119. 90 Days to Progress (Not Perfection): A Simple Plan That Works

You know that “Oh crap, the year's almost over” feeling? The pressure to squeeze twelve months of progress into three? If you're a human, chances are you've had some version of that pressure at some point in your life. In this episode, I’m breaking down what’s actually possible to accomplish in 90 days…and what’s not worth stressing over. Spoiler: it’s not about magically curing burnout or rewriting your entire identity. It’s about momentum, self-trust, and setting up rhythms that actually stick.

Whether you’re closing out the year or just craving a reset, this one’s for you.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to reframe the pressure of the “final 90 days” so it works for you, not against you
• The difference between unrealistic overhaul vs. realistic, sustainable shifts
• My 3-step process to make the most out of your 90 days
• Why building momentum (not perfection) is the smartest goal you can set
• The surprising mindset shift that makes the last stretch of the year feel lighter

If This Resonates…

If this hit home, I’d love to help you map out your own 90-day plan—one that doesn’t involve burnout, judgment, or chasing every shiny object. Book a free consult, hop into the FB group, and let’s keep this conversation going.

Resources & Links

📌 Book a free virtual consult → Schedule now
🎧 Related Episodes:
35. Want to Hit a Goal Faster? Try This
50. Plan Your Week With Me! 
54. Reflecting on the First Half of 2024: Journal Questions for SLPs

 👥 Join the FB group → SLP Support Group

Keywords:
90-day plan, ADHD productivity, overwhelmed SLP, executive dysfunction, end of year reset, sustainable routines, work-life balance, realistic goals

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

Theresa: 0:26

Hey podcast listeners, welcome back to the show. This is episode 119. I'm recording this episode on a Friday. It's the end of a week. It's the end towards the end of a month. Actually, when you listen to this episode, it will be the end of the month if you're listening when it is released, and we're coming up on the final three months of the year, so I wanted to talk about. This time of year as the October, November, December season is approaching. But I wanted to talk about this in a way that number one is a little bit different than what you might. Here when people are talking about how to plan out your month or plan out your quarter, or how to have a, you know, happy and productive end to the year, which is all good and great, but I've kind of talked about that before and I wanna talk about this. Similar topic, but from a different angle. And I also want you to know that if you're listening to this episode and it's not the beginning of a new quarter or the beginning of a new month or new year or whatever, that's okay. You can take this information and apply it. At any time of the year, anytime that you are working to create a new habit, a new routine, a new goal, some sort of change that you are working to implement or that you want to implement, whether that's personally, professionally, or both, this episode will be helpful regardless of when you're listening. Okay? So. With that in mind, I'm gonna go ahead and dig in and I will tweak, you know, I will, uh, in this episode I will talk a little bit about, um, this specific time of year. But again, you know, take what works as always, take what works, leave what doesn't. Okay, so when you think about the final three months of 2025, which is pretty crazy. I'm wondering what comes up in your mind if you are anything like me or any of the SLPs who I coach, or my friends and colleagues who are in our field. Or even just humans, right? People will often say something like, I'm holding my breath, like, it's the end of the year and this is a crazy time of year. It's like the busiest time of year, and I'm just bracing for impact holding my breath, right? Or maybe you're hoping for a miracle. I don't know. I hear it all the time. And I recognize that the final 90 days of a year can feel like a special brand of pressure, like a special flavor of pressure, right? There's this sense of, if I don't do this now, I've wasted the whole year. Or oh my gosh, what was it even wanting to accomplish this year? I don't even remember where I started in January, and here we are in October, right? But I want you to know that that is not. Serving you. And not only is it not serving you, it's just not sustainable for you to feel like I've gotta make a year's worth of progress in three months worth of time. That's not the goal here. Okay? So take a deep breath and we're gonna work through a plan for you that actually supports you. Maybe when you think about the final three months of 2025, you're thinking like, okay, well it's just three months and I wasted the last nine months. Didn't get much done. So what can really change in 90 days? Can anything actually change? The short answer is yes, but the longer answer is that we need to define change the right way. What exactly is it that you are trying to change? If you're trying to magically cure yourself from burnout that has set in over the course of, you know, 9, 6, 9 months, or if you're looking to set up a private practice and have an entirely full caseload and hire your first, uh, contractor or employee and have a profit every month. That's probably not realistic, right? That's not gonna happen. But you can build momentum. You absolutely can, and you can stop making yourself feel like crap for not having done it all yet. Okay, so that's your permission to. Release any of that pressure or expectation or judgment, and that alone can be game changing and can help you go into the final three months or this next phase with a lot more positive energy and sustainable energy and have actual results. Maybe when you think about the final three months, maybe you're listening to this and you're like, I just wanna feel proud. I just wanna feel proud of how I closed out the year and. Clapping for you, if that is what you are saying, right? That is gold. That's what, to me, what it is about. Feeling proud of how I closed out the year. I have reflected. You know, today as just today, as I've been thinking about this podcast episode, I've reflected on this past year for myself and sort of just informally what I had thought I would accomplish, what I wanted to accomplish, what I did, what I didn't do. And there was definitely some judgment happening of like, oh, you didn't do that, or you didn't do this. Like for example, July, the month of July, I killed it. In the Facebook group, I was showing up regularly. I was posting, I was doing Facebook Lives every day. Monday through Friday, I showed up and I provided value, and I connected with the group in a way like I never have. And I was super proud of myself. But then my brain went to August and September, which were pretty dismal if I'm being honest. I mean, I just really did not show up and in the same way, and I'm not. Proud or happy with the way, like the value that I provided in the group for these past two months. So it would be super easy for me to think about that, focus on that, and chuck this whole year up as a waste. But it's like, no, zoom out, right? Overall net positive. If I zoom out, look at the whole year overall. I feel proud of the changes that I have made. I have made progress in lots of different areas in my professional life as a coach, as an executive functioning coach, a DHD coach, productivity coach, right? And in my personal life with my family, with, with our household and routines and things like that. Okay. That's, to me, what it is about, is that overall net positive. Okay, so let's talk about this. What can actually shift in 90 days, right? Without you completely overhauling your life or having a lobotomy and giving yourself a new personality or without, you know. Moving away to an island where you don't have any of your kids that you have to take care of, you don't have to make dinner every night. You're not juggling a crazy caseload, right? That's just not realistic. So let's think about what is realistic, what is possible, especially if your work as an SLP is demanding. If you have a DHD or a neurodivergent brain and you have a life that just doesn't stop when you have a goal like. I can imagine that at least one of those applies to everyone who is listening to this podcast. Okay? So what you can do is create a structure or a rhythm routine that sticks. You can start showing up consistently, and I have thoughts about that word, but we're not gonna go there right now. You get to decide what that means. You can start showing up consistently for one thing. Not all the things, but it is possible to start focusing on showing up for one thing. You can find, make, create, take 30 to 60 minutes a day, a week, whatever works for you to create better systems and rhythms. Okay? And it's, this can be super simple and. The process, you can rebuild or continue building your self trust. This is not about perfection. We're aiming for progress. I always say progress, not perfection. Okay. So, for example, I'll tell you one of my focuses, like my main focus for the next 90 days is to show up consistently in my business. And within that it is to have a weekly sort of flow in terms of. Podcast episodes related topics for Facebook Lives, social media posts in the group, and touching base with my email list as well. Now, I'm not going to hold myself to every single piece of that per se. But I have outsourced a whole lot of this to, or I should say with, I work on this with my coach and I work my own coach and with my, with chat bt with technology and figuring out how I can do this simply, okay? But what's not going to change in the next 90 days is I'm not going to become a full-time coach, nor do I want to quite frankly love coaching, love my clients, love the art of coaching, the science of coaching. But I don't wanna be doing it full time. That's, that's not my goal. I don't need to fully rewrite my identity as a fully booked coach who has a booming Facebook group with lots of people who are engaged and, and getting support from the topics I'm covering. Right? I don't need to, these are just some examples. I don't need to create completely new systems in my home or get like major house projects done. I have a bunch that are floating through my brain. But that's not realistic. It's not necessary, and I'm certainly not going to, and neither are you cure your A DHD or cure your perfectionism or cure your procrastination or cure your, I dunno, fill in the blank, right? None of that is going to happen in 90 days, but that's okay. That's okay. Just because you can't do those things in 90 days doesn't mean that you can make progress and take steps towards it. Okay, so this is hopefully going to help you really hone in on what is realistic right now. I've got three steps for you of how you can actually come up with your. 90 day plan. I'm gonna call it a 90 day plan. This is not a 90 day schedule. This is not a, you know, task or habit or checklist for the next three months. No, this is like a broad strokes, top level. I don't know, uh, overview, I guess would be a good word. Of where you wanna focus your energy, your attention, and your time over the next three months. All right? So this is a step-by-step doable process for you. All right? So if you're in, if you are like, yes, I wanna focus on something, I do want to see a change in my life in the next 90 days. Stay with me. Here we go. This is for you. You ready? Three. Steps. Number one is to choose your focus area. Now, some of you might be thinking, how the hell do I do that? Because I have a million ideas that are floating through my brain right now, and I don't know how to prioritize. I don't know if this is too big, too small, too broad, too specific. Okay, well here, dear listener, I've got some steps, some substeps for you that will help you choose a focus area. This is not one of the steps, but bonus, I guess, is don't overthink this. Truly, don't overthink this. Let it be easy. If you are so worried about choosing the wrong thing, you're not setting yourself up for success. Your mindset is not aligned with the way that it needs to be in order to see progress in the next 90 days. So keep that in mind. Okay? So. Let's call this step one A. This is, these are sort of the three steps to help you choose your focus area. Okay? Hopefully you're with me. So when you are choosing your focus area, number one, do a brain dump. You know me, I love a good brain dump. Maybe you don't know me. Maybe you're new here, but I love a good brain dump. So brain dump, all those ideas that are floating through your head of what you wanna see happen in the next 90 days. So do a brain dump and then. The next step would be ask yourself these questions. Now you can fill in any question that works for you. I'm just gonna give you a couple that I would ask if you were my coaching client, number one, what would make the biggest impact? Which of these would make the biggest impact on your life? If it got easier, you could think about this as the one that means the most to you, or would have the biggest effect on the other areas of your life. I think about these sometimes as dominoes as domino goals or domino focuses where if you change this thing, it's going to be this domino effect or this ripple effect where other things, maybe even other things on your list are gonna get easier. On your brain dump list, right? So one of these might actually solve for some of the other ones on your list. So that's one thing you can ask yourself. Which of these would make the biggest impact, if it got easier, or which of these would have a ripple effect or domino effect on the others? Another question you can ask, what would my future self thank me for doing now? I think about my future self a lot, but what would your future self be grateful for? What would your future self be thankful for, proud of at the end of the 90 days? And then third question, what feels doable with my current energy levels and with some realistic ideas of what these three months look like? In this case for the, at the time I'm recording this, it is the last three months of the year. Like I said before, it doesn't matter when you're doing this, but think about what do the next 90 days look like, just sort of on paper, because I don't know about you, but for me, the final three months of the year are a lot more, they're a lot busier, but there's a lot more responsibility. There's a lot more on my mind of things that have to get done. Outside of my work in my, for my family, for my, in my household, and those three months don't offer the same sort of space and availability as say, January, February, and March would. So think about what those three months look like for you so that you can be realistic in terms of, you know, what you have going on and what your current energy levels are like. All right. So those were the questions just to sort of remind you of where we're at. You're choosing your focus area, and if you need help choosing your focus area, you've done a brain dump of things you wanna focus on, and now you're looking at that list and asking yourself the questions I just shared domino effect, future self, and doable and realistic. And then step number three, once you have asked those questions. Choose one. Choose the one that's coming up for you and name it out loud. Like say it out loud. Okay. My focus area is going to be providing consistent value for the people in my Facebook group. My focus area is going to be. Completing the necessary courses and education requirements for a certain coaching certification, whatever that might be for you. I'm just naming some of mine. Okay? All right, so hopefully that helps you choose your focus area. Now I've got two other suggestions or tips for you. Because you've got your focus area, but what do you do with it? Right? So this is super simple. Again, broad strokes. Broad strokes, people. Okay? So once you've got that focus area, I want you to create an anchor. A weekly anchor, a weekly anchor. You can think of this as a recurring moment or point of time. In your week where you're going to be checking in with yourself about this focus, because I don't know if you're anything like me. If you are, you may have set lots of goals with lots of like visions and plans, and then just forget all about them, right? I think I talked about that a little bit at the start of the episode. Or you might be locked in for the first couple weeks and then the novelty wears off. That shiny object isn't so shiny anymore, and you have lost focus, lost, you know, interest, and it's now feeling like a chore. And maybe it's outta sight. And we know that when it's outta sight, it's outta mind. So by having this weekly anchor, it's this rhythm that you will check in that helps you to check in on your focus area each week. Okay, so you can think of this as a way for you to sort of catch up if you've fallen behind or to course correct. If you notice that like it's not going according to plan, you might need to tweak something or change something. And we're doing this without any judgment. Okay. It's just neutral. All right, so you've cr come up with a weekly anchor and then some sort of way to track wins. Do not overcomplicate this. Do not overdo it. Keep it simple. For me, I like to, when it comes to tracking wins, I've thought of all different ways to do this. I've tried all different sorts of ways, and I don't force myself to pick one way and stick with that one way. For me, I'm like, okay, as long as I am regularly. Checking in on those wins and I'm tracking them some way. It's okay. One week that might be a, uh, a brain dump of like just, I'm journaling. It might be a journal. Uh, entry and maybe just writing a journal entry about that focus area and how I'm feeling about it, what I accomplished. Maybe it's a success list. I love keeping like a list in my notes app on my iPhone of like wins big moments, little moments. That are wins that are moving me towards the, the goal or the focus that I have. Maybe it's an actual tracker where you're coloring in something or checking something off every time you do it again, I like to have flexibility here so that it happens. It doesn't matter how it happens, but it happens. You might hear the dog barking. I'm just gonna keep rolling with this people. I think my kids are home, so it's getting a little, gonna get a little crazy here, but. Bear with me. Okay. So we are wrapping this up now, hopefully to summarize what, where we're at, and then I'm gonna give you a couple of, of, uh, last final thoughts. You're choosing a focus area. See my tips for how to do that. You are creating that weekly anchor and you're coming up with a visible way to track the wins. Okay, so now I am asking you, inviting you, challenging you to come up with one thing that you're gonna commit to experimenting with over the next 90 days. Not a should, but a want to. Okay, want to, all right. And if you want extra support with this, you can give me, uh, send me a message, send me an email, book a free consult. The links are always in the show notes. I'm happy to help you any way I can. If you're not in the SLP support group on Facebook, get in there 'cause that's where we're at, where we're at. You can share wins in there and I'm be happy to have you in that group with all of us. All right, hope that this was helpful. I will talk with you all soon. Bye.