90 Days, 12 Weeks, 3 Months, 1 Quarter of hitting your goals
I love to set goals, but New Year’s resolutions never worked well for me. Like most, I’d lose motivation over the year and what started as a perfectly laid out action plan often fell apart when life changed, the goal shifted or my priorities stopped aligning with the goal. For the last few years, I’ve switched to quarterly goals, and I’ve found many benefits to this process as well as some great products and resources that have made it more intentional.
🧠 Increased Focus and Clarity
When you plan for 90 days, you’re forced to prioritize and focus on what truly matters. It eliminates the overwhelm of trying to plan an entire year in one go. You can zoom in on specific objectives, break them into actionable steps, and stay laser-focused on them until completion. Knowing that you have three months to complete a goal, often lights a bit of a fire that isn’t always there with year-long resolutions. Often, my 90-day goals are some kind of smaller milestone toward my overall yearly plan, but I find I have a lot more clarity on the steps to take.
For example, one of my Q2 goals is to run a 10k, specifically, the Bolder Boulder held at the end of May. Ultimately I’d like to run a marathon this year, but training for that doesn’t take a full year, it takes a few months, and I’d like to have a solid habit of running before beginning that training. So, this Q2 habit supports my yearly resolution to finish a marathon, but it’s much more targeted at what I can do NOW to support that larger plan.
🗒 Flexibility and Adaptability
Life is full of surprises, no matter how perfectly we map out our year, things change. Quarterly planning allows you to adapt to changes more effectively. If something isn’t working or priorities shift, you can pivot and adjust your goals and strategies every 90 days. This flexibility ensures that you’re always aligned with what’s most important at any given time, leading to more meaningful progress.
If I injure my knee in Q2 and end up having surgery and physical therapy, my year-long goal of finishing a marathon is ruined, but with 90-day goals, I can shift my focus to recovery and healing. It’s a much more forgiving formula, especially for those of us who tend to be over-achievers.
🌟 Motivation and Momentum
One of the biggest perks of quarterly goal planning is the continuous cycle of achievement. Completing goals every 90 days creates a huge sense of accomplishment and fuels your motivation to tackle the next set of days. This momentum is powerful and often undervalued. It keeps you motivated, energized, and consistently moving forward toward your larger vision and overall life goals.
Not to mention, goals with shorter deadlines tend to be taken more seriously. Hitting a goal of walking 5k a week, then running a 10k, then running a half-marathon, followed finally by running a full marathon is a huge accomplishment and acknowledges the path to success. Checking off “run a marathon” at the end of the year just doesn’t have the same feeling.
📚 Recommendations
Of course, like anything else, you can use your tools and methods for tracking your 90-day goals — but a few of my favorites include using Sunsama, a Notion 90-Day Goal planner, or a physical goal journal.
✩ 13-Week Ultimate Achievers Planner from Clever Fox (“CFPA10” for 10% off)
✩ Finisher’s Journal 3.0 from Finishers Secrets (15% off)
✩ Do Work Journal from Baronfig
✩ Fresh Start Daily Goal Planner from Cultivate What Matters (10% off)
Each of these uses the 90-day method to help you plan, track, and take action on your goals. I’ve used all of these over the last few years and using a physical journal is my favorite way of tracking my goals so I can look back through them and see how much I can truly do in just a few months.
Are you tired of setting goals only to see them fizzle out over time? Give quarterly goal planning a try! It offers increased focus, flexibility, and motivation, making it easier to achieve your dreams in manageable chunks.
💫 Share one of the goals that make it onto your New Year’s resolutions but never quite seems to pan out… for a very long time, mine was reading the Bible all the way through and I finally completed it with this method just two years ago 🎊
