31 million people quit in January. Here's what the rest do
31 million people quit in January. Here's what the rest do
80% of people ditch their New Year's goals by mid-January. Strava analyzed 31.5 million activities and even gave the day a name: Quitters' Day. The second Sunday of January. The day most people officially give up.
Today is February 9. Are you still in the game? (Daniel, what fucking game?! 🤡)
I am. A month ago I posted 39 goals for the year. Still holding. Not because of iron willpower (mine is honestly not great). But because I don't rely on willpower at all.
In The 12 Week Year, Brian Moran coins the term knowing-doing gap: the distance between "I know what to do" and "I actually do it". Most people don't suffer from a lack of ideas. They suffer from a lack of execution. Me included.
One reason: a year is too long a horizon. The brain doesn't hold context for all 365 days. In January it feels like there's plenty of time, by March the goals turn into background noise, and you only remember them in December when it's time to set new ones.
Meanwhile, a fact from the book: 30-40% of annual revenue in business lands in the last two months. The year-end push. Deadlines on fire — people suddenly start busting their asses.
The core idea is dumb simple: "What if you created that effect four times a year instead of once?"
Here are three things from the book I actually put in place:
1/ Periodization. A year = 4 × 12 weeks
The idea isn't to slice yearly goals into quarters. It's to treat every quarter as a separate year. Full cycle: vision → planning → execution → review. After 12 weeks, a "new year". Clean slate.
12 weeks is enough to build something meaningful. And short enough to feel the pressure. You physically can't say "later": there is no later, there are only these 12 weeks.
Important: I apply this only to the Tier-1 goals from my list. Until I make serious progress on the main things, I don't stress about Tier-2 and Tier-3.
2/ Weekly Scorecard. 85% execution rate
The main metric isn't the result. It's the percentage of key actions you completed that week.
The result is a lagging indicator. You don't control how fast your biceps grows. You do control how many hours you spent in the gym and how you eat. Focus on lead indicators: the actions that produce the result.
Every week I count how many planned actions I completed. Target: 85%. Three weeks in a row under 65% means either the goal is unrealistic or the tactics are shit. I usually compare plan vs. fact by hours.
This kills self-deception. You can't say "well, I tried". There's a number. The number doesn't lie.
3/ Weekly Review. 20 minutes
The author calls this process control. Once a week: what got done, what's the scorecard, what's up next week.
Without this checkpoint, quarterly goals die as fast as yearly ones. Skip two weekly reviews and a month later you can't remember what goals you set. Verified by me in 2023 :)
Important! Block this time in your calendar. Not "I'll do it when I have time": you won't have time. A specific slot, a recurring event, every week. Mine is Monday morning.
As Moran puts it: "If you are not in control of your time, you are not in control of your results"
I remember writing in the 39-goals post that the hardest part isn't setting goals, it's tracking them. Well, this is that tracking system. The basic operating system, and it's the part that costs the most effort.
TL;DR: If you blew January, February is the perfect moment to come back. Not to "start over", but to launch your first 12-week sprint. Take 2-3 goals from the yearly list, put a weekly review in the calendar, start counting your execution score. One quarter, one cycle. Four cycles, a year.
P.S. I recommend the book. A simple, well-assembled execution framework.
Stay tuned 🥷🥷🥷