Achieve Your Goals in 90 Days

Many entrepreneurs have a lot of ideas, but struggle to implement them: a goal set, never achieved. The 90-day method changes this dynamic by focusing on two essential levers: clarity of concept and time management. In this article, you will discover the steps to structure your goals over 90 days, the SMART method to define them precisely, and why writing plays a key role in their achievement. An approach tested and approved by business leaders and freelancers alike.

The 90-day goal strategy for effective time management

“If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” JIM ROHN

Why are 90 days more productive than a period of 6 months, or even 1 year? After all, developing a significant project takes time, and 90 days might seem short. Like the seasons, which also operate in cycles, this strategic phase will allow you to achieve your aspirations. Here are the reasons:

The 6 advantages of short-term planning

1 — YOU TAKE ACTION MORE EASILY

A period short enough to encourage you to fulfill your obligations and long enough to achieve your ambitions. Unlike long-term goals, we tend to procrastinate, postpone tasks, lose motivation, or even doubt our projects. Thanks to a short cycle, your potential worries disappear, because you are immersed in your efforts and deadlines to meet.

2 — YOU LEARN TO SAY NO

You need to stay focused and therefore prioritize your actions. Consequently, you will be able to stop all interruptions and concentrate on your essential tasks. Thus, you capitalize on your energy, instead of scattering it unnecessarily.

3 – YOU BECOME A MASTER STRATEGIST

You become flexible and easily adapt to unforeseen circumstances. During Covid-19, many businesses had to find quick solutions to avoid going out of business. Moreover, long-term projects were aborted due to little visibility into the future. With short deadlines, you use creativity and responsiveness to problems, stay on course, and see things through.

4 — YOU GAIN SELF-CONFIDENCE AND DYNAMISM

The more you complete your missions, the closer you get to your goal, which allows you to stay motivated until the end of your cycle. Doubts are gone, as you concretely see after each completed task and each week passed that you are progressing and that the finish line is near.

5 — YOU STRENGTHEN YOUR PERSONAL DISCIPLINE AND GAIN NEW SKILLS

When you maintain effective rigor and organization, you improve your abilities. Because you will step out of your comfort zone to manage your team, develop active listening with your clients, strengthen marketing strategies, etc. You will perfect essential techniques for the evolution of your business.

6 — YOU NEVER FAIL

Either you successfully complete your 90-day goals, or you learn from your mistakes. Thanks to the lessons learned, you will know which path to take to succeed. Moreover, if you realize that your idea did not meet your expectations, then you will have only lost 3 months. You can start a new goal on a good foundation and in a new direction.

Simple steps to follow to complete your projects

First, you must have a vision of the result you wish to achieve. Otherwise, it's as if you were making an intention or formulating a resolution like many people on New Year's Day. You know how those end... in regrets. Moreover, our reptilian brain tends to panic or exaggerate the scope of the work when the idea remains vague. Clarifying your ultimate goal will allow you to identify the essential resources to accomplish it... or not. Here are the steps to follow:

1 — BRAINSTORM ALL THE IMPORTANT GOALS FOR YOU

During this time, avoid censoring yourself, note everything that comes to mind, both superfluous thoughts and meaningful ones. Then, sort out the most relevant. At this stage, don't forget to determine why each goal is important to you.

2 — ASSIGN A PRIORITY ORDER TO EACH GOAL

If you have opted for a project that requires more time than 90 days, break it down into smaller pieces and several cycles.

3 — SELECT THE TWO OR THREE MAIN GOALS

By choosing two or three goals, you can focus on your real priorities. Remember that achieving goals over 90 days is a short enough period to get scattered with too many objectives.

4 — LIST ALL NECESSARY ACTIONS

Think about the challenges and actions to take to achieve your goal. Then you will integrate them into your 90-day Journal. If you don't know the steps to follow, don't worry, you can start with one task that will lead you to another and so on.

5 — TAKE STOCK

Review your progress once or twice a week to measure it. Reporting on your work gives you the opportunity to immediately see what is working and what is not. Moreover, it will also allow you to realize the relevance of the methods you use and to adjust them if necessary.

6 — FIND AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

You will share your commitments and the results obtained with them. Choose someone who supports you morally in your activity, this could be a friend or a family member or a member of your team. Since you will be accountable, you will be compelled to provide conclusions, which will help you meet your obligations.

7 — CONGRATULATE YOURSELF ON EACH CHALLENGE ACCOMPLISHED

Determine how you can measure your success. At each successful step, congratulate yourself! This boosts your self-confidence, your determination and encourages you to go further.

As you must have understood by now, planning your goals over 90 days has an impact on both your work and your mental state. Thanks to this more or less short cycle, you will remain focused and dynamic throughout your program. You will use your time productively for visible effects. To achieve a goal, it must meet certain criteria. We will look at this right away.

The SMART method for effectively defining your goals

For an action plan to work, you need to define clear results. You may have heard of the SMART method, during your studies or when you were an employee in a company. You will find that this process, when understood and applied, brings real impacts to your business. For the realization of any project, precision is key. The more you articulate your actions and deadlines to meet, the more you will achieve the desired effects.

Five important points need to be considered. Your mission must be: specific, measurable, ambitious and achievable, realistic, time-bound. Don't worry, we're going to explore this in detail:

– S as Specific

Your goal must answer the following questions: who? what? how?

Instead of “I'm learning to use an action plan”, prefer “I'm using the SMART method to create my business offer.”

– M as Measurable

Measuring your goal is essential to achieve it.

“I'm going to prospect to sell my services”, but rather “I'm going to contact 5 clients every morning from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. to offer my services.”

– A as Ambitious and Achievable

Your goal should challenge you without seeming unattainable, as this could discourage you. We advise you to find the right balance so that your efforts bring you mini-victories that boost your motivation.

– R as Realistic

We tend to want to perform several activities in too short a time. Either we underestimate the duration of the task, or we overestimate our ability to produce a certain number of them. So, avoid injunctions such as: "I contact 30 clients a day and sign 5 big contracts in the month."

Take a few moments with a pen and paper or a tablet and stylus to note your constraints: time, capacity, environment, and money. This way, you'll know if you have all the resources to operate or if you need to find them.

– T as Time-bound

This is the most important part of the process. It's the one that will push you to reach the finish line. Setting a deadline for your idea and tasks will help you stay on track, avoid procrastination, and facilitate action.

Thus, a precise and realistic goal allows you to produce appropriate actions and thereby save time to meet your deadlines. We have decided to share a gem with you to give you every chance of success. You are about to discover the influence of writing in the completion of your projects.

The importance of writing for effective results

To make your vision a reality, putting it down on paper is powerful. I also recommend reading the article: What is journaling? The clear definition. This creates a notable cognitive impact.

This creates a notable cognitive impact. It's like making a contract with yourself. Scientific research shows that writing down your goals allows the two hemispheres of our brain to connect through the corpus callosum. Thus, an exchange of information takes place and facilitates the coordination of the operations to be carried out. Everything that is written is inscribed in your subconscious and drives you to action.

Indeed, a kinesthetic memory is activated with the hand movements to hold the pen, noting each letter on the paper. You can use a tablet and a stylus; this produces an identical effect, because you reproduce the same gestures, unlike a computer keyboard.

Moreover, millionaire Grant Cardone, author of the best-seller “The 10X Rule”, advises writing down and reading your goals morning and evening. Through this daily routine, you anchor your objectives in your brain, which will give you the relevant ideas to accelerate the realization of your plans.

Last tip for achieving your 90-day goals

You now know the essential techniques for achieving your professional projects. Thanks to the triptych of 90-day goals, the SMART method, and writing, you will achieve concrete results. With experience and initial successes accumulated, you will know that you can start over, and embark on that project that seemed so difficult not so long ago.

To help you put this into practice, InMotion Planner offers the 90-day Journal, which brings together the essential steps for establishing your action plan, combined with the power of digital journaling.