The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington

🚄Quick Summary

  1. Discard annual planning and work towards your longer-term vision in 12-week chunks.
  2. Take one week at a time and build consistent action on tasks towards no more than three critical goals.
  3. Create intentionality by narrowing your focus to just 12 weeks.

📚Why I Read It

I read this book after many failed attempts to implement an annual plan into my business and personal life. Having started 2025 with lofty goals, I started strong, then found them waning by February. The 12 Week Year offered a new approach which I was interested in applying to my life.

🤷‍♀️ Who It’s For

This book is for anyone who struggles with annual goal-setting or anyone seeking a fresh approach to reaching their life or business targets.

📝Top 5 Takeaways

  1. Discard annual thinking and prepare to work against a new form of goal-setting, built around 12 week cycles.
  2. The key to success is consistently executing against a clear set of goals.
  3. When something is truly important to you, you will be willing to sacrifice your own comfort to achieve it.
  4. Be great at only a few things, rather than being mediocre at many things.
  5. Take an approach whereby in every week, if you achieve 85% of what you set out to do, you will be on the right path to success.

🧠Deep Notes & Ideas

Redefine Your Concept of a ‘Year’

  • Discard annualised thinking and adopt a new approach, where 12 weeks is your new “year”.
  • We know that every moment counts, so shortening the window to take action creates the impetus to move forward.
  • With this in mind, your 12 week plan will set out no more than three things that will have the greatest impact in achieving the life that you want in the future.
  • Once you have the full overview of how to implement the 12 week plan, you must pursue those goals with intensity.

 One Week At A Time

Manifestation of Your Thinking
  • You have greater control over your actions than you do your results, meaning every day we focus on what is in our power to control.
  • Start by thinking about what it is that you want to achieve, back it up through consistent action, and results will follow.

 Intentionality

  • Time blocking is a system that sets out segments for each part of your day to maximise your chance of success.
  • Time blocking can be useful in reducing the number of interruptions you get, by having clear periods for items such as checking email, making calls, or answering questions from colleagues.
  • The 12 Week Year suggests three forms of time blocks to use:
    • Strategic Blocks: 3 hours per week set aside to consider your strategy for achieving your goals, vision, and money-making activities. During this block, don't allow distractions such as phone calls, messages, emails, visitors, or questions from others.
    • Buffer Blocks: Time set aside for unplanned items or routine tasks, such as discussions with colleagues, emails, answering calls, and/or messages. In an ideal week, this would be 30 minutes or one hour per day, with a suitable option usually to allow time at the beginning and end of your day.
    • Breakout Blocks: 3 hours per week that are devoid of work-related activities or thoughts, during normal business hours. This block is crucial for long-term energy and enthusiasm, to ensure we continue our momentum. For anyone unsure of this block, it can be advised to schedule these at a later point in the 12 week cycle, once you feel that you regularly achieve your goals and see your growth.
  • Being intentional with our time enables us to do the things that we need to do to be great.
  • The difference between mediocrity and greatness on a daily or weekly basis is slim, yet down the road, the results achieved vary tremendously.
  • We must remember to be great in each and every moment, because that is when life is lived.

 Accountability & Commitment

  • Every one of us has freedom of choice, which provides the basis for accountability.
  • Taking control of our decision-making is when everything changes, and that is true accountability.
  • This is about developing the mental honesty and courage to control your thinking, actions, and results.
  • This awareness of true accountability, combined with commitment, is when you will be at your most powerful.
  • Remember that a commitment is a personal promise, and keeping commitments to others builds character, as well as building trust and strong relationships.
  • Commitment is built on a foundation that will not allow excuses, only consistent action that will bring results.
  • One of the greatest super strengths we can all gain is the ability to do the things that need to be done, regardless of how you feel in the moment.

 The Execution System

  • Within The 12 Week Year, three principles determine an individual’s effectiveness and success. These principles are:
    • Accountability
    • Commitment
    • Greatness in the Moment
  • The 12 Week Year focuses on five disciplines at the action level. These five disciplines are:
    • Vision
    • Planning
    • Process Control
    • Measurement
    • Time Use
  • When people are changing their behaviour, there are typically five stages you go through:
    • Uninformed Optimism: You may be unaware of the scale of the task you have taken on, but feel positive nonetheless.
    • Informed Pessimism: You realise the scale of the task and begin to feel a sense of concern around the challenge ahead.
    • Valley of Despair: Full awareness of what is required to achieve your goals, where self-doubt can begin to creep into your thinking.
    • Informed Optimism: Through consistent action, you begin to see growth and realise that the goal is achievable.
    • Success and Fulfilment: Through perseverance and good planning, you have achieved your goals.
  • For the process to truly work, the 12 week year system must become your “execution system”. Whilst items around you, such as products, services and technology, may change, your execution system remains constant.

 Establish Your Vision

  • You have to believe you can reach your goals, which may follow the below thought-journey to success:
    • That seems impossible
      • But, “What if?”
    • That seems possible
      • "How might I?”
    • That is probable
      • That is a given.
  • A key part of establishing your vision is to work through this thought journey until you begin to see the probable solutions to reaching your goals.
  • Place your vision into three categories:
    • Long-term aspirations (15, 10, or 5 years)
    • Mid-term goals (3 years)
    • 12 weeks

 Develop The 12 Week Plan

  • Selecting your highest value activities to achieve your goals, are just one reason why planning your 12 week journey is important.
  • By making a clear plan to follow, “your plan triggers your actions”.
  • Each week establish your “tactics”, which are the achievements you must hit to achieve your goal at the end of 12 weeks.
  • Five criteria for writing your 12 week goals and tactics:
    • Make them specific and measurable
    • State them positively
    • Ensure they are a realistic stretch
    • Assign accountability
    • Be time-bound
  • Look to form a Weekly Accountability Meeting (WAM).
    • This is a weekly meeting of approximately 15 to 30 minutes to critically assess your plan and progress, whilst receiving and offering support to others.
  • A standard WAM agenda may look like:
    • Individual Report: Each member states how they are tracking against their goals and how well they executed. Four areas for focus are:
      • Your results for the 12 week year to date
      • Your weekly execution score
      • Intentions for the coming week
      • Feedback and suggestions from the group
    • Successful Techniques: Discuss what has been working well, and support how this may be incorporated into the plans of each other.
    • Encouragement: Allocate a proportion of time to support and encourage members.
  • Your weekly routine should consist of these three simple steps:
    • Score your week – this will be a percentage of your tactics achieved.
    • Plan your week – set your tactics for the week ahead and block out enough time to move towards your goal.
    • Participate in a WAM – Make the necessary time to connect and hold this meeting.
  • Lead indicators vs lag indicators
    • Lead indicator: The items that will drive you towards reaching your end result.
      • Example; overall goal is lose 5kg, so lead indicator might be hitting a certain daily number, calories, macros or exercise minutes.
    • Lag indicator: The end results.
      • Example; lose 5kg in 6 months.
    • Whilst lead and lag indicators are important, focus on the lead indicators, to take action and build consistency.

 The Iceberg of Intentions

The Iceberg of Intentions
  • There are “Conscious Stated Intentions” and “Unconscious Hidden Intentions”, which can be summarised using the metaphor of the iceberg.
  • Our conscious stated intentions are those which we have full awareness of when selecting our goals and aspirations.
  • Unconscious hidden intentions can often be the blockers, which inhibit our ability to achieve our goals. For example, a conscious stated goal may be a specific weight target that we want to hit, which may mean reducing calories and exercising more. However, if our unconscious hidden intentions tell us how much we miss certain foods and the effort required to exercise more, then they can quickly undermine progress.
  • When we are looking to achieve our goals, we should consider what unconscious hidden intentions may be lurking beneath the surface and how we can overcome these.

 Putting The 12 Week Year Into Practice:

  • Start with your 3 visions
    • Write your vision for 15 years, 10 years, or 5 years from now.
    • Write your vision for 3 years from now.
    • Write your vision for 12 weeks from now.
  • Look to focus on a maximum of three goals every 12 weeks.
  • Write out your weekly plan
    • Your weekly plan should be built at the beginning of each week, and an approximate period of time to spend on this is 15 to 20 minutes.
    • Place your strategic, buffer and breakout blocks appropriately across the week.
    • A quick 5-minute review of your weekly plan is advised at the start of each day to ensure you have allowed the time for that day’s required activities.
  • Review your scorecard weekly
    • This will be at the end of the first week, and then every week thereafter.
    • Remember that our goal is 85% success each week, but don’t give up if we fall below this.
  • Hold a weekly WAM meeting

✍️Favourite Quotes

  1. “To get different results, you will have to do things differently and do different things.”
  2. “Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success.”
  3. “You have everything you need to be great right now. Stop waiting for things to be just right and start where you stand.”
  4. “Think about this: People earning $1,000,000 per year aren’t working 10 times harder than people earning $100,000. In fact, they are sometimes working less—but they are working differently.”
  5. “If you want something you don’t currently have, you need to do something you’re not currently doing.”

📈How I’m Using It

This book has changed my entire approach to planning and goal-setting. I have always struggled with annual planning; life can be so fluid, and goals you may have set in January no longer apply in any of the months leading up to December.

This has happened a number of times to me, when a goal is set with the best of intentions, only to find something occurs that shifts the goalposts, and the flexibility of my planning doesn’t shift accordingly.

The 12 Week Year avoids this shortcoming. Your longer-term vision may alter across 12-week periods; however, you are set on a course for a period of time which is achievable.

🧐Final Thoughts

Firstly, I would recommend anyone to read The 12 Week Year for more information on this topic. Whilst the book is short in length, making it a quick read, allow time to consider how you want to implement the concepts within the framework.

Finally, I would definitely suggest that anyone interested in this approach to goal-setting and planning look to put this into practice. At the end of the day, you are only giving up 12 weeks if the system isn’t a match for you. But, my word of advice, as echoed by the authors, would be that if you do look to implement this system, then commit fully for the best results.