The 12 Week Year,offers a new way to think about time and how you use it. In a nutshell, plan your goals in 12 week increments rather than 365 day years. When you do so, you’re far more likely to feel a healthy sense of urgency that gets you focused. And whether your goal is of the business or personal variety, you’ll get far more done in far less time—and you’ll feel a lot less stressed and a lot more in control.
Read on for a few tips on how you can better tackle life’s big to-dos.
Envision a future that’s worth the pain of change. The number-one thing that you will have to sacrifice to be great, to achieve what you are capable of, and to execute your plans, is your 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. Then and only then can you align your shorter-term goals and plans with that long-term vision.
“If you are going to perform at a high level, take new ground, and be great, then you better have a vision that is compelling,” advises Moran. “One way to get there is by asking, ‘What if?’ Doing so allows you to entertain new possibilities and begin to connect with the benefits. If you’re going to create a breakthrough—if you’re going to reach the next level—you will need to move through fear, uncertainty, and discomfort. It is your personal vision that keeps you in the game when things become difficult.
“Once you have your vision, stay in touch with it,” he adds. “Print it out and keep it with you. Review it each morning and update it every time you discover ways to make it more vivid and meaningful to you. And share it with others. Doing so will increase your commitment to it.”
Live with intentional imbalance. How many articles, books, and blog posts have you read emphasizing the importance of establishing work/life balance? A lot, right? But where much of the advice on creating work/life balance goes wrong is around the idea of equality. Often, we’re told what we need to do in order to spend equal time in each area of our lives. The result is often unproductive and frustrating. Life balance is not about equal time in each area; life balance is more about intentional imbalance.
