Already at the beginning of the second quarter of the calendar year, I’m really curious. Are you still on track for your goals for this year? And, if you are I really want to congratulate you for your commitment and persistence.
If you read my blog in January I shared that 50% of people who set New Year goals have given up by the end of the first 90 days. That’s a huge number of people! You can read my January blog here
It’s rare for us to reach our exact outcomes all the time, every time, by the exact deadline. But, there is a big difference between missing the deadline and giving up completely.
The thing is, often people give up just before a breakthrough, because they don’t know the power of 90 days!
You’ve possibly heard “it takes 21 days to create a habit”? Well I disagree with this. To create a sustainable habit it takes more like 90 days, assuming it’s a sustainable habit you want. I know that’s what I would want.
In the same way it also takes 90 days to build momentum to achieve an outcome. I learned this early on in my business journey, but I didn’t really know it completely until I had experienced it myself a number of times.
Can you imagine the levels of success that are not experienced by the 50% of people who give up, because they stopped what they were doing just that bit too soon?
When we engage the power of 90 days we give ourselves maximum opportunity to achieve what we want:
Set a 90 day outcome
Too many goals stay long term and this means it can feel like an epic journey to get there. When you break your goals down into 90-day outcomes and then down further into your outcome for the month and week, you can feel more capable of reaching them and experience a sense of achievement faster. A reminder to be realistic with this.
Decide on your strategies
Often I find people jump from one thing to another in an effort to give everything a go. They don’t want to miss anything out and think it will give them more opportunity to achieve what they want. If we do this it dilutes our energy and this slows us down. When you decide on 2-3 strategies and laser focus your energy on working those specific strategies, you will notice the wheels turn faster.
Reflect and adjust
You possibly are familiar with the quote from Einstein “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over gain and over again and expecting a different result”. The thing is, most people approach this from a place of “all or nothing”, if it’s not working they throw it out instead of adjusting it slightly. When you reflect weekly or monthly on your results, you can often make a slight adjustment to your current strategy, changing your results completely.
And a reminder to acknowledge your achievements too! Because, for anything we haven’t yet achieved, there is always plenty that we have, it’s just that we often don’t notice them. If we are only acknowledging what we haven’t achieved then we feel less committed to keep going. When you pause to acknowledge the good and what you have achieved, no matter how big or small you will feel more motivated to keep going.
I think the key message I want to leave you with here is to keep going. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t get the outcome you wanted for the first three months of the year. When you engage the power of 90 days and give it laser focused energy as consistently as possible over this next 12 week period, adjusting and readjusting as you go, you can be in a totally different space by 30th June.
If you are tired of doing this alone and would like support to achieve what you want, then maybe it is time for you to work with a coach. Working with a coach can help you achieve what you want a lot faster. Contact me at success@debjohnstone.com.au if you would like to see if coaching with Deb Johnstone is right for you xx