I love books that inspire productivity. The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington is one of them. The authors challenge you to shift your mindset to quadruple your goals this year. This thought process improves outcomes, momentum, productivity, and confidence.  

Whether you desire personal or professional success, consider the metrics.

The odds are that they’re designed around a yearly calendar. While this traditional approach is successful for some, it has created a bit of a glitch for many. The broad spectrum of time gives way to limited thinking and, in some cases, goal abandonment.

As clearly stated in the first chapter, success or failure stems from beliefs.

Think about it like this. If you believe you have twelve months to hit your goals and the year is half over, you have at least six more months to go—no big deal. According to the authors, that’s why most people, professionals, and teams don’t hit their stride until the last few months of the year. That long runway of time leads to procrastination and ultimately lost opportunity. What about those first six months or so? What could’ve happened if the timeline had been shortened?

 Enter The 12 Week Year.

Changing one’s objectives to align with four mini-years heightens productivity and cultivates better habits while drastically improving outcomes—sometimes quadrupling them. It’s not part of an annual plan; it’s an independent twelve-week plan. Erase a long lead time and rescript it with a three-month target.

Simple. Yet challenging.

It’s less about multiplying goals and working harder; instead, it’s a reality check centered on how we think. Yup, back to beliefs. Limited beliefs lead to limited action and, ultimately, failure. While failure teaches, ongoing failure presents a problem. We know this. Still, by nature, we continue to repeat the cycle every time we set annual goals. The 12 Week Year is designed to break this pattern. 

We, humans, ultimately choose the path of least resistance.

We prefer not to be pushed out of our comfort zones. Over time, these zones, if not checked, widen, and the next thing you know, we’re on a slippery slope to—well, you get the picture. Often, this is due to a lack of vision. The fire soon fizzles if you don’t have exciting dreams or something compelling you to cultivate a success-minded mental shift.

“Your vision keeps you in the game when things become difficult.”

Still, a vision can be scary, so the book offers solutions, including delving into the science of rewiring intimidation into motivation around a compelling future. The book also delves into how measurement can improve results and diffuse mental fatigue. The authors provide three principles that lay the foundation for success: accountability, commitment, and greatness in the moment. Without divulging too much more (after all, I want you to read this book for yourself and share your takeaways), I’d like to end my review with the author’s definition of “greatness at the moment.” At first, I couldn’t get my mind around this. It seems like it’s about enjoying the journey, which is part of it. It’s also about confirmation—choosing to act in a way that will give you the personal or professional results you seek. But my big ah-ha moment lay in this definition…

“Greatness is not achieved when a great result is reached, but long before that, when an individual chooses to do what is necessary to become great.”

I’ll remember this the next time I reach for a pack of M&M’s!

Source: Purchased