It’s the end of the first quarter of 2025.

How much have you achieved?

Have you made progress towards the goals you set on New Year’s Day?

Or did you forget and give up on them?

If you have fallen off course, how are you getting back on track in April?

Most people start their new year with incredibly optimistic intentions and goals.

They look at the year ahead with so much wonder and excitement.

“This is the year.”

But by March, their goal is an abstract idea.

“12 months is a lot of time. I have time.”

But didn’t you say that last year, too?

What if the reason you aren’t seeing the progress you want to see is that you are giving yourself too much time?

And what if you can achieve your year-long goal in 3 months?

Overestimation and Distraction

365 days.

12 months.

1 year.

Whichever way you look at it, a year is a lot of time.

With so much time, there’s a lot you can do. A lot you can accomplish.

So why don’t you?

Because you get distracted.

If we didn’t have our typical life responsibilities and commitments, a lot more people would be happier, healthier and wealthier.

If your goal for the year was to lose weight and you had no other commitments, would you lose the weight?

I sure hope so.

All your time and energy can be invested in losing weight.

But this isn’t the case.

You do have life responsibilities and commitments.

You have to go to work.

Attend meetings.

Visit your parents.

Sit in traffic.

Buy groceries.

Go out with friends.

Complete a deadline.

And another.

Cook dinner.

Lunch.

And breakfast.

Then you have to wash the dishes, of course.

Complete that other project.

Don’t forget to do laundry.

Sleep. Woah, do you even have enough time to sleep because of an upcoming deadline?

You also have to take your car in for servicing tomorrow morning, so…

These are all part of your day-to-day living.

You started the year with this big goal that given a year is more than achievable.

But as these short-term urgencies and emergencies stack up, your days get busier, your mind gets cluttered, and you don’t have the time to work towards your goal.

Then by June, you look back and you haven’t done anything towards your goal.

So you decide to abandon it and try again next year.

Then you get to the end of the year and think, “If only I had started or stayed consistent, then I’d have achieved my goal.”

Though 12 months is a lot of time for the achievement of a goal, this is also what hinders many from achieving their goals.

Most people stay stuck because they give themselves too much time to achieve their goals.

What?

How is too much time the reason I’m not achieving my goal?

Because of Parkinson’s Law:

If you give yourself 12 months to achieve a goal, you fall into the trap of believing you have time.

This brings with it other stories, “I’ll do it later” or “there’s something else I need to do.”

The extended timeline given to your goal kills its importance.

And it also invites urgent and immediate tasks and events to steal your attention.

These urgent and immediate tasks distract you from your tasks and activities to the big goal and you get sucked into reactivity mode — living life by default— rather than doing the things that create the life you want — living life by design.

When this happens, the story you once told yourself, “I have time”, becomes a new story, an excuse: “I don’t have the time. I need more time.”

The truth of the matter isn’t that you need more time; you need more focus.

You’ve gotten distracted with maintaining your current life instead of creating your ideal life.

So if a timeline of 12 months makes you vulnerable to distraction and neglect, what’s the solution?

Condense the timeline.

What if you don’t need 12 months to change your life?

What if you could do it in 3?

The 90-Day Sprint

3 months.

That’s all you need to get the ball rolling, build a solid foundation and change your life.

This is a protocol and philosophy I adopted years back, and it has transformed my life.

How The 90-Day Sprint Came To Be

The premise of the 90-Day Sprint was built off the book, The 12 Week Year, by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington and the Monk Mode protocol that took over social media.

I had read and learned a lot about the 12-week year and monk mode, but never really applied them in my life.

Until I did, and it changed everything.

I was tired and frustrated because I wasn’t making any progress in my business.

At the time, I was a part of a coaching program with other young entrepreneurs building their businesses.

I kept seeing how everyone was winning, and I was excited for them.

But I was disappointed in myself.

I’m in the same group as these people. Why am I not making progress?

What are they doing that I’m not?

It was frustrating, and I knew I had to do something different.

I went back to the teachings of my mentors and remembered the 100-day challenge they taught.

I had attempted it a few times in the past, but never made it past 30 days.

I decided to go all in this time.

I decided I would make it work or die trying.

I contacted another member of the programme and asked him to be my accountability partner.

He agreed (thankfully).

I then followed the rules and guidelines of the 100-day challenge (I’ll give them to you later), and the challenge was on.

Thanks to my deep commitment and my accountability partner, I made it to the end of the 100 days.

So what happened?

A few things actually:

1. I created a routine that allowed me to get to bed on time. This meant on average, I was spending 8-8.5 hours in bed a night.

2. I lost 5 kgs (weight loss was a goal I had for the year, but I wasn’t prioritising it at the time. So imagine my surprise when I saw that.)

3. I was calmer (During the 100-day challenge, one of the key actions was meditation. I also think the structure and routine of the challenge made me calmer.) 

And the biggest of them all?

I signed my first and second clients!

And I signed the first client before the end of the 100-day challenge.

It was insane.

It was then that I realised the power of the challenge and adopted it as a tool and protocol in my life.

What makes the 90-Day Sprint so powerful?

The 90-Day Sprint is powerful because it creates an environment of intensity, focus, urgency and commitment.

Unlike traditional goal setting, you’re not just setting a goal.

You’re engineering an environment where success becomes inevitable.

If you’re an anime watcher, it’s like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Dragon Ball Z.

The Chamber is a special training dimension where characters train and get stronger and faster in a short amount of time.

The Chamber has special conditions, such as compressed time. This means one day of real-time spent in the chamber is equivalent to one year’s worth of training. It also has increased gravity, which adds to the strength gained by characters.

The 90-Day Sprint is like creating your own Hyperbolic Time Chamber or an incubator that accelerates your progress because of the commitment, focus and intensity.

Here’s why this works:

1. Speed Forces Clarity

Most people get stuck in analysis paralysis.

They set a 12-month goal, but they overthink, lose focus and hesitate to take action.

But when you compress a goal into 90 days, you don’t have time for hesitation—you have to act.

The more you act, the clearer you get.

2. Deadlines Create Pressure

Ever noticed how much work you get done the night before a deadline?

That’s Parkinson’s Law in action.

A 12-month deadline invites procrastination.

But 90 days?

That’s just enough time to feel urgent while still being achievable.

You’re creating ‘artificial’ urgency, which triggers action.

3. Intensity Builds Identity

When you commit to a high-stakes sprint, you operate at a higher level.

You aren’t living in the hope of your goal happening, but you start making decisions like the person who has already achieved the goal.

Over time, this rewires your identity—from someone who “wants” success to someone who expects it.

And when you operate as the person who’s already achieved the goal, everything aligns to make it a reality.

4. Momentum Compounds

Imagine hitting small wins every single day for 90 days straight.

That’s 90 victories stacked on top of each other.

Most people struggle to stay consistent with their goals because their feedback loops are too slow.

When you operate in 12-month timelines, you only assess progress once or twice a year.

This leads to you feeling discouraged because, unless you’re regularly assessing progress, you’ll get demotivated from the lack of progress.

A 90-day cycle gives you rapid feedback, allowing you to adjust and improve faster than 99% of people.

As you make adjustments, the compounding effect of your actions builds greater momentum towards your goals.

When you take more action, you get faster feedback, collect more wins and make bigger breakthroughs.

5. Focus on What Matters

Most people get stuck in reactivity mode—responding to emails, life emergencies, meetings, and last-minute demands instead of working on their levers.

The levers that align with your goals and your dream life instead of your current life.

A 90-Day Sprint forces prioritisation—you MAKE time for what truly moves the needle.

With an intense focus on a few key elements, you eliminate distractions and make it easy for yourself to stay on course.

So, how do you implement the 90-Day Sprint in your life?

How To Do The 90-Day Sprint

If you’ve read the book, The 12 Week Year or watched any content on Monk Mode Protocols, you’ve seen a variety of ways to do them.

This is how I structure my 90-Day Sprints after learning and experimentation.

These aren’t fixed steps, but they are the steps that have been most impactful for me.

Feel free to use this structure as it is or you can adjust and structure it any way you want.

Step 1: Define Your Outcome → One Major Goal, Not 10

If there were only one goal you could accomplish in the next 90 days, what would it be?

This becomes your filtering system—every action you take must directly contribute to this goal.

If it doesn’t, it’s not part of the sprint.

Simplicity is power.

If you can’t decide what your major goal should be, ask yourself:

“What goal, if achieved, would change my life the most?”

That’s the major goal you should pursue.

Step 2: Prioritise the Important Over the Urgent

Life will pull you in multiple directions—emails, errands, meetings, and last-minute requests.

But during a 90-Day Sprint, time is your most valuable asset.

You want to prioritise the tasks and actions that lead up to your major goal above everything.

I’m not saying neglect your responsibilities.

But you must protect your time like your future depends on it—because it does.

• Can you wake up an hour earlier?

• Can you batch small, low-value tasks?

• Can you delegate or automate?

Every minute spent on distractions or busy work is a minute stolen from your success.

Step 3: Set Targets You Can Control

This is where most people fail.

They set goals based on outcomes they can’t control, like revenue targets or weight loss numbers.

But here’s the truth:

You can’t control when a client signs with you. You can’t control how fast the scale moves.

What you can control:

• How many sales calls you take.

• How many workouts you complete.

• How many outreach messages you send.

• How many days you hit your calorie intake.

Focus on hitting what’s within your power.

As long as you are achieving your controllable targets, you’re moving in the direction of your goal.

Step 4: Daily Execution on 3–5 High-Leverage Actions

The secret to winning 90 days?

Focus on winning today.

• Identify 3–5 actions that, if done consistently, move you closer to your goal.

• These should be high-impact lever-moving actions, not busy work.

If you complete these 3 -5 actions, and nothing else, the day is still a success because you are stacking daily wins and building your future.

Each action is a step up the staircase.

As long as you put one foot in front of the other and climb step by step, you will reach the top.

Step 5: Review & Reset Every 30 Days

Every 30 days = a checkpoint.

Use these checkpoints to reflect, iterate and refine your approach.

• What progress have you made, and how does it align with the 90-day goal?

• Is the goal still worth pursuing? If yes, where do you need to course correct? If not, why and is there another goal you might want to pursue?

• Are your actions still aligned with the goals, or do you need to select different actions?

• What targets will you set for the next 30 days?

• What lessons have you learned that will help you improve?

At the end of the 90 days, go into a deeper reflection.

• What were your biggest forms of growth and progress? (Here you’re looking at the tangible and physical forms of progress as well as any inner and mental shifts).

• How are you different from the person you were at the start of the 90 Days?

• What lessons and breakthroughs have you made in the last 90 days?

• What doors have opened now that were closed at the start? (What is possible now that wasn’t possible before?)

• How could you potentially 2x or even 10x your growth and achieve more progress in the next 90 days?

• What does the next 90 days look like, and what are you committing to?

The Real Game of 90-Day Sprints: Outdoing Yourself

This is an incredibly powerful protocol if you want to get ahead of others.

But from my experience, I learned that this protocol is really about challenging and overcoming your old self.

Yeah, it’s great to get ahead of your competitors, but the real competition is you.

At the end of the day, it’s you vs. you.

• Can you be 1% better today than yesterday?

• Can you make your future self proud?

• Who will you be at the end of this?

That’s the ultimate goal: to become who you’ve always wanted to be.

The intensity and focus of the 90-Day Sprint are exactly what you might need to push yourself past your limits.

So I turn it over to you.

The Choice: 12 Months Of Being The Same or 90 Days To Change?

Most people will waste the next 90 days.

Scrolling. Overthinking. Starting and stopping.

But you can make the next 3 months of your life the most productive, focused and transformative.

The only question left is “Are you ready to sprint?”

Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed it.

See you in the next one.

— Shana