Plan Your Goals This Way To Create Momentum
It's that time of the year where people start thinking of New Years resolution and goals for this year.
It’s the time of the year when people start looking back at the year that passed and the year coming up. They think about the good and bad things that happen and, usually, why they didn’t achieve their goals.
They also start thinking of what the next year will bring. The majority will make resolutions on New Year’s Eve, and that’s it. Some will take action, and that’s it. These are wishes and aspirations.
Whilst a smaller group of people will set goals plan it out and try to achieve it. Most will set annual goals and plan for them. They work consistently and with discipline. Some achieve their goals and others don’t. Even with all this planning and work, there is no guarantee that you will achieve your goals.
The system that I have used for a while now is the quarter planning system or 90-day planning. It’s a powerful system that has helped me remain focused and move forward.
Big Goals
Start with your big goals. What is it that you want to achieve? These goals don’t necessarily have to fit into 1 year. It could be multiple-year goals. The key is for them to be big and audacious.
Make a list of your big goals. Make sure they cover all domain of your life - relationships, family, career, health, finances, hobbies, and personal.
For each domain of your life, choose 1 goal. This is where I find it hard to do. In the past, I choose two. But now I realise that is an overreaching. Choosing 1 goal for each domain means you have 7 goals already. That’s quite a lot already.
The next step is to create SMART goals. This will make your goals:
Specific: Make your goal clear and precise so you know
Measurable: A way to measure your goal so you know whether you have achieved it or not.
Achievable: A goal can be achieved but also stretch you outside of your comfort zone.
Relevant: the goal aligns with your values and vision.
Timely: It’s timebound or has a target to help you drive.
Challenges I faced with setting SMART goals are:
I create a goal that is too big that is way outside my comfort zone. Having a long timeline also adds to this. It made me procrastinate and feel bad about myself if I didn’t progress.
I put the due date too far into the future. This doesn’t create urgency to get things done and I lose momentum.
I didn’t set concrete measures so I don’t know whether I am on track or not.
90 Day Planning
90-day goal
Once you have your grand goals, break them down into a smaller goal that can fit into 90 days. For example, I have a grand goal to get down to 15% body fat. I’m currently on 23% body fat. For my 90-day goal, it will be to get down to less than or equal to 20% body fat. It’s still a stretch for me but not so much that I feel overwhelmed.
Setting the 90-day Time Period
Once you set a 90-day goal, the next step is to choose your 90-day timeline. For easy planning, the majority use the traditional quarters:
1st January to 31st March
1st April to 30th June
1st July to 30th September
1st October to 31st December
The thing for any goal setting and planning is that you don’t need to wait for the start of the week the month or even the day. It’s a human tendency to wait for the start of something. You can start right now, why wait? So choose your quarter.
Book In Your Calendar
Once you have chosen your quarter, the next thing is to plan when are you going to do the work. Open up your calendar and book in time to do the work. You need to prioritise this activity. Have a look at all the events in your calendar and your commitments, and see what can drop off.
As Keller and Papasan wrote in the book The One Thing, “To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters the most and give it all the time it demands.” This means that you will need to leave some things undone. But those things can’t be left undone forever, and they introduce the concept of counterbalancing. With counterbalancing, you never go so far that you neglect other parts of your life, you can find your way back and balance those domains of your life.
You’re out of balance in some domains of your life only for short periods. For example, this year I had to give up having Inbox Zero. But I went too far and let it accumulate for months and I had to spend a lot of time to clean it up.
So book into your calendar when you will do your activity for the goals and work out what activities or events you can not do for a short period.
Reverse Planning
Once you have booked your time in the calendar to do the work. Break down the goal even further. What do you need to achieve in the first, second and third months? And for each of the months, what do you need to achieve in each week to hit the goals for the first and subsequent months?
This is where you get granular. Break down the goals even further into tasks and habits that need to be actioned to achieve the weekly goals.
Using my health goal as an example, By month 1, I need to be down to 22% body fat. In month 2 down to 21% body fat and in Month 3, 20% body fat.
I need to schedule training so I book in 3 strength sessions at midday in a week. I schedule daily mobility and flexibility exercises. On other days, I schedule my martial arts training or active rest. Habits that I need to implement are getting 7 hours plus sleep average per week, don’t over-eat, eat my calorie target each day.
Next actions
Create a list of the actions and habits that you need to complete to achieve the goal.
For each day schedule your next actions. Only have one action. This one action is small enough for you to complete. Don’t schedule more than one action. It can get overwhelming quite easily. Having one action, allows you to focus and build momentum. Having more than one, you can lose focus and spend time trying to get all the actions done but not getting anything completed.
Once the task is complete, then schedule your next action. The time when you may have more than one task is when the current task is waiting on something or someone, for example, you’re waiting for a response from a client. You can have the next task to work on. I wouldn’t recommend more than 2 tasks going at once.
Also, schedule in your habit. If it’s a new habit, just start with one. Schedule a time and reminder to do it. Track it in a habit tracker. You don’t need an app, a simple worksheet would suffice.
Review Your Progress
To get the most out of your 90-day plan, you need to review and adapt as often as possible. Review at the end of the day, the week, the month and the quarter. At each review milestone, it’s an opportunity for you to tweak your plan. Be flexible with your plan so that you can adjust it to meet any changes in your circumstances, any new challenges or obstacles that you did not see coming.
Questions to ask during the review milestone (daily, weekly, monthly):
Did I achieve what I wanted to do?
If not, what went wrong?
How could I improve it or adapt?
What did I do well that I should continue?
What didn’t go well that I need to stop doing?
What did I need to start doing?
What is coming up (events, obstacles, risks etc) that may impact my plan?
What changes do I need to make to the plan?
Challenges I faced with 90-day plans
Having too many goals
This is a real problem for me. As I said earlier, one goal per domain of your life means up to 7 goals. That is a lot. That’s why I struggle to complete any one goal. I’ve progressed a whole bunch of them but not complete.
One or two goals to focus on is the ideal. Then the next question is, what happens to the other domains in your life? If you have a goal in your career and finances, what about your health and relationships? Are you supposed to neglect them?
The other domains in your life go into maintenance mode. What must you do as a bare minimum to ensure it is on track? You create a minimum daily dose for your other domains, for example, I will exercise 3 days a week and eat healthy, I will connect with my wife daily and leave the weekends for my family.
Not enough time to do things
I ran out of time to do things. I don’t complete my goals, and cannot get momentum through consistent practice.
By reducing my goals, this will help me create more time.
You have to be ok that some things don’t get done and have loose ends. For example, the lawn gets mowed every month instead of fortnight or you don’t get to Inbox zero.
There will be a time when you do need to do these things but not right now.
Maybe you are planning too much. Do you need to pare down your 90-day goal?
Schedule blocks in your time to do things and keep it in that time block. Even if you don’t get everything done in that time, you have progressed. Schedule the next time block for it.
Treat it as an important meeting and commit to it. This builds self-confidence and integrity. You do as you say. If you have something urgent that has come up, change it to another time but commit to it.
Distraction
The bane of modern life. This is the dream killer. It’s so bad that my word of the year is “Focus”. That is my go-to for when I do things, talk to people and face challenges. I’ve got a whole plan to manage my focus and create traction.
Having a plan, timeblocks and blocking the phone helps. Having a reason for why you’re doing things, especially when it gets hard also helps to get over the challenging times.
Going Solo
This is another big challenge for me. I’m an introvert. I pride myself on being independent and having to fend for myself. Sometimes it’s been great, it’s developed resilience, creativity, strong problem-solving skills and drive. But other times, it’s been a bane as the goals I have around writing and lower body fat require help from others.
Swallowing my pride and reframing the way I see things is key to overcoming this. Yes, getting a mentor, a coach or a mastermind group will cost me. But it could shave time and overcome in achieving my goals.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help and fork out some money to get help. And also remember, cost isn’t necessarily monetary.
2025 is Your Year
You’re pumped to achieve your goals this year. You’re driven and have already set them out. That’s great. All the best to you.
If you haven’t set any goals yet or are in the middle of setting them, try this framework. Plan in 90 days. I think you’ll be surprised how well you’ll find it work.
Let me know if you’ve seen any difference with the 90-day framework. Or if you’re using the 90-day planning framework, how you have modified it to suit your own needs?
Practice
For this month, the practice is to take one goal and use the 90-day framework to plan your goal.
Let me know how it goes, and what challenges you faced by leaving a comment.
Quote
What’s the ONE Thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?
Journal on this and figure out what your One Thing is.
Resources
This book has changed the way that I look at productivity and goal setting. I still find it hard and still implement it. It’s a great resource that I highly recommend.
Their website and YouTube channel are also great resources.
My Resources
Below are some of my free resources if you’re new to project management.
Paid Resources
Simple and Effective Project Risk Management is for those new to project management, the accidental project manager and experienced PMs wanting to learn something new. It will teach you what you need to know and get you started quickly. I’m running a promotion where the first 10 people who buy this get a discount, pay only $19, and can book a 30-minute coaching call with me.
Developing a system related to your goals is a great way to achieve them. Thanks for sharing your process and challenges.
I would add that tying your goals to a personal mission, vision, and/or purpose you have will increase motivation, and be transformative in the way you hope.