Win The Quarters, Win The Year...
Everyone has a goal system that works for them. Personally, I’ve found that breaking the year into four quarters is the best goal system for me. Here's why...
Happy New Week!
We’ve just entered the fourth month of the year meaning we’re now in the second quarter of 2022. Everyone has a goal system that works for them. Personally, I’ve found that breaking the year into four quarters is the best goal system for me. Breaking my big yearly goals into small goals that help me achieve success throughout the year, makes my overall goals look and feel more achievable. Businesses track their goals quarterly and I don’t see why we can’t do the same for our personal goals.
A quarterly goal system means that you can build meaningful habits that will help you towards your yearly goals. Due to how long a year is, just having a yearly goal can be easy to lose focus and you might even be working toward a goal that is no longer relevant to you. Quarterly goals give you the opportunity to review your goals and see whether everything is still aligned. It also allows you to break down your goals into much smaller bits, ie. monthly and weekly actionable items, everything contributes to the bigger picture.
Your quarterly goals can be anything from personal, business, financial, or professional, goals. A goal to achieve is something that you specifically want to achieve within that quarter and don’t feel the need to carry on, for example, finish a course or reach a specific weight.
Some questions that can help you reflect on the last quarter
What accomplishments this quarter are you most proud of?
Which goals did you meet? Which goals did you fall short of?
What did you enjoy the most this quarter?
What will you do differently in the future?
How do you feel generally about this quarter?
Some questions that can help you plan for this new quarter
What do you want to achieve this quarter?
What 90 day goal will help you get closer to your annual goal?
What is a new skill you want to learn this quarter?
What and who can help you achieve your goal this quarter?
What does a successful quarter look like?
You can apply this to your business or career quarterly review too.
Make each quarterly goal and milestone as actionable and specific as possible. It must define the action to take that can contribute to the primary yearly goal. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many quarterly goals to accomplish because you’ll be setting yourself up for failure. Instead, focus on doing two to three well and completing them rather than taking on four to five each quarter and not achieving any.
Make sure you make time to stop and reflect on your first quarter. I did earlier and it was a great feeling listing down all I have achieved so far. It was good to know what I didn't do and what I need to improve. We are responsible for our own success, so being extremely clear in knowing what we want and what we’re working towards will help us succeed.
It’s important to stay the course, the first quarter might have been a bit of a slow one for you but we still have 3 more quarters to win.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Confucius
Keep going, keep showing up, the habits and the work you’re doing now, will all contribute to you having a better year than the previous year.