The idea of 12 weeks equaling a year is a radical idea in goal setting. Using this formula, fast achievement is the name of this game. Taking all your energy and focusing it on a small number of items will make them become a reality sooner.
Hey welcome back as we move through the goal setting process by looking at the 12 week year. This process has been packaged in a number of different ways over the years such as 120 or 90 day challenge or 3 month year. The commonality is the short time and clear focus. When you’re time frame gets this short the planning gets down to this level of day to day planning.
Sir William Osler founder of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said his key to success was to live in “Day-tight compartments” His reasoning was that you can plan for the future but you must act today. So to be truly effective your day to day action must align with your long-term goals and strategies.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Are you ready? You have no control over whether your goals come true. Are you shocked? I have been going on for weeks now about setting goals and acting on them and then I say they may not happen. What gives?
Well hold on a minute, let me explain. You have a lot more control over your actions than you do over the results. You can write the paper but it doesn’t mean you will get an ‘A’ or you can practice your sales presentation till you can give it backwards and forwards but it doesn’t mean that every client will buy.
Results are not actions but unless you have actions there are no results. Barr-ism Number 4
That’s why we broke down our goals into actions and these actions will move us to the goals we want. It also gives us a chance to rethink our approach, adjust as needed and get back to action. Action is the key to goal achievement. Action takes the goal off the paper and makes it real.
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
So how does this work with 12 week goals? If you take 12 weeks and each equals a month and a day equal a week. For this to work, you will need to be VERY focused on the goals you want to achieve. If one of our goals is to study and pass a test this year that will move us forward in your career, we need to break the study down into what and when we will be working on this goal. Let’s say that you can divide the study down into 10 equal sections. This gives you 10 weeks of study and 2 weeks for review. Now what chapters are you going to read each week and what questions are you going to answer to make sure you know the material. Do you need to create queue cards to memorize specific definitions or concepts? When will you do this and for how long? Do you have time in the evening or are you going to wake up a couple hours early to study? When do you have time in your day where you can review your notes?
Make a weekly plan, schedule the time into your daytimer and stick to it. Review it daily and adjust if necessary. Don’t let the tasks of one week bleed into another week. If you do you will soon be over whelmed and discouraged.
I’d like to leave you with 2 quotes, one about success and one about failure.
Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t. – Jerry Rice
Failure is an event not a person – Zig Ziglar
Hope you are having a great week and have picked up the challenge to move in the direction of your goals
Chat Soon
Percy