Courage & Clarity Episode 174: "Calm Planning: How to Feel Ahead Without Panic"

Host: Steph Crowder | Date: January 13, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Steph Crowder explores the concept of "calm planning"—how entrepreneurs (especially women) can feel ahead and on top of their lives and businesses without succumbing to panic, rush, and overwhelm. Steph delves into reframing our relationship with time, unhooking from the chronic busyness narrative, and adopting practical, mindset-driven shifts to create a year, week, and day that feels full but never frantic.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rethinking Planning: From Panic to Calm

• Steph shares her shift from traditional, high-intensity planning to seeking a "calm" approach—not laziness, but being unrushed even while getting things done.
• She identifies a collective challenge: "We deal with a lot of feelings of panic and feeling frantic and feeling like life is just one giant hourglass where the sand is just like slipping, slipping, slipping... and you just feel like you're running around with your hair on fire." [04:23]
• Steph urges listeners to be open: challenge the story that frenzy or panic is necessary to feel productive.

2. The Story We Tell About Time

• Calm planning starts with beliefs about time:
  • "You cannot be calm if you always have your hair on fire. Period. End of sentence." [23:53]
  • Steph recognizes her own story: "My number one belief about my business and my life was I don’t have enough time. Okay? It was the most compelling story I ever told myself." [25:15]
• The turning point: Steph reframes her thinking towards abundance:
  • "My time is not my most important resource. My brilliance is." [28:52]
  • She challenges both herself and her clients: Is the real limitation time—or belief and strategy?
  • Example of "time bending": Instead of accepting a task will take two hours, ask, "What if I could do this in 20 minutes?" [30:55]

3. Full vs. Busy: Pursuing the Middle Ground

• Steph distinguishes between having a "full" life and a "busy" life:
  • "I have such a different relationship to the fullness. There’s nothing wrong with having a full life... but I don’t want to be remembered as somebody who’s so busy. Like, she’s always in a rush, like, never has time for anything." [08:25]
• She emphasizes a calm, grounded CEO archetype: "I want to get so much good work done... and I want to feel awesome while I’m doing it right. I want to expand myself... and I want to be soft while I’m doing it." [17:14]

4. The Masculine & Feminine in Productivity

• Steph frames the prevailing narratives:
  • "There is so much advice out there that is so incredibly masculine—hustle, hard work, 4:00am alarms. And then the counter narrative is all about softness, not burning out, doing less." [15:05]
  • She proposes a blend: combining ambition with softness for sustainable success.

Practical Framework: Calm Planning Across Year, Week, and Day

Calm Year

• Identify how you want to feel.
  • Journal about your future self: What themes keep arising? For Steph it's "slowness, space, and calm." [06:23]
  • Integrate these feelings now—don't wait for circumstances to change.
• Set a North Star.
  • Choose a clear, meaningful goal to work towards, versus chasing a vague "more." [43:20]
• Expect old habits to resist.
  • Steph commits to staying "boring" in her business—avoiding shiny distractions and drama. Redirect your brain like "walking a kid back to bed." [47:45]
• Strategic > Scrappy.
  • Shift from reactive (scrappy) execution to following a predetermined strategy.

Calm Week

• Use 15 Minute Planner Method.
  • Plan in broad strokes, set 3 main "needle-mover" goals each week. (Resource at stephcrowder.com/plan) [54:20]
• The Goldilocks Principle: Not too much, not too little.
  • Avoid overloading or under-filling your schedule. Adjust commitments realistically.
• Under-commit and DE-commit as needed.
  • "Just because you can doesn’t mean you should." [58:20]
• Time tracking.
  • Track your work (Steph uses Toggl) to uncover where your time truly goes. [01:00:50]
• Find weekly anchors.
  • For Steph: consistent meal planning and grocery routines, and setting gym times in advance. Choose one or two routines that reliably ground your week.

Calm Day

• Journal to start.
  • High-quality actions arise from high-quality thoughts. "What if creating high quality thoughts and beliefs is the most important thing that I do in my entire day?" [01:04:55]
• Plan your day the night before.
  • Scripting your day, not hour by hour but in sequence ("first I’ll do this, then that"), visualizes calm execution. [01:06:30]
• Theme your days.
  • Assign different work types to specific days (e.g. content on Mondays, client calls midweek). [01:09:08]
• Love on tomorrow’s version of you.
  • Make preparations to ease the next day—meals, coffee setup, etc., not just as chores but as acts of self-love. [01:12:15]
  • "When I come down the stairs and the lunch is made for my kids, I can not just have the thought, oh, good, I made the lunches. But I actually like to think, like, aw, this version of me, like, loves me so much." [01:12:30]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the value of calm as wealth:
  "I think the richest people in the world are not rushed... like, rich in relaxation, right? Rich in not feeling like you are being chased by a saber tooth tiger just because it’s the school pickup line." [07:11]

• On the ‘busy’ badge:
  "I try not to say, ‘I’m so busy.’ There’s something about it I just personally don’t want to identify with anymore... I will use the word ‘full.’" [08:01]

• On the stories we tell:
  "We say ‘I don’t have enough time’ or ‘I’m running out of time,’ like we are reporting the news." [26:53]

• On time vs brilliance:
  "It didn’t really matter if I had an hour or 10 hours if I wasn’t using my brilliance." [29:29]

• On choosing calm:
  "Frantic and panic are very normalized... but it is really optional. And I’ve just been thinking about the fact that it’s one thing to hit your goal, right? But it’s another thing to hit it in a way that you don’t hate." [13:39]

• On loving your future self:
  "Isn’t it so much cuter to think of it as, like, loving that version of you? ... this version of me loves me so much, she took the time to do that." [01:12:50]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro to "Calm Planning" Concept: 00:55–04:23
• The Feeling of Panic in Planning: 04:23–07:50
• Full vs Busy (and the CEO Model): 07:50–10:58
• Masculine vs Feminine Approach to Productivity: 15:05–18:12
• How Beliefs About Time Affect Calm: 23:53–27:38
• Steph’s Pivot: "My time is not my most important resource. My brilliance is.": 28:52–30:55
• Practical Calm Year Guidance: 37:49–47:45
• The “Boring Business” Strategy: 47:45–51:30
• Calm Week Habits & Anchors: 54:20–01:02:29
• Calm Day Structure, Journaling, Theming: 01:04:55–01:12:50

Takeaways

• The "calm plan" is not about doing less, but about feeling unrushed while remaining ambitious and effective.
• The shift begins with challenging internal narratives about time and capacity.
• Structural practices—like planning in "big 3s," decommitting, tracking time, theming days, and small acts of care for your future self—are tangible ways to create more calm.
• These mindset and strategy tweaks can help entrepreneurs step into a more sustainable, joyful version of success.

For More

DM Steph at @heystephcrowder on Instagram or reply to her email list to share your calm planning experiments.

(Summary skips intro, outro, and ad segments; focus is on core content and actionable insights.)