📖 The 12 Week Year By Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington

Topic: Goal Setting | Medium: Kindle | Rating: 5/5

How often do we set big goals at the start of the year and never complete them? Thinking we have plenty of time creates a lack of urgency. The concept of this book narrows our focus to one 12-week block at a time creating urgency, and feeling closer to our short terms goals (whilst still aligned with our longer-term vision).

This concept also known as periodisation has been long used in sports. A focused training regimen that concentrates on one skill at a time for a limited period maximises the capacity of each skill before moving to the next.

Three keynotes

1. Create a compelling vision greater than the discomfort 🤩

"The secret to living your life to its potential is to value the important stuff above your own comfort. Therefore, the critical first step to executing well is creating and maintaining a compelling vision of the future that you want even more than you desire your own short-term comfort, and then aligning your shorter term goals and plans, with that long-term vision."

"Without a compelling vision, you will discover there is no reason to go through the pain of change."

2. Weekly scorecard ✅

• Spend the first 15 or 20 minutes at the beginning of each week to review your progress from the past week and plan the upcoming one. In addition, the first five minutes of each day should be spent reviewing your weekly plan to plan that day’s activities.
• Have a combination of complementary lead and lag indicators.
• Score yourself on the percentage of activities you complete each week.
• Complete 85 percent of the activities in your weekly plan to achieve excellence!
• Use three-hours breakout blocks for productivity.

3. Take pride in your actions over your results 🏆

“The greatest predictor of your future are your daily actions.”

"Consistent action on the critical tasks needed to reach your goal is the key to getting what you want in life."

"Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success."

"Results are not the attainment of greatness, but simply confirmation of it. You become great long before the results show it. It happens in an instant, the moment you choose to do the things you need to do to be great."

"What makes a champion is the discipline to do the extra things even when—especially when—you don’t feel like it."

"Life balance is not about equal time in each area; life balance is more about intentional imbalance."

"In reality, it is the focused and concentrated application of your strengths that will produce your greatest achievements. Successful individuals work to their strengths. Truly outstanding performers have gone a step further and work to what we call their unique capability. Unique capabilities are one or two things you do absolutely the best. They also tend to be the things that you enjoy doing. Whether you know it or not, your unique capabilities are responsible for your greatest successes and joys throughout your life."

"In spite of the perceived benefits, people with a victim mind-set pay a terrific price. A victim allows his success to be limited by external circumstances, people, or events. As long as we continue to be victims of our circumstances, we will experience life as a struggle and others as a threat."

"When we acknowledge our accountability, our focus shifts from defending our actions to learning from them. Failures simply become feedback in the ongoing process of becoming excellent."