A 3-Month Roadmap to Get What You Want

(And Why It is More Effective Than an Annual Plan)

If you want to achieve BIG goals without feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed, then you need a plan. 

With 2017 around the corner, many professionals are buying planners to help create business goals for the upcoming year. Most planners are based on a year or 18 months. 

I want to introduce a different approach that I recently learned from BestSelfCo and share a number of golden marketing nuggets on creating a 3-month plan.
 
Why is a 3-month roadmap better than an annual plan? 
Using an annual planner can lead to procrastination and wasted time. How many times have you changed direction in during a 12-month period?  A 3-month roadmap is focused. It is realistic. It feels more do-able. You can see the end in sight – in 90-days! You are creating wins every quarter and creating momentum for more and more success. It’s way more flexible than an annual plan. If you think about it, you can potentially can 4X’s more accomplished this way. Sounds pretty awesome, doesn’t it?

Case Study:

To reach greatness, you must focus on consistent and long term personal performance. In the book Great by Choice, author Jim Collins shares the story of two explorers, Amundsen and Scott, who led separate teams on an expedition race to the South Pole in 1911. The journey there and back was roughly 1,400 miles, which is equivalent to a round-trip from New York City to Chicago.
While both teams would be traveling the same distance as each other through extremely harsh weather conditions, each team took an entirely di erent approach to the journey.
Scott’s team would walk as far as possible on the good weather days and then rest up on the bad days to conserve energy.
Conversely, Amundsen’s team adhered to a strict regimen of consistent progress by walking 20 miles every day no matter what the weather. While on good days Amundsen’s team was very capable of walking further, Amundsen was adamant that they walk no more than 20 miles each day to conserve their energy.
Which one succeeded?
The team that took consistent action. 
(Self Journal)

How Does the 3-Month Roadmap Work?

I’ve broken it down for you below.
 
Step 1: Identify Your Big Goal!
What do you want to achieve by the end of 3-months, 13-weeks or 90-days?
 
According to BestSelfCo you can achieve 4X’s more by planning 1 big goal each quarter versus 1 big goal per year. Makes sense, right? You need to make sure the goal is SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound)
Examples of SMART goals:
o   I’ll make $5,000 per month in the first quarter.
o   I’ll increase my email subscribers by 1,000 each month.
o   I’ll lose 13 lbs in 3 months.
 
Step 2: Create Your Plan: Progress Milestones
You need a plan in place. The key to creating a roadmap is to break the goal into smaller goals called “progress milestones.” These important milestones are a way to track and measure your performance.
 
Analogy: Your goal is climbing Mt. Fuji. Your end goal is to reach the top. Right now you are at the base of the mountain staring up. How will you get there? You need a plan in place and the way to do that is to define progress milestones.  To take the analogy a step further, think of your progress milestones as “basecamps” along your trek up Mt. Fuji.
 
Examples of Progressive Milestones: (Let’s use the weight loss example of wanting to lose 13 lbs in 90 days)
o   I will lose 1 lb per week (3500 calories = 1 lb)
o   I will burn 250 calories more per day
o   I will reduce my calories by 250 each day
 
Step #3: Working Your Plan: The 20 Mile March
The 20 Mile March are your daily tasks that will help you get to the basecamp. They are a list of specific actions steps you need to consistently take
 
Examples of daily tasks include:
o   I will walk 10,000 steps a day
o   I will record my food in an food tracker app
o   I will eat 5 helpings of vegetables and fruit each day
 
While anyone of these steps are helpful in attaining a goal, the compound effect of putting them together into a coherent system will help you achieve your goals faster by helping you avoid  detours, pit tops and stalling out.

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The most MISSION CRITICAL part of this 3-step, 3-month roadmap is doing it! If you don't to schedule your time, act consistently every day and hold yourself accountable for planned, intentional, smart and strategic action – then most likely you won’t make your goals. And if you are like me, your goals are your dreams. It’s what makes life exciting!

Planner & Gratitude Journal All-in-One

A design feature that I really like is the combination planner and gratitude journal all-in-one. There are three lines for journaling what you are grateful for in the morning and another three lines for reflecting and writing what you are thankful for in the evening. There's science-based evidence that people who have a daily gratitude practice are generally happier, healthier and more successful than those who don't.  To learn more about the link between a gratitude and wellbeing, click here.

Cheers to 2017. Wishing you an abundance of success!

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