Knowledge is only powerful if you use it, if you act on it.
– Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year
Like many, at the start of the new year you probably have a feeling of hope. You see each new year as the beginning of a new chapter, a clean slate which is full of potential. You probably have a few goals and resolutions in mind for 2023, and you might have some business-related ones too. At the beginning of the year you have a commitment to seeing your dreams and goals come to pass.
People often have a love-hate relationship with resolutions and new year goals. Granted, resolutions can be hard to maintain, and there are often assumptions that most people will break their resolutions within the first month of the year. Starting new habits and maintaining them can be very difficult, but there’s hope, according to Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington.
Moran and Lennington wrote The 12 Week Year, a book which I found to be life-changing when it comes to goal-setting and productivity. The premise is that 52 weeks is a long time to maintain a new habit or a resolution, and although setting annual goals can be impactful, performance when taking this approach is often limited. But there is a way, a psychologically better way, and that is to envision a year as 12 weeks instead of 52, it’s more palatable and digestible.
The great thing about having a 12 Week Year is that the deadline is always near enough that you never lose sight of it. It provides a time horizon that is long enough to get things done, yet short enough to create a sense of urgency and a bias for action.
– Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year
Moran and Lennington suggest having a maximum of 3 goals for each 12 week year. They call the entire process of thinking of a year in terms of 12 years as discarding annualized thinking. The idea of doing more in 12 weeks than most people do in an entire year is definitely a draw to the book.
The fact is every week counts! Every day counts! Every moment counts! We need to be conscious of the reality that execution happens daily and weekly, not monthly or quarterly.
So whether it’s learning something new in business, making x amount of dollars, or increasing your client count, the 12 Week Year can help keep you accountable.
Why don’t you book a free 30 minute call with myCEO to learn how we can make each of your efforts count?
