The 12-week year is a more human way to plan your year, one that allows you to evolve as you go, instead of forcing January’s version of you to run the whole show. Navigating Life is the series where I share how I juggle work, play, and wellness to live an exciting, fulfilled life, while offering ideas you can apply to your own.

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Recommended read for starters: 

The 12-Week Year — Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with yearly goals. Every January, I sit down with the best intentions. I write carefully thought-out plans, clear objectives, and ambitious targets. And yet, somewhere between February and April, something always feels off — usually because I’ve changed.

The truth is, I am hardly ever the same person at the beginning of the year as I am at the end. Life happens. Work intensifies. Priorities shift. Energy changes. New information comes in. And suddenly, I’m trying to force behaviours that made sense for a version of me that no longer exists.

This is why the idea of the 12-week year changed how I think about time. It doesn’t ask you to predict who you’ll be twelve months from now. It simply asks you to focus on who you are becoming next.

PLANNING IN CHAPTERS

The 12-week year is a goal-setting method built on a simple principle: instead of treating the year as a long, exhausting marathon, you break it into four distinct chapters, each lasting 12 weeks.

Condensing the timeline does two important things. First, it forces clarity. When you only have 12 weeks, you can’t carry ten priorities. You’re forced to decide what actually matters right now. Second, it increases momentum. Shorter timelines create a focused kind of urgency. You move faster. You make decisions more efficiently. And you stop procrastinating on things that matter.

But structure alone isn’t enough. The real shift happens when you start with identity.

START WITH A THEME

Before setting a single goal, I now choose a theme for the year. Think of it as a compass or a mood board for the direction your life is taking. 

A theme is your guide. A goal is a destination. A goal would say “run three times a week”, but if your identity is “I’m not a runner”, every run will feel like a fight you dread or a chore you detest, making consistency harder to sustain. 

A theme answers the deeper question: Who am I becoming?

This is where most resolutions fail. We set goals like robots: go to the gym, save money, study harder. But goals don’t work if we don’t address the identity behind them. A person who sees themselves as “bad at consistency” can’t magically act consistently just because the calendar changed. You end up forcing behaviours against your own internal story.

What makes a powerful theme? Good themes are emotional, memorable, directional, and identity-based. They describe who you are, not just what you do. 

Examples of some themes: The year of courageous moves. The year of quiet power. The year of foundations. The year of self-trust. The year of discipline over doubt. 

Notice how none of these are SMART goals, yet all of them can lead to very real, measurable outcomes. 

For the first 12 weeks of this year, my guiding philosophy is simple: everything is a muscle. I’ll elaborate on that in this column in the coming weeks, but the idea is that skills (physical, mental, creative) and habits can be built through repetition, like working on a muscle. 

THE FOUR-CHAPTER YEAR

Once you have a theme, structure follows. One year. Four chapters. Twelve weeks each. With one extra week between chapters to rest and recalibrate. 

The rule is simple: each chapter gets one primary objective. This forces focus, creates momentum, and allows you to tell a different story every quarter, all guided by the same theme. While a theme gives direction, a chapter gives focus.

MAINTENANCE IS PROGRESS

The part most planning systems ignore is that not every chapter needs to be about explosive growth. You are allowed to have maintenance chapters. 

A maintenance chapter is a 12-week period focused on consistency, recovery, and strengthening foundations, not launching something new. 

Examples include re-establishing a morning routine, recovering after a major project, deepening existing skills, or prioritising rest and health.

Progress is never linear, and life will test your focus. This is proof that your theme matters. When things feel chaotic, return to your theme. It’s the compass you return to when the year inevitably gets messy and you need an anchor.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR 12-WEEK PLAN

Start simple. Create general goals for the year. Divide your life into a few broad categories: health, career, finances, creativity, personal, and relationships. Try to keep it under six.

Choose one primary objective for the next 12 weeks that aligns with your theme. Ask yourself: What would make the rest of the year easier if I focused on this now? For example, to prioritise my mental and physical health no matter how busy I get.

Define two lead measures you can repeat weekly. Create actionable steps and write down a list of strategies to help you meet your goal weekly. For example: move 3 times a week. Maintain a consistent, unrushed bedtime routine. Get 8 hours of sleep daily. Journal every morning.

Track your progress visibly. Make it obvious. Make it satisfying. Check boxes in a sheet tracker. Colour out stars in your journal for each completed task. Keep a simple track of whether or not you’re maintaining the actionable steps for that week. It’s a way to reassess and make any changes for the upcoming weeks.

Check in at the end of the 12 weeks. Journal what changed. Decide what the next chapter needs.

Where to make yours. You can build this anywhere: Google Docs, Notes app, Notion, a journal, a whiteboard, sticky notes on a wall calendar. The tool doesn’t matter. Accessibility does. Find what works for you and is easily accessible.

Planning your year this way gives you room to evolve and be ambitious without burning out. It’s structure without rigidity. Your story doesn’t have to be written all at once. Sometimes, it’s better told in chapters.