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Why I Loved This Book:

I really struggle with goal setting. It has been the thorn in my personal business for a long time. Goal setting is something that I dread every year. I am a play by ear, and hope that what I want to achieve will eventually get done kind of person. But, that means that I have lots of failures on the way to figuring it out too. All of that failure stems from not having a plan for my goal. I think about something I want to accomplish and then don’t actually write out a plan, I just wing it..sound like you too?

Well I had, had just enough of that nonsense, because I have big dreams that I want to accomplish so I jumped on reading this book to see if I would be able to put together a goal setting plan that I could use and stick with.

The 12 Week Year helped me to see that there are bite sized pieces in developing a satisfying and worthy goal setting plan in the form of breaking down the year.

“With the 12 Week Year, the approach is to be great at a few things instead of mediocre at many things. In 12 week planning, you identify the top one to three things that will have the greatest impact, and pursue those with intensity.”

The 12 Week Year, Brian Morgan & Michael Lennington

This was integral in my understanding of the concept behind this book. My understanding in goal planning was always to think of a big goal and work on it throughout the year. But, like new year’s resolutions they lose their steam and their excitement and pretty soon we just don’t care enough to continue.

“At the heart of annualized thinking is an unspoken belief that there is plenty of time in the year to make things happen.”

The 12 Week Year, Brian Morgan & Michael Lennington

This was my exact dilemma, and the book, The 12 Week Year, helped me understand that breaking it down into smaller chunks of 12 week time will help me stay motivated with my goals, because I only have a short amount of time to complete, there is an urgency there. Deadlines are a great motivator, and I needed that on my side, so, I loved the aspect of this book in terms of how setting a goal in a shorter time frame was going to actually help me accomplish my goals at a faster rate.

Where I Struggled in Reading This Book

I will say that I hard time getting through some of the psychological jargon. Not that it wasn’t needed, because understanding the mindset of how and why we set goals is very important, but I will say that without the pictures and graphs to help clear up some of the concepts that part would have been a loss for me.

There are many lessons to be learned from reading a goal setting book.

1. You may look past the reason you are setting the goal in the first place: your why
2. You may not be in the right head space to accomplish that partiular goal: Mindset
3. You don’t have the right tools to complete the goal you have in mind: Road Blocks and Set Backs

This part of the information, mainly because I struggle with these tactics in general were difficult for me to wrap my head around. Thanks to some of the references, graphics, charts and quotes I was able to piece it all together. Some of the excerpts I had to read over many times for the information to click.

Why I Recommend The 12 Week Year

As a leader in my field, as a planning coach, I definitely put my stamp of approval and recommendation on this book. There are several aspects of it, such as the team application, that are great for helping not only yourself achieve goal accomplishment, but your team as well, and that in itself is invaluable.

Here are some of the concepts that are mentioned in this book. If you have a team or you are struggling with some of these aspects of your goal setting this would be a great asset to get your hands on:

1. Creating an Execution System with elements and principles for goal setting
2. Establishing Your Vision; what do you want your future to look like when you accomplish your goals
3. Development of your 12 Week Plan; from writing to executing
4. Installing Process Control; how to work through the bumps in the road
5. Keeping Score; your own accountability to work towards and maintain your goal plan
6. Scheduling Your Day; building a work schedule to make sure you are executing your goal action plan

Each of these steps is designed to help you build, maintain and achieve the goal you set out at the beginning of the 12 weeks. And then, at the end you get to do it all over again. Reignite your fire and drive, build your motivation and accomplish more than you have ever done before.

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Read More about The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington

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Brian Moran – Why 12 Week Year Planning Is Better