The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months

by Brian P. Moran

A good plan starts with a good goal. If your goal is not specific or measureable, the plan that you write will also be vague. The more specific and measureable your 12 week goals, the easier it will be to write a solid 12 week plan.

Tactics for the weight goal are specific actions you must take to achieve your desired weight. If you are working to lose weight, your tactics might include limit calorie intake to 1,200 per day and do 20 minutes of cardio three times per week. Note that these tactics start with a verb, and are complete sentences. The way that you write your goals and tactics matters.

Deciding where you are going is the first step to getting there. Effective planning absolutely begins with a well-written, specific, and measureable 12 week goal—a goal that you own, that, if you hit it, creates meaningful benefits for you—a goal that makes a difference.

Keep in mind that at its most basic level, planning is just problem solving. Your plan solves the problem of how to close the gap between your results today and your 12 week goal.

Without a well-written plan, you are setting yourself up for poor execution. The way you think about planning itself is going to affect the quality of your plan and your success with the 12 week year overall.

You can’t act on the objectives or goals that make up a typical 12 month plan, but you can execute the actions that make up a 12 week plan.

Team Application As a team leader, having your team engaged with the 12 Week Year can be transformational. Imagine if everyone on your team fully owned their aspirational visions and their 12 week goals. What would be different for you if your team was consistently executing on their highest value activities week in and week out?

Do they own the goal or are they just interested in it? Is the goal realistic and still a stretch for them? Do they believe that they can reach their goal? Make appropriate suggestions for changing their goal if necessary, but make sure that the goal remains theirs, not yours, if you want them to own it.

Because the weekly plan is driven by the 12 week plan, which is connected to your long-term vision, you can be confident that the actions it contains are, by default, the most important actions of the week.

Your chances of success are seven times greater if you employ peer support.

The WAM is used to confront breakdowns, recognize progress, create focus, and encourage action.

Each week you will need to schedule about 15 minutes to score and plan your week. Approximately 70 percent of our clients perform this task first thing Monday morning.

you are 60 to 80 percent more likely to execute a written weekly plan than a plan that is in your head.

Putting your plan to paper eliminates ambiguity and creates transparency.

Make no mistake, you will be more successful if you work from a written weekly plan and meet regularly with a group of your peers! Don’t kid yourself; you’re not different. To get the most out of your time and life, align your thinking with the benefits of the steps in the weekly routine.

To say that the 12 Week Year has revolutionized my business would be an understatement. With the 12 Week Year it became easier to reach my goals. No more rushing at the end of the year to meet an annual number. It has actually enriched my life so I can meet my goals, provide for my family and spend more time doing the things I love away from work.

what you measure on a weekly basis is the execution of your planned tactics, not your results. You simply check off or count up those tactics that you completed last week, regardless of the results you got.

Without measurement there is no way for you to know, unequivocally if you are making progress. Without measurement there is no way for you to know what adjustments would be productive. Without measurement it’s virtually impossible to hit your goals.

If you faithfully complete the critical actions on a daily and weekly basis, the results will come. So the process is less about the end result and more about the daily actions. That is why the scorecard only measures your execution and not your results.

Measurement is not accountability; it’s simply feedback. The more effective use of measurement is as a feedback mechanism to identify breakdowns, progress, and successes. In this way measurement allows you to confront reality and breakdowns without the pushback and collateral damage associated with negative consequences.

Effective time use can be the difference between mediocre and great performance.

To become fit requires discomfort, to earn a significant income requires discomfort, to become great at anything, requires you to pay the price. To accomplish what you desire will take sacrifice. The number-one thing you will need to sacrifice is your comfort.

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. That 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.

Your strengths and weaknesses taken together, impact your ability to produce the results you seek.

In reality, it is the focused and concentrated application of your strengths that will produce your greatest achievements. Successful individuals work to their strengths.

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.

Performance Time is an easy-to-use time-blocking system that allows you to operate like the CEO of your business and life by spending your most valuable asset—your time—with intention. Your commitment and ability to apply Performance Time is a manifestation of personal leadership. If you live with the intentionality of effective time use, you will become a more effective leader of those around you, and you will build your business and personal success at a faster rate.

Think about this: People earning $1,000,000 per year aren’t working 10 times harder than people earning $100,000. In fact, they are sometimes working less—but they are working differently.

Don’t let the mechanics blur the concept. To be your best, you will need to carve out time to work strategically. You will need to find a way to efficiently handle the low-payoff activities.

Allowing smartphones, social media, and the Internet to distract you from your higher value activities will keep you from accomplishing your goals.

successful people are accountable.

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. Unfavorable circumstances and uncooperative people don’t prohibit us from reaching our goals. We stand in a different way, thereby creating different results.

It really came down to the reality that if I am not willing to be disciplined in my daily activity, nothing will change and my vision will never come to pass.

Isn’t it time that you stopped making excuses and letting things stand between you and the life you want to have? The life you are currently living is a result of the choices you’ve made. You can blame the circumstances, your upbringing, your family, the schools you attended, your boss, or the politicians. The fact is, you don’t control any of that. What you control is how you respond. Being accountable is not easy, and at times it is very unpleasant, but if you are serious about your goals, you must take ownership of your situation.

In the end, nobody, outside of a few close friends, really cares if you succeed or not. You can make all the excuses you want; the world doesn’t care. As harsh as that sounds, it’s the truth. Oh, you may from time to time get a little sympathy, and maybe if you’re really lucky a free beer, but that’s about it. Giving away your power will never create the success you long for. Resolve right now to never again let excuses get in the way of you achieving your goals.

Accountability is not consequences; it’s ownership.

When you as a leader change the way you engage and think about accountability, it will change the conversation, the relationship, the results, and the company!

Write it on a sheet of paper and hang it on your wall: Accountability is not consequences; it’s ownership.

Commitments are powerful. In a way, commitment is accountability projected into the future. You decide beforehand that you will do whatever it takes to reach your goal, and the more accountable you are, the more likely you will meet your commitments.

When you value keeping your word, you avoid making promises that you know you cannot or will not keep.

the way you think about your plan, affects your ability to execute!

The key is to fully engage in the first 12 weeks.

Learning to use the 12 Week Year as a deliberate practice system is a skill that will pay off for you.