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July 16, 2024 15 mins

#012 - Ever felt like your busy weeks end with little to show for them? Discover how a simple, yet transformative, weekly ritual can revolutionize your productivity and focus. 

Join me as I share a powerful framework for a weekly review that takes just an hour every Friday. This episode reveals how this practice can help you stay aligned with your goals, celebrate your wins—no matter how small—and identify areas for improvement, ensuring continuous personal growth and fulfillment.

Tune in to learn who can benefit from this structured approach and how to seamlessly incorporate it into your routine, even if consistency has been a challenge. I walk you through each step of the process and how to do it. 

By the end of this episode, you'll have a clear, actionable plan to turn your "busy" weeks into productive milestones. Say goodbye to the blur of activity and hello to tangible progress and strategic planning every week. Don't miss out on making this impactful habit a part of your life.


Are you ready to build high-impact habits of body, mind, and soul that actually stick? Check out the Catholic Path to Excellence today to find out how you can be more consistent in your habits and excel in every aspect of your life.

Feeling "stuck" in your life? Coaching could be the solution you need to break through whatever is holding you back. Book a FREE Call with me today to find out how I can help you.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the Catholic Pursuit of
Excellence, the show that helpsyou accomplish more, stress less
and become the saint Godcreated you to be.
I'm your host, life and healthcoach, jessica Castillo, and
this is episode 12.
Do you ever get to the end ofyour week and have no idea where
the time went?
Most of us are so busy with ourday-to-day tasks that the week

(00:26):
can zoom by in a blur offrenzied activity, leaving us
with the general impression thatwe had a quote-unquote busy
week, while also being unsure ofwhat we actually accomplished.
But what if I told you thatthere was a simple weekly ritual

(00:47):
that you could start today thatwould help you stay more
focused on your goals and maketangible progress each week.
Even better, it only takesabout an hour and you can do it
on what tends to be everyone'sleast motivated day after a long
week I'm talking about Friday.

(01:08):
What is this powerful ritual?
Well, it's a weekly review.
In today's episode, I'll sharewho can benefit from a weekly
review, a simple framework thatyou can use to do an effective
weekly review yourself.
And, finally, I'll tell youabout an easy strategy you can

(01:29):
use to virtually guarantee thatyou'll stick with this practice,
even if you've struggled withbuilding the habit of a weekly
review in the past, so why wouldyou want to do a weekly review?
So why would you want to do aweekly review?
Well, a weekly review isperfect for you if you usually

(01:51):
start the week without a planand you find yourself just kind
of winging it, or if you feelbusy but you haven't made any
real progress towards your goals, or if you're the kind of
person who just wants to setaside regular time for
reflection and self-improvement.
A weekly review is also perfectfor you if you just happen to

(02:12):
be a human being who wants toget more done.
So pretty much everybody and ifyou're listening to this
podcast, definitely you.
Simply put, a weekly review isthe opportunity to reflect on
and assess the past week andthink strategically about the
coming week.

(02:32):
There are a lot ofmethodologies and frameworks
that you can use to do a weeklyreview and really the best one
is the one that you'll actuallyuse.
That being said, I'm going toshare with you the framework
that I use with my groupcoaching clients every Friday to
do our weekly review.
It's very simple and it takesabout 45 minutes to an hour.

(02:57):
If you wanted to linger on anyof the steps.
Okay, the first thing we do iswe start with prayer.
We thank God for this week.
We also ask him to bless thistime.
This really helps us to groundin and be focused and present,
because a lot of times we'recoming to a meeting or coming to
a session on the heels ofsomething else or there's a lot

(03:19):
of chaos around us.
It's a busy day.
So we just start with prayer toreally be able to focus and
reflect effectively.
We invite the Lord in.
Next we focus on what went wellthis week.
You might think about these asyour wins, but really this can
be anything.
The way that I like to do aweekly review is to set a timer

(03:43):
for each of the stages or eachof the steps of the weekly
review is to set a timer foreach of the stages or each of
the steps of the weekly review.
And what I find is, if I set afive minute timer to focus on
what went well and what are thewins for the week, what tends to
happen is in the first maybetwo to three minutes, you'll
think of everything obvious andwrite those things down, and

(04:03):
then for the remaining twominutes you kind of have to
stretch a little bit, which iskind of a great thing, because
what this allows you to do is tothink of things that you might
not typically consider to be awin as something that went well.
This week you might find thatyou are able to think about and

(04:24):
recall things from your personallife, or you know very kind of
what you would probably glossover or think of as
insignificant, as things thatare actually really good.
So this helps ground you ingratitude and also a feeling of
achievement as you're startingthe weekly review, which is a
really good headspace to be inas you start planning and

(04:46):
strategizing for the coming week.
But the next step of the weeklyreview is to reflect and focus
on what could have gone better.
What can you improve for thenext week?
Now you might think that we gofrom wins to now doom and gloom
and focusing on how you'reterrible and all the things that

(05:08):
you did not do or that youfailed to do.
But really, for this section ofthe weekly review, I advise you
to focus on one thing that youcan improve for the next week.
So maybe you start this sectionof the weekly review with a
little bit of a brainstorm or amind dump of all of the things

(05:28):
that you can kind of think ofthat you wish had gone a little
bit better, or you wanted toimprove for the coming week, but
then I would really encourageyou to just focus on one thing
that you can take tangibleaction on to improve for the
next week.
So this is not the stage of theweekly review where you just
beat yourself up and feel badabout yourself.

(05:50):
This is the part of the weeklyreview where you think about
taking leveraged action.
Maybe your kids were drivingyou crazy with snack requests
all week and maybe you snappedat them when you didn't mean to.
And now, looking forward intothe next week, you can think
strategically how can youimprove this?

(06:11):
Is there a system that you canset up in your house that will
make it so you're not beingdriven crazy by snack demands?
What leveraged action would youneed to take in order to make
that happen?
So this isn't a doom and gloombeat yourself up section.
This is just a hey.
I'm acknowledging this didn'tgo so great, but there's

(06:31):
something I can do about it.
Now.
The next part of the weeklyreview is where you focus on the
status of your current goalsand projects.
So these might be yourquarterly goals and projects.
I would recommend probablykeeping it at that level.
You probably don't need to goas far as looking at your annual

(06:52):
goals and projects.
That may be a little bit toobig.
But definitely look at yourquarterly goals and projects and
just do a quick status check.
How are you doing on thesegoals?
Are they on track?
Are they off track?
Did you forget what they were?
Because that happens if wedon't review things.
This is the bigger picture partof checking your goals and

(07:14):
projects.
The next step of the weeklyreview is to zoom in a little
bit from your quarterly goalsand projects and now focus on
what are the goals for thecoming week.
So you probably don't want toidentify more than about three
to five goals for the comingweek, because you probably can't
do more than about three tofive goals for the coming week.

(07:35):
So, based on your quarterlygoals and projects, what are you
going to focus on now coming up?
This really helps you to stayfocused on what's important to
you and what you've alreadyidentified are your priorities.
Because, again, if we do notreview our goals and if we don't
check in with ourselvesregularly, the chances are
pretty good that we are going tojust get swept away in all of

(07:59):
the urgent but not importanttasks of our day.
The week zooms by and we didn'tactually take any significant
progress on the things that wemeant to be working on.
I like to call the next stage ofthe weekly review the reality
check, because this is the partof the weekly review where we
schedule our week so based onall of the goals that we set for

(08:23):
the coming week.
This is when we get out ourcalendar or our planner, and we
actually block in time to workon each of those important goals
, and what we might find duringthis stage of the weekly review
is that we were a little tooambitious in setting our goals.
This happens frequently.
As you start to try to block intime for when you're going to

(08:46):
get to these things, you mightfind your week is a little
busier than you thought, and soyou might have to adjust your
goals, and that's okay.
This is just part of theprocess.
As you start scheduling yourweek, though, what you should
feel is a little bit of peace,because now you actually know
when you're going to be gettingto these things that were

(09:06):
important to you as you block inand schedule this time.
It really helps you when you'reliving the day-to-day of your
week to not have to ask yourselfwait, what was my priority
today?
What was the thing that I wasgoing to do?
You don't need to do that,because you've already figured
it out and it only takes a fewminutes.
The next part of your weeklyreview will be to update your

(09:27):
habit trackers and your any ofyour routines, like your morning
routine, evening routine, maybeyou have a midday routine,
maybe you have an after schoolroutine.
I mean, it's summer at the timeof this recording, but there's
different routines for differenttimes of your day, and maybe
this is a good opportunity foryou to update some of those
routines.
This is also a chance for youto update your ideal weekly

(09:49):
schedule.
So maybe you found that one ofthe things you wanted to improve
in the last week was yourrhythm and routine for meal
planning and grocery shopping,and maybe that's something that
needs to get updated and changedon your ideal weekly schedule.
This is just an opportunity foryou to reflect and review how
are those habits going?

(10:09):
How are your routines going?
Is your schedule still fittingyour life?
This is what allows you to haveflexibility in your routines
and your schedule, even whenthings change, because they
frequently do.
And that's it you.
Finally, you close out theweekly review by offering this

(10:30):
week to God, thanking him forthis time, and that's your whole
weekly review.
So just in a quick recap.
You start with prayer, youfocus on what went well this
week, you think about what couldhave been better, what you can
focus on at least one thing youcan improve.
You check on the status of yourcurrent goals and projects.
You think about what are yourgoals for the coming week, you

(10:54):
schedule your week, you updateany of your habit trackers,
routines, your ideal weeklyschedule, and then you close by
offering this week to God.
It sounds like a lot, buthonestly it only takes about 45
minutes.
Okay, but you may have alreadyheard about how great a weekly

(11:14):
review can be because, let's behonest, it pretty much is
recommended in every personaldevelopment, habit formation,
productivity book you canimagine.
So you've probably alreadyheard about a weekly review if
you are interested inproductivity and accomplishment
and you know, maybe you'vealready tried to implement this

(11:36):
practice in your life already.
But chances are good that youprobably aren't doing this
game-changing practice regularly.
And how do.
I know that you're probably notdoing this regularly.
Well, because consistency isreally hard, especially when no
one is holding you accountableto doing something, and if you

(11:57):
feel like you're only lettingyourself down.
Well, we're all pretty good atletting ourselves down.
This is why I've included aweekly review co-working session
every Friday in my groupcoaching program, the Catholic
Path to Excellence.
Friday in my group coachingprogram, the Catholic Path to
Excellence.
So what this means is that eachFriday, we meet via Zoom to do

(12:18):
a weekly review together.
I guide everyone through thissimple framework that I just
laid out for you, and we allfocus and we get it done.
Now you can do a weekly reviewon your own, but I highly
encourage you because it's sohard to be consistent and stick
with something yourself to havean accountability partner or to

(12:41):
do this with someone else.
So if you have a team, maybeyou do a weekly review with your
team.
If you're a solopreneur or ifyou're just, you know you don't
have a team or someone to do aweekly review with you might
really benefit from joining agroup like the Catholic Path to
Excellence, where you can do aweekly review every week with a

(13:04):
group of people holding youaccountable, but holding
yourself accountable, and it'sreally effective.
So I did just want to sharethat.
The weekly review is actuallyonly one of the many awesome
aspects of the path, which iswhat I affectionately call this
group coaching program.
I also include in the path aweekly training and coaching

(13:28):
call, where I provide trainingand coaching on a high impact
habit each week on Monday.
So we start on Mondays withtraining and coaching.
We end impact habit each weekon Monday.
So we start on Mondays withtraining and coaching.
We end on Fridays with theweekly review.
You have access to an onlineportal of courses and workshops
in 18 different areas of body,mind and soul.
You have continuous microcoaching via a private Slack

(13:49):
channel.
And then every week, I alsosend out weekly healthy meal
plans, recipes and shoppinglists, where I will also remind
you about checking in on yourgoals and habits for the week,
and then I do provide monthlyworkout plans.
That keeps everyone moving andmotivated.
I truly and honestly believethat the path includes

(14:15):
everything a person needs tobuild and sustain consistent,
high-impact habits, with theadded benefit of doing it in a
group of really awesome,like-minded Catholics.
Now, the reason I'm telling youabout all of this now in this
episode is that for the next fewweeks, I am offering a summer
sale on the Catholic Path toExcellence.

(14:36):
So normally the program is $197a month, but if you join before
July 31st, I'm offering $100off each month, so you get
access to everything for just$97.
If you are interested inlearning more about the path and

(14:58):
taking advantage of this sale,you can go to
thrivingcatholiccom forwardslash path or you can just click
the link for the show notes inthis episode.
So just a quick recap.
The weekly review is such apowerful practice.
It's something that is going tohelp you stay focused on your
goals, keep taking action, stayproductive each week and if

(15:23):
you're looking for an awesomegroup to do it with, I encourage
you to join us in the CatholicPath to Excellence.
All right, that's it for methis week.
Until next time, remember thatit is Jesus who inspires you to
do something great with yourlife, so don't let yourself be
ground down by mediocrity.

(15:43):
Bye for now.
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