How to crush the last 92 days of the year.
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The final quarter of the year is officially upon us. That means there are just 92 days left before everyone decides to reset their lives agains. But for those of you who want to get a head start on your goals then grab a notebook, your favorite pen, and carve out 30 minutes of your day to ask this simple question: "What do I want to achieve by the end of the year?" Simply writing down your answer can increase your success rate by as much as 42%! That's it. Just write it down. What are your goals for the next three months? The more clearly you can articulate those goals to yourself, the more likely you will be able to make progress toward achieving them. The most popular goal setting framework that I like to work with is setting SMART goals.
An example may help. When I sat down to write out my Q4 goals yesterday I decided to refocus on my YouTube channel to close out the year. I've been at a steady, but slow, pace of 1x video a month for most of the year. I want to up that volume to 2x videos a month for a total of 6x YouTube videos published by the end of the year. Because I love to see visual progress and leverage it's amazing ability to motivate me, I created a progress bar to visualize that goal. Research out of Harvard Business School has shown that the most powerful motivating force is a sense of progress toward a meaningful goal. That's why you'll notice that all of my goals for the quarter are SMART goals and visualized into a progress bar. This has two benefits:
Because writing down your goals can't help you if you tuck that piece of paper in a drawer never to be seen again. You want to revisit those goals, remind yourself of why they're important to you, and monitor your progress towards them so you can make adjustments along the way. You might have noticed I have a fitness goal to lift weights 3x a week. That means by the end of the year I should have around 36 workouts total. I can break that down in 36 sections in my progress bar and each time I complete a workout, I can see that bar fill up. Some weeks I'll drag and only complete 1x workout, and others I might feel inspired to do 5x workouts. But no single week really matters because the goal is to average out to 36 by the end of the year. Almost any goal you have can be broken down into something more measurable and tangible. Spend the extra 5 minutes figuring out what that looks like and try creating a progress bar to log your efforts in real time. This is has been my go-to strategy for the last year and it's been incredibly helpful for my motivation levels. Ok, I've said enough. Write down your goals, create a visual tracking system, and get after it. I can't wait to hear some of your success stories! Prompt: What do you want to achieve by the end of the year? |
The Creator Cycle
Self-mastery with pen-and-paper systems.
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