In order to set up your 12 Week Year, you will need to establish specific 12 week goals and then build a 12 week tactical plan to achieve them.

Using your vision as your guide, set a specific and measurable goal (or goals), for the upcoming 12 Week Year. These goals should represent realistic progress toward your three-year personal and business visions, and your 12 month vision if you have one, and it should create a sense of excitement all on its own.

If you find that you need more than one goal, keep in mind that “less is more.” It is important that you focus. With the 12 Week Year, our philosophy is this: Let’s be great at a few things, versus mediocre at many. Too often people end up diffused, taking on more than they can effectively execute.

Once your 12 week goals are clear and focused, we move on to the second step, in which you will develop a tactical plan to achieve them. At this stage, keeping it simple is the best approach. For each goal, determine the “critical few” actions (tactics) that you will take to achieve your goal. Write these tactics in a way that clearly describes the actions you will need to take.

STARTING WITH THE END IN MIND

Figure 2.1 is a sample 12 Week Plan. Refer to it as needed to help guide you as you write your 12 week plan. In this lesson, you will work to create a similar plan. There is no such thing as a perfect plan. Capture your best thinking—you can edit it later if needed as you execute your plan.

Well written 12 week plans have two levels of structure:

• Level I—The 12 Week Goal—this is where you want to be at the end of 12 weeks. It links to your vision, and represents the progress you intend to make toward it during this 12 week period. While you may have multiple goals, just remember, “less is more.” The more focused your plan is, the more effective you will be.
• Level 2—The Weekly Tactics—these are the hows (the actions you will take) to accomplish each goal. The tactics will guide you each week and help you to act. The way you write your tactics is important because if they are well written, they will greatly increase your chances of hitting your goals.

In general, it helps to think of your goals as outcomes (which you don’t control) and your tactics as actions (which you do control).

The way that your plan is written has a huge impact on the effectiveness of your execution. Vague or poorly written goals and tactics will hinder you. Likewise, a well-constructed goal is clear and precise, thereby making implementation easier. Next are some tips for ensuring your goals are expressed for success.

WRITING EFFECTIVE GOALS

To be truly effective, there are five criteria to apply when constructing your goals:

• Criteria 1: Make your goals specific and measurable.

    For each goal, be sure to quantify and qualify what success looks like. Exactly how much money will you earn? How many pounds will you lose? The more specific you can be, the better!

• Criteria 2: State each goal positively.

    In general, it makes sense to focus on what you want to happen that is positive. For example: If your initial goal is “Achieve a 2% error rate,” you really are not interested in errors, you are more interested in accuracy. Restate the goal as “Achieve a 98% accuracy rate.”

• Criteria 3: Ensure that each goal is a realistic stretch for you.

    If you can accomplish the goal by doing very little differently, then you probably need to stretch more. If your goal is absolutely impossible, then back it off a little.

• Criteria 4: Include accountability.

    Take ownership of each of your goals. If you are not willing to sacrifice your comfort if necessary to reach your goal, then don’t put it in your plan in the first place.

• Criteria 5: Be time bound.

    There is nothing like a deadline to get, and keep, things moving. Make sure to include a date by which your goal is to be reached.

Credit: David Carillet/Shutterstock.com.

We will say it again: how your plan is structured and written has a huge impact on your execution. Vague or poorly written goals will hinder effective execution. Likewise, a well-constructed goal is clear and precise, thereby making implementation easier.

Below, you will find some examples of well-written goals that apply these important criteria.

• EXAMPLE 1
• “Lose 10 lbs. and weigh 185.”

This goal meets all the criteria: It is specific and measurable, stated positively, realistic stretch, time bound (by the end of the 12 Week Year), and accountability is implied—you are the one who must own it.

• EXAMPLE 2
• “Sell $50,000 in new business this 12 Week Year.”

Again, this goal meets all the criteria.

A good goal supports good execution. It is easier to determine the tactics if the goal is well written. If the goal is vague, then identifying effective tactics becomes much more difficult (if not impossible.)

Okay, now it’s your turn. On the following pages is a 12 Week Year Game Plan Worksheet. Take sufficient time to develop your goals, and write them on the worksheet in the spaces provided. This is a process that likely will require you to do some editing, clarification, and refinement as you go. That’s why we give you a chance to write your goals down before you restate them in your draft 12 Week Plan.

Be sure to not overload yourself and run the risk of diffusion. Remember—it is better to be great at a few things than mediocre at many things! Generally, we recommend having no more than one to three goals.

12 Week Year Game Plan Worksheet

• For the 12 Week Year Ending ____ / ____ / ____, I will:
• Goal 1:

• Goal 2:

• Goal 3:

12 WEEK PLAN TACTICS

First decide which of the possible 12 week goals that you just outlined above will be included in your 12 Week Plan—remember, less is more.

For each 12 week goal that you decide to pursue, refine the goal to meet the criteria outlined earlier, and then restate the goal in the blank planning forms starting on page 19.

For each goal, the next step is to determine the minimum number of tactics needed to reach it, and no more. We recommend that you mind-map each goal to help you identify potential tactics to reach the goal.

If you are familiar with the brainstorming technique of mind-mapping, you know of its power to generate ideas. Many people tend to solve problems linearly: step a, step b, step c, and so on. Such a linear approach can limit the number of ideas generated. With mind mapping, you avoid the limits of linear thinking, and access more creative thinking, which is where breakthroughs come from. If you are not familiar with mind mapping, you might download a mind-mapping software program to experiment, but all you really need is a blank sheet of paper—one for each of your 12 week goals.

Figure 2.2 shows a sample mind map for a goal to lose 10 pounds that you can use as a guide.

In this example, there are four main ideas: exercise, diet, coaching, and medical advice.

Each main idea is then built out with some related ideas.

Keep in mind that every mind map is different—they reflect the way that you brainstorm. Don’t worry if your maps are not as structured as the example—in fact, they may not have any discernible structure at all—the important thing is to capture your ideas.

First, write your goal in the middle of a blank sheet of paper. In the following example, that goal is stated as “Lose 10 lbs.” Next, brainstorm all of the things that you could do to achieve that goal and write them down around the center goal and circle them as unique ideas. For those ideas that are related, connect them with lines (see the example). Write all of your ideas down—you will narrow them down later. Also, don’t worry about writing them out as actions—just capture the ideas.

As you build out your mind map, you can expect to get stuck a couple of times. Often your most creative and powerful ideas come after getting stuck once or twice. Be patient and you will likely identify the tactics needed to hit your goals.

Once you have brainstormed your action ideas for each of your goals, it’s time to pick the most impactful ones and then rewrite them to conform to the criteria for well-written tactics (see further on).

First, select the best ideas (the ones that will have the biggest impact on hitting your goal) from your mind map. You likely won’t need them all. In fact, less is more (sound familiar?). If you can hit your goal by executing just the most powerful one of your mind-mapped ideas, then stop there. If not, add the second most impactful, and if those two are all you need, then stop there. If not, keep going until you have just enough of the right tactics to hit your goal, and then stop.

Using the earlier example for losing 10 pounds, the following tactics (see Figure 2.3) were selected:

The selected ideas, “exercise,” “schedule,” “get an exercise buddy,” “finalize exercise regimen,” “diet,” and “cut back on alcohol consumption,” are still not well-written tactics—they will require some additional work.

Now it’s time to rewrite these ideas to conform to the criteria for well-written tactics:

• Tactic Criterion 1: Conform to the criteria for well-written 12 week goals
• Tactic Criterion 2: Start with an action verb and written as a complete sentence
• Tactic Criterion 3: Can be executed as written, in the week that they are due, without significant prework.
• Tactic Criterion 4: Specify frequency and due dates

Below are the goal and ideas selected in figure 2.3 re-written to conform to the criteria for well written goals and tactics.

• 12 Week Goal: “Weigh 185 lbs. by the end of the 12 Week Year”
• Tactic 1: Run three times/week for a minimum of three miles/run, weeks 2–12
• Tactic 2: Swim laps two times/week for a minimum of 30 minutes/swim, weeks 3–12
• Tactic 3: Find an exercise buddy that lives nearby, week 1
• Tactic 4: Set exercise schedule with buddy that works for us both, week 1
• Tactic 5: Limit alcohol to Friday and Saturday nights – two drinks/night max, wks 1–12

There are other ways that these tactics could have been written. In some cases, mind-mapped ideas can be broken into two or more tactics (“finalize exercise routine” became “swim laps” and “run”). In some cases, ideas can collapse into fewer tactics. The important thing is to write the tactics to conform to the criteria above.

Even with your best thinking, your tactics may or may not work as you intend. The best way to improve them is to execute the plan, see what happens, and adjust the 12 week plan as needed.

Goal 1:

For Goal 1, what support or assistance might you need from others to increase your odds of success?

Goal 2:

For Goal 2, what support or assistance might you need from others to increase your odds of success?

Goal 3:

For Goal 3, what support or assistance might you need from others to increase your odds of success?

To be sure that you leverage your vision as you execute your plan, take a few minutes to capture how your current 12 week goals represent progress toward your vision (you likely won’t make progress on everything in your vision in 12 weeks, but by thinking through how your 12 week goal moves you toward your long-term aspirations, it will help you to take action even in the times you might not feel like it):