing, you don't know what goals you've got, and you're trying to think of them in your head when you're trying to run the day, and the day's almost running you. If you if you don't plan, the day will run you 100%. So morning routines are really important, and also to be able to be accountable and make sure you're doing their morning routines as well. And then evening routines as well. One of my routines is to be able to, you know, every before bed, read a little bit of the personal development book I want to improve on and also fill this journal out. It's a complete non-negotiable. As soon as I miss a day in this, I've failed. Do you know what I mean? That's the way I'm that's the way I'm seeing it now. It takes me three minutes to five minutes to fill this out every night. If I cannot dedicate five minutes to my life to be able to fill this out on a daily basis, I do not deserve to be successful. And I I say that with my heart and I say it with my complete chest. I generally believe if you can't dedicate five minutes of your life in the evening to be able to do this, then how are you gonna be able to break the mould? Do you know what I mean? You can't because your your mindset's not right. If you can't spare that time to improve your life and what you've got going on, how can you complain about your life not being where you want it to be? So morning routines and evening routines and rituals are based around that. Like, what am I doing in the morning? What am I doing in the evening to be kind of doing what I'm doing to be successful, to be where I need to be? And then obviously you've got the gratitude area. So you've got here like all the things that you're grateful for. Do you know what I mean? And you know, just the things to be able to make you feel I'm blessed. My kids, my wife, everything, you know, everything you've got in terms of like what am I grateful for? And that's such an important thing to practice gratitude on the daily because the feeling of being able to be grateful for something brings more. And this is where a lot of people go wrong because they don't know how to do it. A lot of people say, Oh, you know, I can do a little exercise, but you need to feel it. This is the problem. A lot of people ain't feeling it, they might be saying it, but they don't really know how to be able to say grounded and say, Man, I'm blessed, man. I'm so lucky for what I've got. Thank you, thank you, God, thank you, universe, thank you, whatever. Thank you, higher power, for this beautiful blessing that I've got, and these this life I've been given to be able to do what I need to do and be able to be inspired. People I need to inspire. Do you know what I'm saying? This is this is what it's about about being grateful. Bring yourself back to the feeling of it. Do you know what I mean? And to the moment of it, of having it, you know, having the moments where you get that beautiful love with your kids and you're cuddling them, and it's just it's just a beautiful feeling. That's gratitude, and being able to elicit that on tap in terms of going into your brain and and searching for the moments to feel that great emotion. A is lovely to feel it again, always is, but B, when you feel that more, every single day it brings more. I promise you this, it's a crazy thing. The more I do this, the more times I get when I'm in this moment. Do you know what I mean? Of being grateful. So, really important we practice that, and you know, if it's in there, you're gonna do it every day. Then affirmations, so affirmations of you know what you are, you know what I mean. So, from that, it goes into three monthly goals, and basically, from all of them goals you've got, what I do is pick three, you know, three three kind of areas I want to work on, and basically each area has a goal, okay, for the first three months. Then to the right, it's got an action step plan for each three goals in terms of what you want to do, and it just puts it down into sections, and all I do is say, right, it's over three months. What do I need to do as a roadmap? What sounds logically logical in that process to get A to B. What do I need to do to get to that goal? Then when I say, you know, I've defined that, then I put it down into the action steps of one, let's do one, two, three, four, five. Do you know what I mean? So, example, this is what I did last year, okay? Start Wills Way podcast, start making music, okay? Did the goals and says, why do I want it? Because it brings my happiness and joy. Reward if achieved, I don't know, you can create a reward for yourself. But the action steps, so just give you an example, is one, make sure I've got a specific day to record. So it's so important, like if I don't actually have a day where I'm like right recording, the likelihood of recording is gonna is gonna be difficult when I'm busy and I've got kids, I've got processes, same as anyone, right? Two, write down a list of ideas for episodes and songs, okay? So the episodes, I've got a list now. I can you know get get AI to help me a little bit in terms of generating a few ideas and stuff and get a real good understanding of what I'm gonna do, okay? Three, don't overthink about the results. This is so true for me. Because I'm like when I'm doing this, I'm always conscious, I've always gonna get views, is it gonna get this, I've got this weird thing inside me that still counts and metrics as valuable when it's when I know deep down it's not, but it's kind of a mental block for me. Do you know what I mean? So for me, it's like don't overthink that, just do it, just enjoy it, okay? Four, enjoy the process, not the metrics, right? I know I need to do this stuff. Do you know what I'm saying? Okay, five, create a simple web fight for Will Star. Six, get the podcast out, seven, start generating the podcast and the ideas, and then eight, just put two out a month and then create content around it, and that is it. And that the goal is to start the podcast. I would have had you know, from that three points, eight episodes of the podcast as well, and the goal's done. It's easy goal. Just start, just start, just start. And maybe in the goal should be start with eight at the end of the goal, maybe as a metric to it's good to measure what you're doing, okay? So the goal would be probably better. The goal would actually be better to say, now looking at it, basically, I want you to do eight episodes of the Wheels Way podcast by month free. Because that way you've got a number on it as well, if that makes sense as well. So when you get through that, basically after that, okay, you are gonna go back into your into your month and year of what you have. Here, basically, you can be able to see the whole month. You've got a calendar, most important goals from there go into here, into then terms of this, and then things you'll do this month to make things great in different areas as well, and then you get to your dailies, okay. So your dailies are really good, they give you a kind of a good idea of kind of not sure if you can see this here, you're probably not gonna be able to see it on the screen, but it gives you a diary of what you've done every day, and it each day is not it's only about four lines. So you don't like for me, I don't write the whole thing as a diary, it's just the main events in the day that have gone well, things that I've done and I'm quite you know cool about. It takes me about three minutes to fill that in. But every Sunday, you kind of then do the right page, which kind of plans out your to-do list, your personal to-do list, your habit tracker, the week's wins, how I improve next week as well. So it's a bit of a reflection piece as well on the weekly. So every Sunday I reflect in the evenings, and then I then I plan. Then basically, every evening, I basically fill this in as well in terms of my daily events. And if there's anything I need to do the next day, I'm like, right, that's gonna be a goal in tomorrow's to do list, you know, in in here. I can just write it in in the day. So it just allows me to. keep on top of it and I'll be honest this here is an absolute game changer. I genuinely believe if anyone bought this I generally do if anyone bought this and just did it for the year and made some simple changes or simple goals they hundred percent would change their life. A hundred percent is that powerful but you gotta have the discipline to fill it in because ultimately it's literally just paper and pens. It is just paper. That's all it is it's a it's it's it's a nice notebook but if you don't use it properly and use your own faculties and discipline to be able to fill it out every day you're not gonna get anywhere with it. And this is the thing about setting your intention I think for me and kind of a bit of a a last note for you guys in terms of this this podcast and this first one that I'm gonna put out is just use this week the rest of it up until the first to really map out your year next year. Okay and and even if you took half a day to do it I promise you it would be the most valuable thing you've ever done in your life. I promise you now because for me if you don't know where you're going how do you know how to get there and mate we are we are talented human beings anyone can do this. We've achieved incredible things and I think the greats have probably used a system like this to be able to get their ideas out and be able to advance themselves and it's my job to be able to say you know and hold myself accountable for this as well which is great and this is what I want to do for this process as well is give you updates on on how it's going because I want to build my own like journal. I've already put some sketches out in terms of what I want it to look like and don't get me wrong this legend plan is insane. I think it's great but I reckon I could create something that's a little bit more do you know what I mean around me and what I think other people want. So it is another good that's another goal like longer term goal to be able to do that because I do know that for me someone who has got ADHD has a very good attention deficit is crazy to be able to be organised is very difficult for someone like me and and when I'm not organised it is chaotic and it you know it can be very uncomforting for me to be able to be in an area where I don't really know what's going on. I'm I'm not in the blue I'm not kind of in the no I've got a lot of things going on in my head and I find it hard to relax and chill and this is where this can kind of just alleviate a lot of that for me do you know what I mean and look guys even if you don't want to go by that just write out the things I've said in terms of the steps to be able to follow obviously it doesn't give you the full blueprint but at least be able to one do the self-reflection in terms of how the year went and what things went well you know two write out three goals for all of them pillars that I've just gone through all of them pillars write three goals that you want to achieve by the end of the year and then then write down basically your your three monthly goals to be able to get to the bigger goal and just journal every day. Do you know what I mean? And if you do them simple steps I promise you things will start to really open up because you're now starting to plan for the future and plan for your life moving forward do you know what I mean so guys thank you for being with me again I'm gonna make a big effort this year to be able to inspire more people okay business has gone incredibly well for me the last few years and it's been hard it's been difficult but now we're doing very well and now it's time for me to be able to share some of this knowledge as well in terms of some of the things I've learned from the business and growing an engineering company you know 10 people to you know to to you know around about a million in sales you know it was it was hard in this industry to do that very difficult you know what I mean and we've kind of just hit that as as as a target a huge like dream of mine to say that one million that was always my first kind of you know in terms of turnover that is and and it's incredible for us to be you know it's it's a dream come true I can't lie it's it's beautiful but you know when you get to certain areas you need to improve you need to expand again you can't ever stay in the same place because it doesn't matter where you are on the mountain if you're not climbing it doesn't feel like you're you're you're contributing to something so this is also for me in terms of this podcast a really good outlet for that do you know what I mean to be able to speak my mind as a businessman as well in terms of how my brain works some some of the ideas I have sometimes are very like animated and it's like ah mate people would love to hear this so for me I love you I love I love kind of storytelling I love doing this I love podcasting I love talking and that may seem apparent with this because I've not even got anyone opposite me I'm talking I'm just talking to the camera but I'm so comfortable with it I'm so at peace with it it's unreal and that's what I want it to feel I want it to feel natural that I'm almost got this invisible viewer that is hearing my experiences and you know hearing the way that I'm talking and hearing my sincerity in it and hear my emotions in it hearing my knowledge and just going back for experiences to try to be able to say look this didn't work for me whatever because I'd tell you now life ain't perfect man and you're gonna go through the ringer you're gonna go through the motions you are you're gonna go through the hardships to get to any success. You ask anyone successful they went through that they've already done it and they're still going through it. It doesn't stop for them but this is the thing about kind of building an area and a cool place where you can tune in to say do you know what I need a bit of inspiration today. Needed to hear that man do you know what I mean like sometimes I hear just something or a quote or someone pop up whatever and you know it might pop up on my phone and it was just like damn bit of knowledge a bit of incredible positivity that just says you know what we're what you doing what are you wallowing for if I can use that to be an outlet for this then I'm blessed. So guys I'm gonna chop it off we're gonna these podcasts are going to be not too long from about 20 to 30 minutes nice and chippy honestly guys go plan your stuff go buy that legend planner man if if you want to I promise you just use the next few days to be able to plan and I I've got to keep coming with these podcasts because even if two three people kind of listen to it and get it out there it will make a change or make a difference. So guys stay blessed my love