Brian P. Moran

If you’re one of the 92 percent of Americans whose New Year’s resolutions fail, you might assume you have a willpower deficiency.

Not true.

The real problem is that a year is just too much time— switch to 12 weeks and you might finally reach your goal

Everybody loves the new year. It’s a bright, shiny, fresh, clean slate. A vista unblemished by mistakes or regrets. A brand new chance to make those changes and accomplish those things we’ve been meaning to do forever. Yet undermining all this glorious potential is the hidden truth we’re aware of even as we proclaim that this time we’ll really lose 20 pounds or get out of debt or finally launch that long-dreamed-of business: New Year’s resolutions are nothing more than fairy tales we grownups tell ourselves.

That’s right. If you’re like the majority of Americans, you’re not going to keep those resolutions. What’s more, you know it. What you may not know is why.

The number one enemy of most New Year’s resolutions isn’t feasibility, a lack of know-how, or even a lack of motivation, though those things can come into play. The number one enemy of most resolutions is time.

Think about it: It’s all too easy to procrastinate through January, February, March and even longer. No problem, you think. I have more than half a year left to do what I said I’d do. Even when July and August roll around, there are still enough months left in the year that you don’t feel a real sense of urgency. Next thing you know, the holidays are almost upon you. You’re still over your ideal weight, drinking too many sodas a day, working the same job, with less savings than you’d like. Too late to do anything now, you figure. I’ll try again next year.

For many people, this depressing chain of events recycles on a yearly basis because far away deadlines allow—even encourage—us to be slack on execution. Give yourself too much time and you will procrastinate. It’s just human nature.

Ultimately, effective execution happens daily and weekly and on a consistent basis. To perform at your best, you will need to get out of “annual mode” and stop thinking in terms of a 365 day year. That’s where The 12 Week Year comes in. It’s a system that works for businesses striving to meet their goals—and it will work for you, too.

When you redefine the concept of a year, your life will change. A year is no longer 12 months; it is now only 12 weeks, followed by the next 12 week year, ad infinitum. Each 12 week period stands on its own.

You no longer have the luxury of putting off critical activities, thinking there is “plenty of time” left to meet your goals. When you have only 12 weeks, each week matters, each day matters, each moment matters. And the result is profound.

Here are eight ways to get yourself out of the annualized thinking trap—and into the much-more-productive 12 week year, where resolutions do come true:

Realize that Success Is Created in the Moment. Most of us have a skewed definition of success. We see it as the end of the road: the completion of a project, the day you’re finally able to button your old pants, receive an award, etc. However, true success isn’t any of those things. It isn’t a list of all the clients you brought in over the course of a year, or the number you see when you stand on the scale on December 31. It isn’t something that happens only once at the end of a planning cycle.

Success is all of the little things you do throughout the year to make your goals happen: reaching out to X number of prospects a day or getting up on cold mornings to run when you’d rather stay in bed. You just can’t reach your full potential if you put off critical activities. Success does  not happen monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or once a year; it happens daily, ultimately moment by moment. You succeed—or not—long before the results show it. When you adopt this definition of success, you’ll want to make the most of your time, not squander it. And the 12 week year can help.

Redefine Your Relationship with Deadlines. Most of us see deadlines (December 31 featuring prominently among them) as the bad guy. They’re always looming on the horizon, overshadowing our peace of mind and hassling us to work faster, or else. They make us nervous, resentful, or both. But what would happen if we thought of deadlines as good guys instead?

Deadlines aren’t sinister in and of themselves—we only feel that way about them when we aren’t on track to meet them or when they’re unreasonable. But realistic deadlines are actually great motivators. They are tools that can help you hone your focus, increase your efficiency and realize your full potential. When you think about deadlines this way, it makes sense to have more of them, not less! They can help you to create end-of-year energy, focus and commitment throughout the year.

Put a Little Less Faith in Your Yearly Planner. In other words, be realistic about your ability to plan ahead. Life—including what we want out of it—can (and often does) change in an instant. What you thought you wanted for yourself in January might not be what makes the most sense by the time July, October or December rolls around. Your circumstances and abilities may have changed.

The truth is, even the most thoroughly thought-out annual plans are based on assumptions that are stacked upon earlier assumptions, which are stacked on even earlier assumptions—and a lot can (and often does) change from start to finish.

Once you realize that there’s just not enough predictability to make annualized planning effective, the 12 week year begins to make a lot more sense. Personally and professionally, 12 weeks is about as far out as you can reliably plan. There’s a much stronger connection between the actions you take today and the results you want to achieve, because you don’t have to take as much of the future on faith. Who wants to waste time going partway down a certain path, only to realize that you were mistaken and should have taken a different turn?

Keep Score Starting January 1. It’s relatively easy to ignore or rationalize procrastination and low productivity when you have to look at the numbers only once a year. However, when you start measuring your productivity, progress and performance on a more frequent basis, you can’t hide behind the illusion that the present moment isn’t important. Measurement drives the execution process because it creates productive tension, or the uncomfortable feeling you get when you know you’re not doing the things you need to do.

As the CEO of your own life, you need to have the courage to measure your performance in the areas that matter. That’s much easier when your goals and tasks are broken down into 12 week increments. Effective scorekeeping prevents you from rationalizing lackluster results and forces you to confront the reality of your situation, even when it’s uncomfortable. While this can be difficult, the sooner you confront reality, the sooner you can shift your actions toward producing more desirable results.

Be Honest About Your Track Record. How many promises and commitments have you welshed on in the last 12 months? Probably more than you’d like to admit to. The fact is, at the beginning of the year, it’s all too easy to make promises and commitments. “Sure, honey, we can remodel the kitchen this year.” “Of course our department will reduce its operating costs by 15 percent this year.”

Frequently, though, we fall short of our personal and professional commitments because we encounter unforeseen obstacles, our priorities change, or our interest waves over the course of 12 months.

If you don’t want to be seen as someone who breaks commitments, drops the ball, and flakes, it makes sense to ditch annualized thinking. It’s much easier to say you’re going to do something—and then do it—within a 12 week time frame. As I have already pointed out, you can more accurately plan ahead, so you’ll make fewer mistakes, save time, and remain more focused. With these working habits, your results are not left up to chance. They are high in quality and they are consistent.

Stop Saying Have To and Start Saying Choose To. As you pursue a long term goal, it’s all too easy for your daily tactics to turn into daily have-tos. “I have to go to the gym.” “I have to spend an extra half-hour working on this project for my boss.” “I have to use that money to pay down my credit card, even if it means skipping a night out with my friends.” That’s a problem, because have-tos quickly turn into things we loathe—and if you loathe the things you need to do to accomplish a goal, you’re less likely to reach the finish line.

There are no have-tos in life. Everything we do in life is a choice. And when you look at tactics as choose-tos, you’ll notice a big change in your attitude and motivation. Instead of feeling burdened and put-upon, you’ll feel empowered. Admit it: Saying “I choose to attend night classes so I can rise in my field” feels a lot better than saying “I have to attend night classes so I won’t be stuck in this job forever.”

Be Proactive, Not Reactive. Sure, modern life is hectic, and it’s easy to feel like there just aren’t enough minutes in the day to get everything done. But the truth is most of us don’t make the most of our time because we engage each day reactively instead of proactively. We are driven by input triggers—the phone rings, the e-mail dings, a new task appears, someone knocks on the door, and off you go to solve the problem du jour. When you live reactively, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to stay focused on high-value activities.

Even though annualized thinking gives us lots of time in which to procrastinate, we still feel overwhelmed because we use the “extra” time on things that are low-value. That’s why 12 week planning is so beneficial. With an action-based plan, you don’t have to rely on input triggers to initiate your actions; instead, your plan triggers your actions. You can live with clear intention, organizing your life around your priorities and consciously choosing activities that align with your goals and vision.

I’ll warn you: Making the reactive-to-proactive switch won’t be easy. You’ll have to become more comfortable with saying no, and you’ll have to crack down on procrastination. But in the end, you’ll get more of the right things done each day, and ultimately reach your goals faster and with greater impact.

Celebrate Your 12 Week Wins. Com­panies often throw end-of-year parties and receptions to celebrate growth, acknowledge outstanding achievements, bestow awards and bonuses, etc. On a personal level, you may promise yourself a reward if you keep your New Year’s resolutions. It’s very gratifying to be recognized for achieved goals. And, the promise of celebration—especially when you allow yourself to celebrate at the end of each 12 week period—gives us something to look forward to, motivating us to keep our noses to the grindstone when the going gets tough.

Especially for goal-driven people, it’s tempting to always look at what lies ahead and not fully appreciate the ground that has already been covered. The 12 week year presents, at a minimum, four times as many opportunities to recognize and celebrate your progress and accomplishments. It might be a three-day weekend or a week-long vacation; the important thing is that you take time out to reflect, regroup and reenergize.

One more great thing about switching to a 12 week year: Because there’s a built-in reset every few months, you can switch gears when you realize something isn’t going to work.

We all know how demoralizing it is to realize that a year-end goal is just not going to happen. By July, it’s already clear that you’re not going to be able to sock away as much into your retirement account as you wanted to. Or in September, you have to admit that you’re not going to be able to lose the 30 pounds you pegged for your resolution. And because annualized thinking is so ingrained in your worldview, you automatically assume that you’ll just have to wait months to try again.

It’s not uncommon for individuals and even entire organizations to have mentally given up on their goals before October. With the 12 week year, that will never happen again. Every 12 weeks you get a fresh start—a new year!

So if you’ve had a tough 12 week year, you can just shake it off, regroup and start again. If you’ve had a strong 12 week year, you can build on that momentum. Either way, you can more quickly transition into something new instead of spending weeks or months waiting for a chance to start fresh.

Everything you want to accomplish in life requires an investment of your time. Thus, when you want to improve your results, you must consider the fact that your supply of time is limited.

Even in this era of innovation and technological advancement, time—more than any other resource—is the limiting factor. Let’s face it, everything requires time. It is the one truly universal condition. Even more vexing is the fact that the supply of time is completely inelastic. No matter the magnitude of demand, the supply is fixed. Moreover, it’s perishable. And yet time is perhaps the most squandered of all personal resources.

To become great, you must choose to allocate your time to your greatest opportunities. You will have to choose to spend time on the difficult things that create your biggest payoffs. To be great you will need to live with intention. This will require you to be clear on what matters most, and then to have the courage to say no to things that distract you. You will need to guard your time intensely, delegating or eliminating everything possible that is not one of your strengths or does not help you advance your goals.

To be your best, you must intentionally align your time and activities with your strengths and your unique capabilities. When you do, you will also experience a new and ever-increasing level of performance and satisfaction. To achieve this level of performance will require that you carve out time for the strategic—those actions that are important, but not necessarily urgent.

Strategic activities don’t typically have an immediate payback, yet they create substantial returns in the future. To stay focused on your strengths, you will need to manage your interruptions and keep the low-payoff activities to a minimum.

In spite of the priceless value of time, many people engage each day on its own terms. In other words, they satisfy the various demands of the day as they are presented; spending whatever time is needed to respond without giving much thought as to the relative value of the activity. This is a reactive approach in which the day is controlling you, thus preventing you from performing at your best.

Time Blocking

The key to successful time use—intentional time use—is not trying to eliminate these unplanned interruptions, but instead to block out regular time each week dedicated to the strategically important tasks. We call this performance time and find that it is the best approach to effectively allocating time that we have ever encountered.

Performance time is an easy-to-use system that allows you to operate like the CEO of your business and life by spending your most valuable asset­—your time—with intention. It utilizes a simple time-blocking system to regain control of your day and maximize your effectiveness.

There are three primary components of performance time: strategic blocks, buffer blocks and breakout blocks.

Strategic Blocks: A three-hour block of uninterrupted time that is scheduled in advance. During these blocks you accept no phone calls, no faxes, no emails, no visitors—no mental interruptions. You focus all your energies on the preplanned items—the strategic and money-making activities. Doing so concentrates your intellect and creativity and produces breakthrough results. You will be astounded by the quantity and quality of the work you produce. For most people, one strategic block per week is sufficient.

Buffer Blocks: Time to deal with all of the unplanned and low-value activities—such as most email and voicemail—that arise throughout a typical day. Almost nothing is more unproductive and frustrating than dealing with constant interruptions, yet we’ve all had days when unplanned items dominated our time.

A buffer block allows you to take what would otherwise be inefficient activity and make it more productive by grouping it together. In this way you can handle each item expeditiously and move through the list with some momentum. This allows you to stay focused throughout the day on the important activities.

For some, one 30-minute buffer block a day is sufficient, while for others, two separate one-hour blocks may be necessary. The power of buffer blocks comes from grouping together activities that tend to be unproductive so that you can increase your efficiency in dealing with them and take greater control over the rest of your day.

Breakout Blocks: One of the key factors contributing to performance plateaus is the absence of free time. So often, entrepreneurs and professionals get caught up in working longer and harder. This approach is an energy and enthusiasm killer. To achieve greater results, what’s necessary is not more hours. On the contrary, often it is more free time.

A breakout block is a minimum three-hour block of scheduled time that is devoid of any work-related activities and thoughts. It is time set aside to rejuvenate and replenish. Use this time for fun. Enjoy the hobbies in your life. Spend time with family and friends. Play golf. Go shopping. Get some exercise. Go fishing or sailing…whatever you like to do that is not work-related. You need this time to rebuild your reserves and to open yourself up to fresh ideas and perspectives.

Benjamin Franklin said, “If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.”

Everything that we achieve in life happens in the context of time. The reality is that if you are not purposeful about how you spend your time, then you leave your results to chance. While it’s true that we control our actions and not our outcomes, our results are created by our actions. It stands to reason that the actions that we choose to take throughout our day ultimately determine our destiny.

To realize your potential, you must learn to be more mindful about how you spend your time. Living with clear intention goes against the powerful natural tendency to be reactive because it requires you to organize your life around your priorities and consciously choose those activities that align with your goals and vision. When you use your time intentionally, you waste less of it and spend more of it on your high-value actions. Intentionality is your secret weapon in your war on mediocrity.

The key to successful time use is not necessarily in eliminating unplanned interruptions but in regularly blocking out time for the important activities. Just gaining control over a few hours each week often has a dramatic effect. Learn to use your time with greater intention and you will not only be more effective, you will also feel a greater sense of control, less stress and increased confidence. Try time blocking—it works!

In an effort to improve, most companies and individuals will search for new ideas and strategies. They will seek out new marketing techniques, sales ideas, cost-cutting measures and customer service enhancements, hoping that these approaches will deliver better results.

The number one factor holding back individuals and entire companies from achieving what they are truly capable of is not a lack of knowledge, intellect or information. It’s not some new strategy or idea. It’s not additional training. It’s not a larger network of “connected” people. It’s not hard work, natural talent or luck. Of course all these things help, they all play a part, but they are not the things that make the difference.

You’ve no doubt heard the saying that knowledge is power. Knowledge is only powerful if you use it—if you act on it. It benefits no one unless the person acquiring the knowledge does something with it. Great ideas are worthless unless they are implemented. The marketplace rewards only those ideas that are implemented. You can be smart, you can have access to lots of information and great ideas, you can be well-connected, work hard and have lots of natural talent—but in the end, you have to execute.

Execution is the single greatest market differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than their competition.

The barrier standing between you and the life you are capable of living is a lack of consistent execution. Effective execution will set you free. It is the path to accomplishing the things you desire.

The 12-Week Year

The annual planning process is one of the things that gets in the way of individuals and organizations effectively executing and achieving their best. As strange as this is going to sound, annual goals and plans are often a barrier to high performance.

This doesn’t mean annual goals and plans don’t have a positive impact—they do. There is no question you will do better with annual goals and plans than without them. However, this annual process inherently limits performance.

The trap is referred to as “annualized thinking.” At the heart of annualized thinking is an unspoken belief that there is plenty of time in the year to make things happen. December looks a long way off in January. We mistakenly believe that there is plenty of time in the year, and we act accordingly. We lack a sense of urgency, not realizing that every week is important, every day is important, every moment is important. Ultimately, effective execution happens daily and weekly!

Forget about a year, let’s redefine it: A year is no longer 12 months, it is now only 12 weeks. That’s right, a year is now a 12-week period. There are no longer four periods in a year; that’s old thinking. How there is just a 12-week year, followed by the next 12-week year, ad infinitum. Each 12-week period stands on its own—it is your year.

The 12-week year creates a new end game date—the point at which you assess your success (or lack thereof). It narrows your focus to the week and, more to the point, the day—which is where execution occurs. The 12-week year brings that reality front and center. When you set your goals in the context of a 12-week year, you no longer have the luxury of putting off the critical activities, thinking to yourself that there is “plenty of time” left in the year. Once 12 weeks becomes your year, then each week matters, each day matters, each moment matters.

The result is profound. Most people experience about a 30 percent improvement in their first 12 weeks when operating on the 12-week year platform. Here are three steps to help you achieve more in the next 12 weeks than most will in 12 months:

 1. Set a 12-week goal. Annual goals are helpful, but they lack immediacy and urgency. Twelve-week goals create focus and urgency.

 Get focused on what you want to make happen over the next 12 weeks. The goal should be an outcome—income, sales production, dollars saved, pounds lost—and represent significant progress toward your longer term vision. Limit your goals to a maximum of three, and make certain each goal is specific and measurable.

 2. Build a 12-week plan. Twelve week planning is so much more effective than traditional planning because it is more predictable and focused. The key here is less is more. A 12-week plan embraces the notion of “let’s be great at a few things versus mediocre at many.”

 For each goal, you will need to identify tactics. Tactics are the daily and weekly actions that drive the accomplishment of the goal. If the goal is the “where,” then the tactics are the “how.” Here again less is more. Keep it focused on the critical few. Identify the four or five actions that you need to take daily and weekly to accomplish your goal. Those are your tactics.

 3. Apply a weekly routine. Having a goal and a plan is helpful, but it’s not enough. The key to your success is executing your plan. To ensure you execute at a high level, adopt a weekly routine. If you do the following three things on a weekly basis you can’t help but get better:

 • Plan your week. Take a few minutes at the beginning of each week to plan your week. Use your 12-week plan to identify the tactics that are due this particular week. The weekly plan is not a glorified to-do list; rather, it reflects the critical strategic activity that needs to take place this week in order to achieve your 12-week goals.

 • Score your week. At the end of each week you will want to score your execution. In the end you have greater control over your actions than you do your outcomes. The most effective lead indicator you have is a measure of your execution. You are scoring your execution, not your results. Calculate a weekly execution score by dividing the number of tactics completed by the number due.

 • Meet with a peer group. Did you know that you are seven times more likely to be successful if you meet regularly with a group of your peers? Find two or three other people who are committed and willing to meet for 15 or 20 minutes each week. In your meeting, report on how you’re progressing with your goals and how well you’re executing. Encourage and challenge one another.

That’s it, three simple steps! Plan your week, score your week, meet with a group of peers. How easy is that? Do them and you will improve—guaranteed.

Here’s the catch: The steps are easy to do, but even easier not to do. So make a commitment to engage with them for the next 12 weeks and watch what happens.