By Ada, your belt-obsessed friend who plans best right after a passionfruit mazcalito in La Paz

Every year around this time, right after I get back from my short but mighty recharge trip in La Paz where my family and I celebrate Thanksgiving, something magical happens. I come home refreshed, inspired, and feeling like the version of myself that actually believes anything is possible.

And before the holiday chaos fully takes over (I swear it starts earlier every year), I grab this tiny window of time to think. I pretend not to see the Christmas madness until after my birthday on December 7. That is when my brain gently agrees to function again. That is also when I sit down as the visionary of ADA, with my warm drink and my thoughts, and start looking at the year we just lived through and the year I want to create next.

And now that I am fully embracing my new best friend ChatGPT and all the powerful questions it throws at me, planning has somehow become easier and almost enjoyable. After I finish my own thinking, I bring everything to the team, and we build the full vision together. The goal is always the same. I want us to look back at 2026 and feel genuinely proud of what we accomplished as a company and as individual women. I want happy tears. I want champagne. I want that feeling of “Wow, look at what we did.”

Since I have been doing this ritual for years, and because I have also messed it up more times than I’d like to admit, I want to share the lessons that truly make a plan powerful. And of course I will also share the mistakes that make a plan fall flat by February.

Let’s talk about what actually works.

1. You can build the most organized plan in the world. You can color code it, categorize it, file it, and create beautiful charts. None of that matters if your plan doesn’t include how you actually want to feel.

I used to skip this part, and every time I did, everything unraveled.

So ask yourself this.
How do you want to feel when you walk into your boutique every morning?
How do you want to show up for your team and your customers?
Do you want to feel energized, creative, and full?
Or overwhelmed, irritated, and hiding in the stock room?

Write it down. Make it real. If you do not set the emotional tone for the year, the year will set one for you, and we both know it will not choose the one you want. Oh, and how don't you want to feel and how to avoid it?

2. Every business mentor I admire says the same thing. Choose your three big goals for the year. Not ten. Not the twenty ideas swirling in your mind. Three.

These are the goals that will move your business forward in a meaningful way. They are the ones who will make you proud when you look back next December. Everything else is extra. Pebbles, sand, glitter, whatever metaphor you prefer. But the rocks go first.

For boutique owners, these rocks might look like:

• Increasing average order value through intentional accessorizing
• Unleveling the styling and in store experience
• Revisiting your buying strategy so your racks feel fuller in the right places and emptier in the wrong ones
• Creating a window display plan that stops traffic
• Building a customer loyalty ritual that keeps women coming back

Whatever your rocks are, choose them clearly and commit to them.

3. This past year taught me something important. It was not the economy that was hurting us. It was how slowly we responded to it.

Everyone kept saying things like “Meta ads are impossible right now,” or “No one is shopping,” or “Traffic is slow everywhere.”

That may be true, but you still get to choose how you show up.

My team and I went into problem-solving mode. We found a playbook by Alex Hormozi, studied it, and rebuilt our entire approach. And it worked.

The same thing applies to you. If traffic is low, you do not freeze. You get creative. You try something new. You refresh your mannequins. You play with color. You show women how to rewear what they already own. You jump on a call with me if you need ideas.

Two months ago, a boutique owner told me she was close to shutting her doors. After our call, she texted me saying she had a completely new spark. Her business picked up immediately because she shifted her energy and her approach. Sometimes that is all it takes.

Being proactive is the entrepreneur’s superpower. Do not forget that.

(We were in the water when someone yelled "shark!" and we all swam to shore as fast as we could and grabbed our cameras to film them up close and personal. yikes!)

4. I know this seems obvious, but the number of people who still do not use it blows my mind.

My ChatGPT, whom I lovingly named AIme, knows everything about my business. She has every book, every training, every PDF, every idea, every process, and she helps me think through all of it. She even helps me create styling images with outfits and belts. She organizes my thoughts better than I do.

If you are not using ChatGPT yet, I am begging you to start. It is the business partner you didn’t know you needed.:-) 

5. A plan is only useful if you bring it back into your weekly rhythm.

For me, our weekly team meetings are where the magic happens. Asana is open. Our projects are open. The plan is in front of us. We look at what moved, what didn’t, what needs to shift, and who owns what.

There are endless productivity tools out there, but Asana works for me. And it is much more reliable than the “hard drive brain” I carry around that overheats whenever too many things are happening at once.

📝 Final Thoughts...

Your boutique is an extension of your creativity, your intuition, and your desire to make women feel beautiful.

Planning for 2026 is not about being perfect. It is about being intentional. Think about how you want to lead, how you want to feel, and what you want your business to represent.

And if you want help shaping your 2026 plan, I am here. Truly. This is one of my favorite things to do with boutique owners.

Let’s make 2026 the year you feel energized, confident, creative, and proud. A year with breakthroughs instead of burnout. A year where your boutique feels alive.

You are closer than you think.