How To Set 90-Day Goals Then Celebrate Your Successes

A gazelle has great sprinting speed. Amazingly, it can hit speeds of 60 mph. However, it was created for quick bursts of speed and not made to sustain those high speeds over a long period of time.

You and I are like the gazelle. We can get gazelle intense for bursts of time but we can’t focus or run for long periods of time. I think that’s why I often don’t hit the goals I set.

This year, I started setting goals that I could sprint to and if I put a few of these sprints together, I would be at my goal by the end of the year.

Unbeknownst to me, I was learning to set 90-day goals.

Why 90-Day Goals Work

For most of us, we have four seasons a year, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. We can set four sets of goals per year and line them up with the season we are going into.

This 90-day period, or season, is long enough to make meaningful progress but not too long to be overwhelming.

Seasons are short enough to stay focused and make it through.

I don’t care for the heat and humidity when it settles in for the summer here in Maryland. But I know it’s just a season. I can put up with it for a season. The 90-days of summer is just long enough. I couldn’t live in Arizona where it can hit 120°F.

The final reason why 90-day goals work is that there is not enough time to procrastinate. You need to work steadily on making your goals since there isn’t a lot of time to complete them.

How To Set 90-Day Goals

Decide what you want your life to look like 90-days from now.

Areas to consider are physical fitness, your personal finances, spiritual/faith, family, personal development, and career areas.

Imagine what your life will look if you maintain the status quo. If you are the same in every one of those areas in 90-days, would you be OK with that? I know I wouldn’t be.

So we need to brainstorm on what we want to be and what we can do in 90-days to get there.

If you have sticky notes, a pen, and a wall, you can easily use those to post ideas as them come into your head.

I like a large, blank page that I can create my mindmap.

Once you have your ideas collected and put into categories, you will need to create a plan to get them.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery tells us “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

Create Baby Steps

I have a long-term goal of getting back to what I weighed when I before I got married 20 years ago. If I focused on the 35+lbs. I needed to lose to get there, it would be overwhelming (just typing this made my heart sink).

What I’m deciding to do is lose 5lbs. in the next 90-days. I can focus on that.

So what happens if I only lose 2 lbs in this 90-day period? Did I fail? NO! I will still celebrate. I didn’t gain weight. I’m also 2 lbs closer to my 18-month goal of losing 35 lbs.

Track Your Progress

With these series of 90-day sprints we are doing, tracking your progress is very important. It’s easy to lose sight of the small victories we are making.

One of my poorly worded goals is to “become less snarky.” I know, I’m talking about goal setting and I created a goal that is almost impossible to measure. Almost. I can measure it by asking those closest to me how I’m doing. Are they noticing a difference in my attitude and words.

Back to a more easily tracked goal.

I want to write weekly on my blog. I can track that very easily. I look at the dates I posted. Is there a post published every Friday? The answer is a “yes” or a “no”. Very trackable.

For my weight loss goal. I have a spreadsheet that I update my weight each Sunday morning. I have it set up to track my week over week change and my change since I started.

In my first 90-day sprint, I lost 3.4 lbs. I missed my 5 lbs goal but I still lost weight. In my second 90-day sprint of the year, I’m down 1.4 lbs with a 45 days left in that sprint.

Do you think that by tracking this will help me finish this second 90-day sprint strong? You bet. I want to lose that 3.6 lbs to hit my next goal.

Review Your Goals

Setting aside time to review your goals and plan for them is an essential key to making them.

I have calendar reminders to write for my blog and do other things related to my site.

I help plan out meals to help me eat “healthier” so I can lose the weight I want. It also helps with family time. Some meals include all of us helping in the meal prep.

Celebrate Your [small] Wins!

As a self-employed web designer, I am responsible for finding potential clients, meeting with them, winning the bid, and delivering on the agreed upon deliverables.

Since my family and I like to eat, live indoors (with heat and AC), have clothes, etc.; I have to have paying clients.

The “duty” behind this can only push me so far. What I started doing this year is to set fun prizes for each new website I do for a client.

For every two websites I build, I win a round of golf. For every 5th site, it’s a deep-tissue massage.

Find what motivates you and what incentives help you along.

A 90-Day Reset

The great thing about 90-day goals is that you reset them every 90-days.

For those of us that work from home, summer will always be a challenge since the kids are home. During the summer vacation season, my goals looked very different than they do know during the school year.

That’s OK.

YOU CAN DO THIS.

Relax.

Take a deep breath.

Set new 90-day goals based on the time you will have available.

You got this.

Get Your Free 90-Day Goal Setting Guide

If you want to get your free 90-day goal setting guide, go to www.faceyourgoliaths.com/free-90-day-workbook/

Eric Gale writes on FaceYourGoliaths.com about the areas of Blogging/Online Business, Faith & Evangelism, Family, Fitness(Self-Defense), and Personal Finance.