What is the 8‑Week Year and how does it work?

I bor­rowed the con­cept from Bri­an Moran’s New York Times Best­seller, The 12 Week Year.  When we set goals, most of us think about what we’d like to accom­plish over the course of the year.  The prob­lem with this is idea is that Decem­ber in Jan­u­ary seems like a real­ly long time.  Spring comes around and we real­ize we’re behind.  But we don’t fret or wor­ry because there’s “still a lot of time left” to make things hap­pen.  We lack a sense of urgency; set­ting goals to be com­plet­ed with­in 12 months just does­n’t seem to work for most peo­ple.

Why 8 Weeks and not 12?

I strug­gle with focus.  It’s the single…no, it’s the num­ber one rea­son I am not as suc­cess­ful as I should be.  I found 4 weeks not enough to make a huge dif­fer­ence and 12 weeks too long.  8 weeks is the sweet spot for me.  I can focus on a sin­gle goal with­out stress­ing about my need to move on because I know that a new year is lit­er­al­ly around a cozy lit­tle cor­ner!

One of my goals for this 8‑week year is to com­plete 8 weeks of Pilates.  Now if I get through my class and want to do some car­dio after, awe­some, but it’s not a require­ment.  I let myself off the hook, in that regard because the focus is on Pilates, and not on car­dio.

Is the con­cept dif­fi­cult to grasp?

This stuff isn’t rock­et sci­ence.  Noth­ing I’m stat­ing is orig­i­nal.  But, as Moran states, “There is a big dif­fer­ence between know­ing and doing.”  I have con­ver­sa­tions about goal-set­ting with close fam­i­ly mem­bers all the time.  And I get back an “I know, I know, I know.” Sure, you know, but “I know” will not get you to your weight goal or to your dream career.  What will is a whole lot of doing.  So knowl­edge isn’t pow­er unless you put it to use.

8‑week year plan­ning focus­es on the essen­tials, (one to two goals at a time) and on exe­cu­tion.  Tra­di­tion­al goal set­ting is long and over­whelm­ing and though fun (I mean, who does­n’t love to set 2–5 year goals?) it isn’t very prac­ti­cal.

Goals change all the time because cir­cum­stances change.  The 8‑Week Year will give you time to work on your goals, make course cor­rec­tions as you go along and decide if you should con­tin­ue with that idea.  The strate­gies dis­cussed here can be applied to both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al goals.

Why are you doing this?

I want hap­py peo­ple roam­ing the world.  Tru­ly hap­py and inspired peo­ple can make the world bet­ter.   I, too want to be hap­py (hap­pi­er) and more ful­filled.  I want to live a life of sig­nif­i­cance; I want to make a dif­fer­ence.  And I’ve made it a goal this year to doc­u­ment my suc­cess­es (and fail­ures). Most humans have an innate desire to be great.  And I believe we have a God-giv­en right, a birth-right to have the life that we want.  The only thing stand­ing in the way of your per­fect life is con­sis­tent, effec­tive exe­cu­tion.  It’s so sim­ple that it’s com­pli­cat­ed.

“Most peo­ple have two lives: the life that we live and the life that we’re capa­ble of liv­ing.”

What do I need to do to get start­ed?

1. Set mas­sive, gigan­tic 10x (Grant Car­done) goals.  They should embar­rass you.
2. Break them down into annu­al, quar­ter­ly, month­ly, week­ly, and dai­ly goals.  I actu­al­ly check-in halfway through the day to see how I’m doing.  I break my dai­ly goals into am and pm goals.  And I do the most impor­tant tasks in the morn­ing.  I (try) to eat the frog!
3. Take mas­sive action every sin­gle day.
4. Each evening, before you go to bed, review your day and make course cor­rec­tions imme­di­ate­ly.  If you’re on track, well do a lit­tle more tomor­row (see step #5).
5. Give 10% more each day.  If you walked a mile, can you walk 10 more steps?  Yes.  The answer is yes, you can.
6. Check your progress every day, every week, every month, and every year (if you have a 2, 5, or 10-year plan).

At the end of each “year” (8‑weeks), cel­e­brate the new year like you would NYE and get ready to start with your new year goals (the next 8‑weeks!).  By the time 2019 is over, you should have cel­e­brat­ed 6 years.  That $hit will com­pound.  Woohoo!

So…when would be a good time to get start­ed?

Now.  Now, like “no” is a full sen­tence.

As always, thank you for allow­ing me to be a small part of your life.  And if you would, please leave me a com­ment, like and share.

Xoxo,

Irís