Achieve Your Goals in 12 Weeks. Start with a Goal Setting Session Next Week.
Dear Friends,
Happy 2025! Welcome to the eighth edition of Short & Sweet, a weekly newsletter where I provide brief tips for attorneys to build their brand and book of business, on and off of LinkedIn. Read until the end to see my LinkedIn tip of the week. Register for my 2025 accountability goal setting session at 1:00 PM EST on Thursday, January 9 here.
As you think about your goals for the next year, you may want to consider reading The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran. It sets a fantastic framework for organizing and achieving your goals and your ultimate vision.
In this book, a year is 12 weeks and goals are set in quarterly increments. This framework allows you the flexibility, without waiting 12 months, to adjust your goals and change them if they aren’t providing you with the results you desire.
In sum, you start with your overall vision, create quarterly goals that help you achieve your vision, and break down your goals into tasks that allow you to meet your goals.
Your vision includes your big dreams - the things that motivate you to get out of bed. The bigger and more compelling, the better. Maybe you want to work from anywhere in the world, get a second degree, build a million dollar book of business, become an equity partner, buy a vacation home, send your kids to college debt free, only work a few hours a day, or play pickleball two days a week.
Your quarterly goals support your vision. There are generally three per quarter. If you want to build a million dollar book of business over the course of a year or more, quarterly goals could be to engage a certain number of clients, bill a certain number of hours, delegate a certain amount of work to other billers, or hire support staff.
The daily and weekly tasks or tactics that support your goals follow the SMART format (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time bound). Say your goal is to engage 2 small clients and 1 big client per quarter. You set weekly and daily tasks to achieve this goal, such as the following:
Email or call 1 referral contact or potential client each day to check in or follow up,
Post on LinkedIn 3 days a week,
Attend 1 networking organization event per week,
Have 1 coffee (virtual or in-person) date a week,
Have a meeting with your marketing team,
Spend 30 minutes per week thinking about your progress in order to adjust your goals, etc.
Breaking down your vision and your goals into small bites makes them achievable and provides you with small wins to keep you motivated. (The book Atomic Habits by James Clear provides guidance on how to make tasks routine, and I also work with my clients on this process).
Want to get this checked off your list and do it together? Hop on to my 2025 accountability goal setting session at 1:00 PM EST on Thursday, January 9. You can register here. As a bonus, you’ll get an easy to use 12-week goal setting worksheet.
Warmest Regards and see you next week,
Jamie!
LinkedIn Tip of The Week:
The fastest way to build an audience on LinkedIn is to post consistently. Consistency can mean every day for one person, or once or twice a week for another. Ideally, you should be posting 3 - 4 days per week. Find the routine that works for your schedule and stick to it.
P.S. You can work with me in the following ways:
1:1 coaching to create a sustainable business development plan aligned with your goals, strengths, target audience, and schedule.
1:1 LinkedIn coaching and training that leverages LinkedIn to grow your visibility and practice without sacrificing billable hours.
Business development strategy, training, and fractional services to move your law firm in a focused direction to achieve brand and revenue goals.
1:1 coaching to effectively navigate industry conferences and maximize your ROI.
Human Design readings to gain insight into what attracts clients and success to you.
