At this time of the year, and by the way I am not sure how we are in December already, I am ‘running on fumes’, what do I mean by that, I mean I am like a car with an almost empty tank of fuel, trying to find a fuel station to fuel up but there are none in site!

 

 

 

If you search Google for the term, ‘Running on Fumes’, it comes up with: 

 

 

For me this means some if not all of the following symptoms:

*Extreme tiredness or very low energy levels.

*Difficulty in sleeping, even though your very tired.

*Grumpy (the team tell me this) poor focus and mistakes abound.

*Increased stress and anxiety.

*No drive or desire to do anything.

Why is this the case for me?  Because both myself and the rest of the NAPSA team are very guilty of being over enthusiastic when it comes to allocating projects, tasks and just all that we want to fit in, get done, to add massive value to our members; it has been too much this year, we took on just too much and now it is telling on all of us. 

Thursday this week we wrote a list of the projects that we wanted to achieve in 2026, there were 22 of them!  Now there are only 12 months in each year and some of those projects would run for two months from start to finish and so we had to prioritise, or we would make the same mistake again.

We put red stars next to those projects that were a ‘Must Do’ and we had 13 left, we have had to set aside nine that we had really wanted to do, but in reality, and for our sanity could not.  They have been put into a list of ‘Future Projects’ which if we can fit some in, we will.

Balance in everything that we do is so important and is often lost in the rush to develop the business, reach more people, provide more training, more presentations, more calls, more support, more training, more of everything and balance disappears!

So, what are we doing to get more balance and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past year?

1.     Make a list of all that you want to achieve in 2026, project by project, how many are there?

2.     To each project add the timescale needed to complete (be realistic).

3.     Now indicate which projects are ‘Must Do’.

4.     Now add each project to a month or smaller time period within a set month.

5.     Can you fit everything in, if not make adjustments.

If you plan now for 2026 and have clarity on what you want to achieve each month, we have planned projects in from January to April now.  If you leave it, you will always be playing catch up and that is a situation that has stress written all over it!

We often overestimate what we can achieve and underestimate the time required for projects and that is what the NAPSA team and I have been guilt of this past year, we know that this has to change for 2026 or we will burn out and that is not an option!

 

Wishing everyone a peaceful, organised, planned and stress-free week ahead! 

Tina Walsh

Founder & CEO

NAPSA