Quarterly Review of Your Life | 12 Week Goal Audit Questions

Hi, my name is Dr. Karin Nordin and I’m a PhD level expert in all things behavior change and mindset. Here, I’m the CEO and founder of Body Brain Alliance. We’re on a mission to bring you the real science behind self-help. 

Part of the way we do that is we give you tangible, actionable tools that you can implement into your life that are going to actually help you make those changes.

 

So if that’s something you’re into, make sure you keep reading! And sign up to get weekly behavior change tips, delivered to your inbox HERE. 

 

The Power of Reflection

 

Now here at Body Brain Alliance, we have a coaching program known as Alliance Coaching. This blog is not going to be me selling you on that program. This blog is actually giving you some insight as to how our clients progress and why they make changes so fast. And the answer is reflection in particular. The answer is a unique cycle we use in our coaching program, and I’m going to teach you exactly how you are going to implement it today.

 

Common Reflection Patterns

Now, the first thing we’re going to do is recognize the sort of patterns that we’re involved in as humans. What we’re normally doing when we think about reflecting on our lives, there are really two times of year that we reflect.

1. 1. End of Year Reflection 

This is the big one at the end of the year. We typically like to think about how the year went, what we learned, did we accomplish our goals… So we have some sort of end of year reflection.

2. 2. Monthly Reflection

Oftentimes we also divide the year into months. What that looks like is you saying to yourself, “Oh, I can’t wait for next month to start, or this month went pretty well or went poorly.”

 

The Problem with These Reflection Periods

 

Here’s the problem I have with both of these two periods of reflection. Number one, I think it’s great to reflect at the end of the year (super awesome). I think it’s great to reflect at the end of the month, but a month is really not a long enough period of time where you can actually see changes. 

 

A month is not long enough for anything to be different, but a year is almost too long. If you’re only reflecting once every single year, you’re not giving yourself a chance to stop, troubleshoot, pivot, or learn from your mistakes.

 

The Quarterly Approach

 

That is where the quarterly approach comes in. Now, this is something I actually stole from the world of business. It’s very common to set quarterly benchmarks and to do a quarterly review at the end of those 12 weeks, but when I looked at the world of self-development and when I looked at the clients I was working with at the time… I realized it was very rare to be on this 12 cycle. However, 12 weeks really is that sweet spot. 

 

It’s short enough where you can still make interesting changes and you’re still able to stop, pause, and pivot. But it’s long enough where you’re actually able to understand and start seeing whether or not your approach is working.

 

Implementing the Quarterly Review

So now that you know the why, let’s talk about the how. Make sure to give me a, “Yes, I have done this!” in the comments section below once it’s done. 

Okay, look at the end of this quarter and I want you to schedule a one hour meeting with yourself on your calendar. 

 

This is going to be your moment to look back on the past 90 days to reflect about what has gone well, what didn’t go so well. Then set intentions, goals, and even plans for the next 90 days after that.

 

Four Key Questions for Your Quarterly Review

 

I am now going to give you four specific questions that you’re going to ask yourself during that quarterly review. You’ll also learn why I’m choosing each one of those questions.

1. 1. What does my behavior indicate that I value? You’re going to look very carefully at the behaviors and actions that you’ve taken in the past 12 weeks, and you’re going to ask yourself… “If I was a stranger, if I was only looking at this person’s life from the outside, what values would I assume this person has based on the behaviors that they were engaging with?”

2. 2. What psychological skill held me back this quarter? This is where you’re going to look at your behavior and you’re going to look at where there’s commonalities across multiple actions. For example, if you frequently skipped the gym because you didn’t feel like you could generate motivation… Maybe it’s time to work on your meta motivational regulation skills.

3. 3. What moments stuck out to me this quarter? What moments were filled with the most joy? What moments did I feel the best about myself? We at Alliance Coaching like to refer to these as tiny joys. When you’re looking at next quarter, you always want to ask yourself, “How can I make more room in my schedule for these tiny joys?”

4. 4. What are the four values and the four behaviors I want to prioritize over the next 90 days? This is known as our core four framework. We use it in our coaching program and we also use it in our membership. Basically, going back to the first question…You’re going to think about the values that you weren’t necessarily embodying with your behavior. Maybe you want to be an active person, maybe you want to be more present with your kids and you’re going to write four of those values down. Then you’re going to ask yourself, how can I actually enact those values on a daily basis?

Conclusion

 

That my friend is our Core Four framework! I promise if you implement this, it’s going to make a massive difference in your sense of fulfillment and your sense of leading an intentional life. 

 

Let me know in the comments, did I sell you on quarterly planning? 

Are you going to take some time at the end of this quarter in order to answer the questions I gave you today? 

 

I really, really hope you are because I have personally seen it impact and change so many people in our membership and in our coaching program. 

 

And by the way, if you want to set a goal for the quarter but you’re not really sure how to set a good one or one that you’ll actually follow through on, I have a blog about that too. Check that out HERE.

Thank you for reading, see you in the next one!