Why writing down your plan for next season feels scarier than it actually is
It’s mid-December. I see you there farmer friend.
You're either still in full rest mode, telling yourself you'll get to planning when you absolutely have to get those seeds in trays.
Or you've already jumped ahead to crop planning, filling out spreadsheets and calculating yields, skipping right past any real reflection on what happened last season or what you actually want this year to look like.
Both are completely normal.
And both are ways of avoiding the actual work of winter.
I'm not here to shame you for it.
I'm here to tell you what's really going on and why it matters.
The Thing Nobody Tells You About Winter
Winter is supposed to be for evaluating what happened last season and planning what's to come.
Not just crop planning. Not just ordering seeds. A holistic plan for your entire year.
But most farmers either stay checked out until the last possible second or blow right past the foundational work to get to the "doing" part.
Why?
Because sitting down to evaluate and plan feels hard. It feels overwhelming. It feels like it might not even work.
And if we're being really honest, it feels scary to write down what we actually want for our farm and our life.
What's Really Going On
Let me tell you what I see when farmers avoid winter planning. Here’s what I hear season after season:
"I don't have time to plan."
This is never actually true. You have time. What you don't have is the willingness to sit with the discomfort of planning.
Planning feels big and nebulous and like it might take hours you don't have. So you avoid it.
And then spring arrives and you're reacting to everything instead of running your business intentionally.
The time problem is actually an attention problem. Where is your attention leaking away?
"I don't know how to plan."
This one's tricky because it feels true. Maybe you've never made a whole farm business plan before. Maybe you tried once and it didn't work out the way you thought. Maybe you keep your "plan" in your head where it's accountable to no one and can shift based on your whim.
But here's what's actually happening: you're using "I don't know how" as a shield against doing something that feels uncomfortable.
If you really didn't know how, you'd Google it. You'd ask someone. You'd figure it out. You know how to figure things out. You run a farm, for crying out loud.
The "I don't know how" is protecting you from having to face the real issue.
"Planning doesn't work for me."
I hear this one a lot. And what it usually means is: "I made a plan once, didn't follow it, and now I have evidence that planning doesn't work."
But that's not evidence that planning doesn't work. That's evidence that you didn't work the plan.
And I say that with so much compassion because I've been there too.
When we keep our plan in our head, it can shift whenever we want. When we don't write it down, we're not accountable to it.
And when we don't follow through, we get to tell ourselves "see, I'm just not a planner" instead of looking at what actually got in the way.
"I tried that."
This is the cousin of "planning doesn't work for me."
You tried planning once. Maybe you spent hours on it. Maybe you made a beautiful spreadsheet. Maybe you even followed it for a week or two.
And then life happened. The weather didn't cooperate. A piece of equipment broke. You got busy and the plan fell by the wayside.
So now you have proof that trying doesn't lead to results.
But here's what actually happened: you discarded the plan after one iteration. And that's even less useful than not planning at all. Because you never learned how to make it better.
Progress over perfection.
Every plan needs to be tested. You have to work the bugs out through iteration. The first version of anything is never the final version.
You don't plant seeds once, watch them fail, and declare "welp, I guess I'm not cut out to be a farmer." You adjust. You learn. You try again with what you learned.
Your business plan deserves the same grace.
What if the issue wasn't that planning doesn't work? What if the issue was that you expected it to be perfect on the first try instead of being something you refine over time?
The Deeper Truth
All of this resistance, all of this avoidance, all of this "I don't have time / don't know how / it doesn't work for me" is protecting you from something.
It's protecting you from having to take yourself seriously.
Because when you write down a plan, you're saying: this matters. My business matters. My goals matter. I matter.
And that feels vulnerable.
Because what if you write it down and you don't follow through? What if you write down that you want to make $150k this year and you only make $90k? What if you commit to a plan and then fail?
Here's what I know: the car only drives where the eyes go.
If you don't look at where you're going, if you don't name where you want to end up, you're just going to keep ending up wherever the current takes you.
And then you'll wonder why you feel so exhausted and overwhelmed and like you're never getting anywhere.
What Winter Planning Actually Is
Let me take the weight off this for a second.
Winter planning is not about creating the perfect roadmap that you'll follow to the letter for the next 12 months.
That's not realistic and it's not useful.
Winter planning is about:
Looking back at what happened last season with curiosity instead of judgment.
What worked? What didn't? What did you learn? What do you want to do differently?
No wallowing. No spinning. No pity party. Just: here's what happened, here's what I learned, here's what I'm taking forward.
Getting clear on what you actually want this year.
Not what you think you should want. Not what the podcast told you to want. Not what the farm down the road is doing.
What do YOU want?
Here's how to think about it: choose one single priority as a lens overlaid over your entire farm this year.
Is it revenue growth? Is it building systems? Is it quality of life?
Just one. I know you want all three. But you can't focus on everything at once. So pick the one that matters most right now.
That's your lens. That's how you make decisions all season long.
Then ask yourself: what are 2-3 things that must happen to support that priority?
Not 47 things. Not everything you could possibly do. Just 2-3 things that would move the needle on that one priority.
That's your plan. Simple. Clear. Actionable.
Writing it down on paper where you have to be accountable to it.
Not keeping it in your head. Not telling yourself you'll remember. Writing it down.
In a notebook. In a Google Doc. On a napkin for all I care. Just get it out of your head and onto paper where it becomes real. Then, for real accountability, post it somewhere you HAVE to look at it regularly.
Because when it's on paper, you can't pretend you didn't say it. You can't let it shift with your mood or your fear or your doubt. It's there. And you're accountable to it.
Not in a punitive way. In a "this is what I said mattered to me and I'm going to honor that" way.
What Would This Look Like If It Was Easy?
You don't need to spend 40 hours creating a comprehensive business plan with financial projections and marketing strategies and succession planning. That's not what I'm asking you to do.
What if winter planning was just:
An hour to reflect on last season and write down what you learned.
An hour to choose your one priority for this year and identify 2-3 things that must happen to support it.
An hour to sketch out what needs to happen in each season to make those 2-3 things real.
Three hours. That's it.
And yes, you could go deeper if you wanted. You could create systems and processes and detailed timelines. But you don't have to start there. You just have to start.
So, what's making this harder than it actually is?
Is it the thought that it has to be perfect? Is it the fear that you'll write it down and not follow through? Is it the overwhelm of not knowing where to start?
Winter planning is setting aside those thoughts a fears for a few hours to plot out what you want to create this season. And it's worth your time.
Who You Become When You Do This Work
Here's what I really want you to understand.
When you sit down and do the work of evaluating and planning, you're not just creating a document. You're becoming someone.
You're becoming the person who takes their business seriously. You're becoming the person who believes their goals are worth writing down. You're becoming the person who shows up for themselves even when it feels hard or scary or pointless.
You're becoming the person who runs their farm instead of being run by their farm.
And that person?
That person shows up differently in spring.
When everyone else is scrambling and reacting and putting out fires, you have a plan. You know what matters. You know where you're going. You've already decided.
And that creates so much ease.
Not because everything goes according to plan. But because when things don't go according to plan, you're not starting from zero. You're adjusting. You're shifting. You're learning.
You're becoming the person who can navigate the chaos with intention instead of just surviving it.
That's what opens up when you do your winter work.
The Invitation
So here's what I want to invite you to do.
Stop telling yourself you'll get to it later. Stop jumping ahead to crop planning without doing the foundational work first. Stop keeping your plan in your head where it's accountable to no one.
Take yourself seriously enough to put pen to paper.
Write down what you learned last season. Write down your one priority for this season. Write down 2-3 things that must happen to support that priority.
Just start from there.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be comprehensive. It just has to be real.
And then, when spring comes and you're in the thick of it, you'll have something to come back to. Sometimes we just don’t have the executive function to figure out all the things in real time. But when we plan, all we have to do is show up to the plan. Right? “Plan your work, then work your plan.”
You'll have a north star to guide you when everything feels chaotic.
You'll have become the person who plans. Even when it feels hard. Even when you don't know exactly how. Even when you're scared you might fail.
The car only drives where the eyes go. Look at where you want to go. Write it down. And then trust yourself to figure out the rest.
If you need more support as you step into this work, I'm here. You can schedule a free chat with me anytime at FarmCoachKatia.com/work-with-me