Plan For Progress Instead Of Perfection

With The Commitment Blueprint

Get the 100+ page program guide + workbook,
plus The Leadership Dashboard for Notion & note-taking apps

Most plans fail or get forgotten.

One week we’re diligently working the system. And the next, we’re overwhelmed and drifting aimlessly.

Sometimes it’s because we overestimate what we can (or should) accomplish. Sometimes we choose goals that just aren’t that meaningful to us. Sometimes life throws us a curveball (or 12).

It seems like if we don’t “stick to the plan,” all is lost.

But planning, goal-setting, and even implementation don’t have to be an all or nothing proposition.

Instead, planning can be a learning process. A practice. A commitment to progress over perfection.

The Commitment Blueprint is a game-changing system for giving your goals & plans structure—without being rigid. 

You will reorient your life & business, shift your mindset, plan for the future, and focus on what matters most with your day-to-day work.

    Hi, I’m Tara McMullin.

    I created The Commitment Blueprint because I was tired of losing track of my plans…

    …and beating myself up about it.

    Despite being an avid goal-setter, plan-maker, and prolific creator, I was stuck.

    I kept going after other people’s goals and following other people’s dreams.

    I couldn’t keep up with the rigid project management system I was using. Well, actually, I didn’t want to keep up with it.

    And I kept losing track of important projects and chalking it up to a change of priorities.

    Instead of searching for yet another planning or goal-setting system, I realized that I needed to build a framework from the ground up—something that could bend and flex as things changed and I gathered new information. I needed a choice about the work I was doing every day and I needed an easy way to keep track of it all.

      The Commitment Blueprint approaches goal-setting, planning, and execution differently.

      No goal-setting

      We don’t start planning by setting goals. Instead, we set commitments. Your commitments are the compass you use to make decisions, change behavior, and focus on what matters. They might lead to goals—or they might not.

      Life & business work together

      Once you’ve set your commitments to guide you personally, you’ll use them to set strategic priorities to guide your business. Instead of having life and business at odds, your life and business are moving in the same direction.

      Integrates long-term, mid-term, and short-term views

      Instead of keeping big picture goals and day-to-day work separate, The Commitment Blueprint helps you keep your eye on what’s happening today, what’s happening soon, and what you’re building towards in the future.

      Resets unhelpful mindset & behavior patterns

      A big reason that plans fail or get forgotten is that they’re based on an uninformed perspective of how we work. We all have blindspots. We all have patterns of self-sabotage. We all act in ways that disrupt our ability to create what we most want to create. The Commitment Blueprint is designed to help you unearth those patterns, notice how they impact our work, and gently shift them.

      Not rigid

      Most of us have schedules that can change, mental health that wavers, or outside influences on our capacity that impact how much we can get done. The Commitment Blueprint celebrates progress—not perfection—and outcomes are icing on the cake, not a reward to be won. That means that this planning system is inherently flexible and can be adapted no matter what life throws at you.

      Gets real about our overcommitment (and undercommitment)

      We’re a chronically overcommitted society. And that means we frequently undercommit our time, energy, and mental bandwidth to the things that are truly important to us. The Commitment Blueprint will help you sift through your preexisting commitments and build a plan around them.

      The Commitment Blueprint is designed to reset our cultural conditioning to constantly strive for more while creating a structure for focusing on what’s most important to you.

      As an Enneagram 3, I’ve really struggled with goal-setting in the past because I’m so naturally achievement-focused that if I set a goal, I’m gonna ACHIEVE that goal… no matter what. Even if it’s the WRONG goal. Even if my physical and mental health deteriorated because of it. So, I have to be really careful about how I approach goals (and even viewing them as goals in the first place).

      The Commitment Blueprint allowed me to figure out a way to separate the achievements themselves from what I actually wanted to commit to — what I really wanted to focus on in a way that feels flexible (so if the target needs to move or I take my life or business in a different direction, that’s ok).

      It also helped me really recognized everything that sucks up my time and my bandwidth. The view that we put in the commitments we’ve already made before we look at planning for the future has helped me manage my capacity, incorporate more rest in my life and have a real understanding of how much time projects really take.
      Susan Boles

      Founder, ScaleSpark

      The Commitment Blueprint is perfect for you if…

      We created The Commitment Blueprint for small business owners like you. You’re looking to change up how you set goals, plan for the future, and execute tasks so you can celebrate progress over perfection and adapt your planning in an unpredictable world.

      Maybe:

      • Setting goals or making plans for yourself or your business seems impossible right now—or maybe goals and plans never really seemed to work for you
      • Overachieving has been your lifelong M.O. and you’re ready for a more holistic approach to planning & goal-setting
      • Predicting your capacity—your time, energy, mental or emotional wellness—is a challenge
      • Trying to stick to rigid planning or task management systems makes you feel more stuck—not less
      • Rebelling against systems that eliminate your agency is your modus operandi but you’d love a little more structure to work with
      • Having a choice about the work you do, the way you spend your time, and the projects you move forward is an important part of how you thrive

      “Can’t say enough about this program. It was a mini private retreat for me to work on ME + MY business–and make some big aha moments. For me, it’s not just about goals, and don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with goals, I’m an ace at goal-setting and strategizing BUT this workshop series went deep for me and into the things that are less talked about–the underlying reasons that will keep me COMMITTED to my decisions–even when the storm comes.”

      Audrey Kwan

      Systems Strategist

      OMG, this whole process is waking me up to letting go of work that’s been paying the bills but isn’t taking me to my vision. SO helpful to be in this program and think so clearly over the week. WOWZERS!

      Susan B.

      Sooooo much to dive into after this! Thank you so much!

      Yvonne M.

      This equation feels so freeing to me for some reason. I like the mindset of exploring and data collecting, not the binary of good/bad, in/out of the other metrics.

      Melissa

      Thank you for this great program. I’ve got a lot to process and implement!

      Cynthia M.

      So wonderful! Thank you all. I feel like I can get my business out of the pandemic slump in a re-energized way.

      Cheryl R.

      Going to staycation and pull away from social media for July. Thank you, Tara, for helping me presence my need for more downtime and pare down my business activities to focus on the key things.

      Beth B.

      Use The Commitment Blueprint Every Day

      The Leadership Dashboard takes the commitments, projects, and plans you create with The Commitment Blueprint and helps you manage them every day.

      You’ll balance long-term, mid-term, and short-term planning for your business all in one place. Plus, you can track your daily & weekly tasks, park ideas you want to save for the future, and track the metrics that matter to you.

      The Leadership Dashboard is completely customizable. So start with our template and then make it yours!

      The Leadership Dashboard is both available as a done-for-you template in Notion, as well as a PDF you can print or use in note-taking apps.

      One of the conundrums I’ve spent years working on in my business and leadership is finding the right tools to bridge between my huge, shiny, future vision and the small day-to-day tasks and steps that build towards that vision. Whiteboards, five or six different kinds of planners, online calendars and tools… I’ve used so many tools over the years, and sometimes they kind of work, but usually not for that long (hey, look, I’m a big picture thinker, and pretty rebellious to boot! ).

      I started playing around with the Leadership Dashboard some months ago, and finally found a planning tool that clicked! I’m able to see the larger picture and goals for my company in one place, and also to plot my weekly schedule in the same place, and have enough flexibility built in to keep going with it. I’m leading my team with more focus as a result.

      Kate Strathmann

      Founder & Director, Wanderwell

      You create your own blueprint.

      The Commitment Blueprint is an unconventional approach to goal-setting, planning, and execution. It’s a system you can use to create your own blueprint for the way you want to grow as a leader and grow your business.

      You’ll find plenty of guidance and direction for rethinking the way you plan and set goals and the system is designed for you to make it your own.

      Here’s what you get when you purchase The Commitment Blueprint:

      • The 100+ page program guide and workbook that guides you through the system with exercises so you’re goal-setting & planning as you go
      • The Leadership Dashboard 2.0 for Notion, a done-for-you template you can use to make The Commitment Blueprint part of your daily work-life
      • The Leadership Dashboard as a PDF workbook you can print or use in note-taking software such as Goodnotes or Notability

      The Commitment Blueprint system is normally $125 USD. But, for a limited time, we’re offering a Fast Action price of $75. 

       

      Sneak Peek: Read The Preface 

      I’ve had a reputation for “having it all together” my whole life. My family, my teachers, my coaches, my bosses—they always assumed I could be counted on to take the lead or have the answer.

      And most of the time? They weren’t wrong.

      I’m proud of this reputation. And, this reputation belies the struggle I’ve felt to keep it all together when things get tough.

      Taking the lead, learning new skills, coming up with the answer, finding a solution—these all come easily to me. My challenge is in how I keep it organized and prioritized in order to do anything of consequence with my leadership, skills, or solutions.

      I’m constantly wavering between the certainty that I have the ability to excel at any task in front of me and the doubt that I’ll be able to follow through.

      Last year, I was talking about an idea for how to take an event we run to a new level. I laid it all out. It sounded wonderful—and totally within our capability of executing. But, I was hesitant. My community manager asked me why I wasn’t ready to commit.

      I told her that I just wasn’t sure that I could do it the way I was envisioning. It felt easier to keep it small and within the realm of what we’ve already done than to go big and risk it falling short of expectations. I’ve often found the distance between what I can imagine and what I can execute to be daunting.

      Over time, I’ve learned that this is not an uncommon struggle. You may very well experience something similar. And if you don’t, you have your own struggles and challenges when it comes to turning your ideas into reality.

      For most of my life, I interpreted my struggle as a personal failing. I had been gifted talent and brains but lacked the organizational aptitude and stick-to-itiveness to do anything with it. I was broken.

      When I started my first business, I overcame this problem in the only way I knew how; I ignored it. I keep my ambition in check and relied on my personal abilities to see me through.

      But as my business grew—and with it, my ambition—I started to lose control. I tried all of the project management tools and organizational systems that promised to help keep things organized. I spent more than a hundred thousand dollars hiring people to create systems and keep me in check.

      And none of it worked. Worse, it reinforced what I already knew about myself. I was broken. Deficient. Incapable of making the impact I wanted to make and achieving the idea of success I craved.

      Throughout this time, I was discounting one of my greatest strengths. I’m actually a system creator.

      Now, I know that probably sounds pretty odd considering everything you’ve read thus far describing my lack of organization or ability to conform to systems. But that’s just the thing! I’m not good at organizing work the way you’re “supposed to” or sticking to systems that have been designed to tell you what to do or being managed by others.

      But what I’m really good at is thinking in and creating systems.

      I’m a sense-maker. A world-builder. A system-creator.

      I didn’t need to conform to someone else’s system for making sense of my work or keeping track of the things that needed to be done. I needed to create my own.

      In the time since I started building this system, I discovered that I’m autistic. I’ve always sensed that I experienced the world differently than others but now I have a way of making sense of those differences. I share this with you not because the lessons you’ll read on the following pages are specifically for autistic people or even neurodivergent people.

      I know enough about neurodivergence to know that I know nothing about neurodivergence in any way that makes me qualified to do that!

      My hope is that, by sharing a bit about my neurology, you can embrace whatever differences you experience in how you approach planning, organizing, and executing your work.

      The Commitment Blueprint isn’t a system you need to follow to the letter. Instead, it’s a way of thinking about goals, planning, and execution that invites difference instead of suppressing it.

      I’ve built a whole business around inviting business owners to find “what works” for them. And with The Commitment Blueprint, I invite you to do the same.

      Experiment with the system. Adapt it. Add to it. Subtract from it. Use it as a jumping-off point to find your own blueprint for turning your ideas into reality and growing into the leader you really want to be.