Yearly Growth Plan: quarterly reviews

01

Before this course, and why a year plan

In simple words

A weekly check is like looking at the road signs. A quarterly check is like stopping at a rest stop to look at the whole map: Did we go the right way? Do we still want to go there? Is the car okay?

Before this course: Personal Growth Plan (course 9.10). You already have a one-page plan with values, goals, WOOP and if-then plans, a tiny habit, deliberate practice and a weekly review. Here we stretch that plan over a full year and add a quarterly review, so the plan stays alive and honest.

Key facts

A year is a useful size. It is long enough for real change (a skill, a habit, a project) and short enough to picture. Four quarters (3-month blocks) give you natural checkpoints.
Plans fade without checkpoints. A 2002 study of New Year's resolvers (Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys) is reported to have found that 46% of resolvers were continuously successful at six months, compared with 4% of non-resolvers with similar goals. Those numbers come from secondary reports, from one study with volunteers, so treat them as a rough sign and not a rule. Many popular "only X% keep resolutions" numbers are hard to trace to a source; do not repeat them as fact.
The honest limit: no plan guarantees a result. Averages from research do not tell you what will happen to you.
Reading effect sizes (from Applying Growth Mindset, course 9.9.2): ask how big, for whom, in what setting, and has it been repeated?

Level	Question	How often
Year	What do I want this year, and why?	Once, then once at the end
Quarter	Am I on track? What do I change?	Every 3 months
Week	What will I do next week?	Weekly (from course 9.10)

Step by step

Take your course 9.10 one-page plan (or write a short one if you do not have it).
Write today's date and a year end date, such as the same day next year.
Draw four boxes for the four quarters and write the start date of each.
Write one line under each box: "Review day: ___" (pick a real date now).
Put the four review dates in your calendar.
Check: you have four review dates booked.

LESSON 01Before this course, and why a year plan

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:00

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "A weekly plan keeps you moving. A yearly plan tells you where you are going."
[Text on screen: Year → Quarters → Weeks] "Split the year into four quarters, and check in at the end of each."
[Text on screen: One study, 46% vs 4% at six months (reported)] "In one study of resolvers, many more resolvers than non-resolvers were still on track at six months. But it is one study, and results vary."
[Host] "No plan is a guarantee. A plan you check is better than a plan you forget."

Try it now

Draw the four quarters of your year and book the four review dates in your calendar today.

ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude

Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Yearly Growth Plan: quarterly reviews" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "Before this course, and why a year plan".

What the lesson teaches:
- A year is a useful size. It is long enough for real change (a skill, a habit, a project) and short enough to picture. Four quarters (3-month blocks) give you natural checkpoints.
- Plans fade without checkpoints. A 2002 study of New Year's resolvers (Norcross, Mrykalo and Blagys) is reported to have found that 46% of resolvers were continuously successful at six months, compared with 4% of non-resolvers with similar goals. Those numbers come from secondary reports, from one study with volunteers, so treat them as a rough sign and not a rule. Many popular "only X% keep resolutions" numbers are hard to trace to a source; do not repeat them as fact.
- The honest limit: no plan guarantees a result. Averages from research do not tell you what will happen to you.
- Reading effect sizes (from Applying Growth Mindset, course 9.9.2): ask how big, for whom, in what setting, and has it been repeated?
- Level - Question - How often
- Year - What do I want this year, and why? - Once, then once at the end
- Quarter - Am I on track? What do I change? - Every 3 months

The exercise I'm working on:
Draw the four quarters of your year and book the four review dates in your calendar today.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "Before this course, and why a year plan" from the course "Yearly Growth Plan: quarterly reviews".

Here's what the lesson says:
A weekly check is like looking at the road signs. A quarterly check is like stopping at a rest stop to look at the whole map: Did we go the right way? Do we still want to go there? Is the car okay?

The activity:
Draw the four quarters of your year and book the four review dates in your calendar today.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

Sources

American Psychological Association, Monitor on Psychology, "Solutions" (cites Norcross et al., 2002): www.apa.org/monitor/jan04/solutions

My notes

I learned this

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