Ready to Regain Some Lost Momentum With Your Goal? A Quarterly Life Review Just Might Do The Trick!

When was the last time you did an audit of your goals and dreams?

I recently started a new job and at my company, at the end of each quarter, teams sit down to review a lot of data and present what’s often referred to as a quarterly business review. In my case, this is a presentation containing lots of charts and graphs; but the main point of the exercise is to do a check-in to see how the business unit is doing.

While the questions are not implicitly laid out, the purpose of the review is typically to get some clarity on these main things:

1. How did we do over these past three months?
2. Where do we stand right now, and does that measure up to where we want to be?
3. Based on how things are going, where do we think we’ll end up?
4. What are our plans for the next quarter?
5. What do we need to have in place to finish the year strong?

As I started working on this, and dedicating a lot of time and energy on trying to answer these questions at work, it struck me – If I am the CEO of my life (which I believe myself to be), perhaps I should be doing a quarterly life review!

January tends to bring a lot of excitement and motivation to get going with our goals. It feels like a reboot, a fresh start; but if we’re not very intentional and laser focused, that motivation will start to fade. As life happens, and distractions start popping up, it’s not uncommon to fall a little off track, and by the end of the year, we might even forget what the goal was.

Well that’s why this is the perfect time for a self check. November is only one day away. This gives us two full months to move the needle and make something happen. Even if we make just a tiny little dent in the BIG goal, we can still do something if we refocus our energy and get intentional with our actions!

Here’s how to do a Quarterly Life Review.

• SECTION ONE – Decide if you want to focus on your life overall, or just one segment of it. Once you’ve made that decision, write down the vision or goal you currently have. It might be a paragraph, or a sentence, or even just a word that sums it up. Use whatever resonates with you. The YOU part of this exercise is critical. I’ve found that whenever I’ve set a goal that I thought I should have, or what I thought someone else wanted me to have, it never really worked out. This is all about YOU, and what YOU want.

• SECTION TWO – Write down your “Why Statement“. It’s so important to have this front and center as you go into this exercise. Why does this goal matter to you, and why do you want to focus on it now? Without a strong “WHY”, you run the risk of losing interest at the first roadblock or distraction. If you can’t think of a “why”, or if your current “Why Statement” no longer resonates with you, revisit your goal, and begin again.

• SECTION THREE – Reflect on the past three months and ask yourself these questions:

1. Did my actions over the last few months get me closer to accomplishing my dream, or did they move me further away?
2. What did I do well that I should keep doing, and where do I need to make the biggest change?
3. What specifically do I need to focus on now to ensure that I’ll be on track over these next few months?
4. What daily habits do I need to create, and what specific action steps do I need to incorporate into my daily routine now?
5. What’s my back up plan? In the event of something going wrong, what’s my fail safe plan? What will I do to ensure that I still stay on target with my goal, even if something comes up?

• SECTION FOUR – Step up your gratitude. Take the time to truly celebrate your successes over the past few months. What were the highlights? Where did you make progress? Document it and celebrate it! Show yourself some love and appreciation. If you can’t think of any accomplishments, take time to celebrate what you are doing right now! Celebrate that you are refocusing your energy back on your goal(s), and you are dedicated to making it happen. Gratitude often creates magic. It allows you to get centered and focused on what matters. Gratitude is a critical element in every success plan.

• SECTION FIVE – Get to work! Planning is helpful, but it’s also completely useless if it doesn’t turn into action. Look at those daily habits you wrote down in section 3, and get at it. Change comes with action – so take action! Another great tip is to re-read your goal and your “why statement” every morning to remind yourself of the purpose behind those daily habits.

Have you done a Quarterly Life Review? I’d love to hear all about it. Send me a note or leave a comment!