67 Motivational Quotes from The 12 week year by Brian P. Moran
The 12 week year effectively teaches how to better manage your time and achieve your goals.If you have been struggling to create a better plan to follow or daily To-do lists;This book is for you.It helps create a plan that makes it easy to achieve any goal.I have found this book really helpful.
Here are the Quotes:
Americans
continue to be overweight and out of shape. Most people know how to get back in
shape—eat better, exercise more—they just don’t do it. It’s not a knowledge problem; it’s
an execution problem.
Execution is the single greatest market
differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than
their competition. The barrier standing between you and the life you are
capable of living is a lack of consistent execution. Effective execution will
set you free. It is the path
to accomplish the things you desire.
Most
people have the capacity to double or triple their income just by consistently
applying what they already know. Despite this, people continue to chase new
ideas thinking that the next idea is the one that
will magically make it all better.
It’s
not what you know; it’s not even who you know; it’s what you implement
that counts.
At
the heart of annualized thinking is an unspoken belief that there is plenty of
time in the year to make things happen. In January, December looks a long way
off…We mistakenly believe that there is a lot of time left in the year, and we
act accordingly. We lack a sense of urgency, not realizing that every week is
important, every day is important, every moment is important. Ultimately,
effective execution happens daily and weekly!
Annualized
thinking and planning more often than not leads to less than
optimal
performance. In order to perform at your best you will need to get out of the
annual mode and scrub your annualized thinking. Stop thinking in terms of a
year; instead focus on shorter time frames.
It’s important to understand that the results you achieve are a
direct byproduct of the actions you take. Your actions, in turn, are
manifestations of your underlying thinking. Ultimately, it is your thinking
that drives your results; it is your thinking that creates your experiences in
life.
Breakthrough
results don’t start with your actions, they are first created in your thinking.
Herein lies the power of the 12 Week Year; it shifts your mind-set, thereby
creating opportunities for breakthrough.
we
behave differently when a deadline approaches. We procrastinate less, we reduce
or eliminate avoidance activity, and we focus more on the things that matter.
The
12 Week Year narrows your focus to the week and, more to the point, the day,
which is where execution occurs. You no longer have the luxury of putting off
the critical activities, imagining that there is plenty of time left in the year.
Effective execution does not happen monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually; it
happens daily, ultimately moment by moment. The 12 Week Year brings that
reality front and center.
Without
a compelling reason to choose otherwise, most people will take comfortable
actions over uncomfortable ones. The issue is that the important actions are
often the uncomfortable ones.
The critical first step to executing well is
creating and maintaining a compelling vision of the future that you want even
more than you desire your own short-term comfort, and then aligning your
shorter term goals and plans, with that long-term vision.
If
you are going to perform at a high level, take new ground, and be great, then
you better have a vision that is compelling. In order to achieve a level of
performance that is greater than your current performance, you will need a
vision of the future that is bigger than the present. You must find a vision
with which you are emotionally connected. Without a compelling vision, you will
discover there is no reason to go through the pain of change.
Vision
is the starting point of all high performance. You create things twice; first
mentally, then physically. The biggest barrier to high performance is not the
physical manifestation but the mental creation. You will never outpace your
mental models. Vision is the first place where you engage your thinking about
what is possible for you.
Vision
provides you with that line of sight, that emotional link, to help you overcome
the challenges and execute. When the task seems too difficult or unpleasant,
you can reconnect with your personal objections and vision. It is this
emotional connection that will provide you with the inner strength to forge
ahead in spite of any difficulties, thus enabling you to achieve your dreams
and desires.
Once
you have a clear vision of where you want to go, you will need a plan to get
there. Imagine yourself driving across country on a family vacation without a
map. You will probably agree that this is not a good idea!.Having a plan to
achieve your vision and your professional goals is even more essential than
having a map to navigate a cross-country trek. Yet the sad truth is that most
individuals spend more time planning a trip than they do planning their
business.
Once
you have established your 12 week goals, tactics will then need to be
determined. The easiest way to do this is to break your 12 week goal down to
its individual parts. For example, if your 12 week goal is to earn $10,000 and
lose 10 pounds, you should write tactics for your income goal and your weight
loss goal separately. Tactics are the daily to-do’s that drive the attainment
of your goals. Tactics must be specific, actionable, and include due dates and
assigned responsibilities.
The
greatest predictor of your future are your daily actions.”
The
physical universe will not respond to your desires, no matter how passionate
or intense they are. The one thing that moves the universe is action…It is the
consistent action that turns a dream into reality.
Your
current actions are creating your future. If you want to know what your future
holds, look to your actions; they are the best predictor of your future. You
want to predict your future health, look at your current eating and exercise
habits. You want to predict the health of your marriage, look at your
interactions with your spouse. You want to predict your career path and future
income, look at the actions you take each business day. Your actions tell the
story.
Scorekeeping
is at the heart of competition. We keep track of scores, measurements,
and stats to determine success and identify areas for improvement.
At any point during a sporting event, every player, coach, and fan knows
exactly where their team stands. This information provides a base of knowledge
to guide decisions that lead to better performance and success. In other words,
scorekeeping lets us know if what we’re doing is effective… without some
objective measure, we cannot know for certain if we are being effective.
Measurement
provides important feedback that allows you to make
intelligent decisions…Effective measurement captures both lead and lag
indicators that provide comprehensive feedback necessary for informed decision
making. Lag indicators —things like income, sales, commission dollars, pounds
lost, body fat percentage, overall cholesterol levels—represent the end results
that you are striving to achieve. Lead indicators are the activities that
produce the end results.The most important lead indicator you have is a measure
of your execution.Ultimately, you have
greater control over your actions than over your results.Your results are
created by your actions. An execution measure indicates whether you did the
things you said were most important to achieving your goals.
Strive
for excellence, not perfection.If you successfully complete 85 percent of the
activities in your weekly plan, then you will most likely achieve your
objectives. Remember that your plan contains the top priorities that will add
the most value and have the greatest impact. In other words, you only need to
be 85 percent effective on the top priorities to achieve excellence!
Measurement
drives the process. Effective scorekeeping is essential if you want to execute
well and perform at your best. Take time to establish a set of key measures
that include lead [end results] and lag indicators[activities that derive
results] and, most importantly, be sure to score your execution. Have the
courage to measure your performance!
Your supply of time is completely inelastic—and perishable…and yet
time is the most
squandered of all personal resources.
If
you are not purposeful about how you spend your time, then you
leave your results to chance. While it’s true that we control our actions and
not our outcomes, our results are created by our actions. It stands to reason
that the actions that we choose to take throughout our day ultimately determine
our destiny.
If
you are not in control of your time you are not in control of your results.
The
more you can create routine in your days and weeks, the more effective
your execution will be. The best way to accomplish this is to create a picture
of an ideal week. The concept of an ideal week is to plan on paper all the
critical tasks that occur in a typical week and organize them so you can be
most productive. If you can’t fit all the things you do on paper, there is no
way you will get them done in reality, so the exercise of strategically
planning your week will cause you to make some hard choices about how you use
your time.
All
of us have a tendency to look outside of ourselves for things to change and
improve. We are waiting for the economy to pick up, for the housing market to
turn around, or for our company to come up with a new product, more competitive
pricing, or better advertising. The truth is you don’t control any of these
things. The only things you control are your thinking and your actions. But
those are enough if (and
it’s a big if) you are willing to own them.
When
you understand that true accountability is about choice and taking ownership
of your choices, everything changes. You move from resistance to empowerment,
from limits to possibilities, and from mediocrity to greatness. At the end of
the day, the only accountability that truly exists is self-accountability. The
only person who can hold you accountable for anything is you, and to be
successful you must develop the mental honesty and courage to own your
thinking, actions, and results.
To
be truly great at what we do, we have to become better at keeping our promises.
When
you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances
permit,but when you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only
results.When we commit to something, we do things that we would not ordinarily
do.The question of if goes
away and the only question you ask is how.
Commitment is powerful.
Commitments
require sacrifice. In any effort there are benefits and costs. Too often we
claim to commit to something without considering the costs, the hardships that
will have to be overcome to accomplish your desire. Costs can include time,
money, risk, uncertainty,loss of comfort, and so on. Identifying the costs
before you commit allows you to consciously choose whether you are willing to
pay the price of your commitment. When you face any of these costs, it is
extremely helpful to recognize that you anticipated them and decided that
reaching your goal was worth it.
Act on commitments, not
feelings.If you don’t, you will never build any
momentum and will get stuck continually restarting or, as is so often the case,
giving up. Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you
feel, is a core discipline for success.
Technology
is great. [But] the downside is that we now have very little downtime in our
day. It used to be that on the drive to and from work you could ramp up and
ramp down, but now most people spend that time on the phone. The natural margin
in our day is disappearing but we still need time to mentally relax.
For those of you who have dealt with cancer,
either yourself or with a family member, you know firsthand how quickly you
gain an appreciation for the present moment. The fact is that life happens in
the moment, life is lived in the moment, and ultimately, greatness is created
in the moment.
The
athlete becomes great not when she breaks a world record and wins a medal.
That’s when the world recognizes her, but in reality the event is just the
evidence of her greatness. The athlete achieved greatness months, perhaps
years, earlier when she decided to run the extra mile, swim the extra laps, or
to perform just one jump more.
Results
are not the attainment of greatness, but simply confirmation of it. You become
great long before the results show it. It happens in an instant, the moment you
choose to do the things you need to do to be great.
The
encouraging news is that, regardless of how you’ve performed in the past or how
you are performing currently, you can be great, beginning today, simply by
choosing to do the things you know you need to do. It really is no more
complicated than that. In the end, you are either great in the moment or not at
all.
Don’t
settle for anything less than the life you are capable of. Make a commitment to
be great each day and watch what can happen in just 12 short weeks.
Accountability
is ultimately ownership…The
very nature of accountability rests on the understanding that each and every
one of us has freedom of choice. It is this freedom of choice that is the
foundation of accountability. The ultimate aim of accountability is to
continually ask one’s self, “What more can I do to get the result?”
Commitment
is a personal promise that you make to yourself. Keeping your promises to
others builds strong relationships, and keeping promises to yourself builds
character, esteem, and success.
These
three principles—accountability, commitment, and greatness in the moment—form
the foundation of personal and professional success.
Dream
big and imagine true greatness for yourself. Your vision should be big enough
that it makes you feel at least a little bit uncomfortable.
Vision
is the starting point of all high performance.
At
the end of each day, take a few minutes to reflect on the progress that you
made today. Did it move you forward, or was it filled with activity that wasn’t
related to your vision? Resolve to be intentional in your actions to make
progress on your vision. What action will you take tomorrow?
To
increase your odds of success, one of the most powerful things you
can do is to create, and work from, a written
plan.
The
structure of the plan that you write matters if you want to set yourself up to
be successful. A good plan starts with a good goal. If your goal is not
specific or measureable, the plan that you write will also be vague.
Focus
is critical. If you establish too many goals, you end up with too many
priorities and too many tactics to effectively execute. Everything cannot
be a priority. You will need to say no to some things in order to be great at
the things that matter most. It takes courage to limit your focus to a few key
areas. Remember, each 12 weeks is a new year. Imagine if every 12 weeks you
identified one or two key areas and went after those with passion and
focus.Then, at the end of that 12 week period, you identified one or two new
areas to focus on. The 12 Week Year is designed to help you focus on a few key
areas and make significant progress in a short period of time.
A
plan between your ears is not nearly as effective as a plan on paper. In our
experience, you are 60 to 80 percent more likely to execute a written weekly
plan than a plan that is in your head.
A
written weekly plan that is tied to your 12 week goals keeps you from allocating
too much time to the emergent stuff versus the strategic. By working
from a weekly plan and following your model week, you are setting
yourself up for success.
It
really came down to the reality that if I am not willing to be disciplined in
my daily activity, nothing will change and my vision will never come to pass.I
have no one to blame but myself for my failure or success.
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