Goal setting can become intimidating and dragging if you set a 365-day timer as your gauge for success. If you want to be realistic about goal setting this year, then forget about jotting down year-long goals. Instead, opt for another resolution—focus on quarterly goals. This is more feasible and will provide you realistic targets for the year.

8. You shouldn’t have to be a fortune-teller

Right now, I can’t foresee what my year would be like come December of this year, but I can have a strong sense of what the next three months will be. Quarterly goal-setting allows us to make the right adjustments throughout the year without being overwhelmed and, worse, crushed.

7. Not too short, not too long

A quarter (or 90 days) is enough time for you to gauge whether you’re close to achieving your goal or not. More importantly, the limited time (albeit a realistic deadline) gives you a sense of urgency that forces you to work efficiently.

6. There’s no fear to reset

With quarterly goals you are able to break down your actions into doable chunks, so if something doesn’t work out, you can reset and adjust. Some of us get depressed and destructive when we feel we’re lagging behind our goals. What’s worse is that some of us wait for the next year to restart—fooling ourselves that the New Year gives us renewed motivation.

5. Goals are grounded in reality

Adapting a quarterly goal approach allows you to be more realistic about your goal setting. I’d recommend keeping two goals per quarter, but sometimes it’s best to keep it to just one—especially when that one is equivalent to two goals in terms of scale. Being brutally honest to yourself also gives you a higher chance of achieving your goals.

4. Good habits start to develop

Achieving goals requires a step-by-step process, and in between those steps are habits that eventually form along the way. Let’s take “losing weight” as an example. Achieving this goal will require us to set certain habits: limiting daily calorie intake to 1500, abstain from junk foods,etc.

After each goal completion you would have developed good habits that can translate over other aspects of your life—some could even be used to fulfill future goals.

3. The need to evaluate

It seems like that we only take time to reflect and evaluate when the year is about to end. Oftentimes most of us never do this step because we’re afraid to come to terms with the fact that we have failed. A quarterly evaluation of ourselves and goals allows us to calibrate our expected outcomes.

2. Developing a resilience against setbacks

When we grow accustomed to hurdles quarter by quarter, we should also be learning to adjust and overcome whatever obstacles quarter by quarter. As such, we also become resilient year after year.

1. It’s humanizing

It’s quite alright to dream big, but we must realize that the bigger the goals, the longer it will take to realize them. We tend to get impatient, and that is when disappointment sets in and when most of us would abandon the goals we set out for ourselves. Think of quarterly goals as rungs on a ladder: concentrate on clearing the steps first. With each step we take, we get closer to our goal.

How do you plan to achieve your goals? Share your method below!