What 90 Days Can Do That 12 Months Can’t (Especially for ADHD Brains)

ADHD Productivity

Every January, thousands of Americans take part in a familiar ritual. Not the kind that requires a bonfire, but the kind that promises endless possibilities. 

There’s something about New Year’s Day that makes us believe this time will be different. We watch the ball drop in Times Square, stay up past midnight, wake up with a hangover and eyes gleaming with possibilities. We convince ourselves that this is it. THE YEAR!

This is the year we finally get our lives together. New beginning. Clean slate. Infinite opportunity.

And yet… we all know how the story usually ends. Most resolutions fade before February.  Whoever decided January 1st was going to be this arbitrary reset button needs a lesson in gratitude. Every single day IS January 1st. Every morning you wake up, and every moment you’re alive is another chance to start.

So why do we wait for an arbitrary date on a calendar to give ourselves permission to change?

And more importantly, why does it never stick?

Why Your Brain Is Sabotaging Your Goals (Without You Even Knowing It)

Like a lot of people, I set New Year’s resolutions like clockwork. Every January 1st, I’d write them down in a fresh notebook: lose weight, get organized, start a family, read more books, blah blah blah.

I have ADHD. Consistency is hard. Long-term planning feels like trying to grab smoke.

So I stopped trying to grab it and started lighting fires instead. After reading The 12 Week Year, I learned to burn bright shorter periods of time.

I adapted my newest approach to:

  1. make every day is January first, and
  2. create four major goals for the year. NO MORE. Tackled one at a time over 90-day sprints. One goal. Twelve weeks. Total focus. Then move to the next.

And for the first time in my life, I started finishing what I started.

But first, let’s talk about why we fail at goals. Not in a motivational poster kind of way, but in a “your brain is literally working against you” kind of way.

Why Your ADHD Brain Can’t Connect With “Future You”

The Science Behind Goal Failure: Temporal Discounting and Bias

Humans are terrible at valuing future rewards. There’s a term for this, temporal discounting.

Your brain assigns less value to something that’s far away, even if that thing is objectively better for you. 

Netflix tonight feels more rewarding than the gym membership you’ll use “eventually.” The donut now beats the body you want next year.

And if you have ADHD? Your brain takes temporal discounting and cranks it up to eleven. ADHD brains are wired for immediate dopamine hits, not distant, abstract rewards. The further away a goal is, the less real it feels. 

Twelve months from now might as well be twelve years.

Why Your ADHD Brain Struggles With Long-Term Goals

Executive dysfunction makes long-term planning feel like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the dark. You know what you’re supposed to do, but the steps between here and there are fuzzy. Overwhelming and impossible to hold in your mind all at once.

So you procrastinate. Because your brain can’t emotionally connect to a version of yourself that exists a year from now. Research shows that fMRI scans reveal we think of our future selves like strangers. No wonder that January goal feels irrelevant by March.

The Myth of the “Big Dream”: Why Lofty Goals Backfire

We’re told to dream big. Set audacious goals. Reach for the stars! But here’s the thing nobody talks about: big, distant goals often paralyze us more than they motivate us.

Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, 

“Confine yourself to the present.” 

We now know he wasn’t being pessimistic. He understood something modern neuroscience is only now proving: our brains can’t emotionally connect to abstract futures.

Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

But no one talks about the second step. Or the third. 

We fixate on the destination and forget that the only thing we can actually do is what’s right in front of us.

The Zeigarnik Effect: Why Unfinished Goals Haunt Us

Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik discovered something interesting: our brains obsess over unfinished tasks. Every incomplete goal is like an open browser tab, quietly draining your mental battery in the background.

When you have ten goals on your list, you have ten open tabs. That’s not ambition. That’s cognitive overload. 

And for ADHD brains that already struggle with working memory and executive function, it’s a recipe for paralysis.

Why 90-day Goals Work Better Than Yearly Resolutions (Especially for ADHD)

So what’s the alternative?

Close some of those tabs. Shrink the distance. Bring the future closer.

Our biggest struggle with not being able to set and achieve our goals is that we set goals on a time our brains can’t handle.

90-day is the sweet spot. It’s close enough that your ADHD brain feels urgency, like a deadline that really matters. But it’s long enough that you can build something real, something meaningful.

365 days? That’s science fiction to your dopamine receptors.

Brian Moran’s The 12 Week Year suggests treating every 12 weeks like a full year. Set your goal. Sprint toward it. Execute like it matters now, not someday. Because to your brain, “someday” doesn’t exist.

How Quarterly Focus Reduces Cognitive Load

Barry Schwartz’s research on the paradox of choice (his TED Talk is worth watching) revealed something crucial: too many options paralyze us. 

Decision fatigue is real. The more choices you face, the worse your execution becomes.

That’s why one goal per quarter creates clarity. No second-guessing. No spinning in circles. 

You’re not asking, “Should I be working on Goal 1, 2, 3, or 4 today?” You already know the answer: this one.

One Goal, Total Focus: A Strategy That Actually Works

Your brain doesn’t actually multitask. MIT research confirms it. What feels like multitasking is really context-switching, and every switch costs you energy, focus, and momentum.

I’ve tried chasing multiple goals at once. I burned out, stalled, and ultimately, failed. That’s why I stopped juggling and started sequencing. One goal at a time isn’t limiting. It’s smart. It’s strategic.

James Clear explains this beautifully in Atomic Habits: 1% better every day doesn’t sound impressive… until you do the math. 1.01 to the power of 365 = 37.78. That’s not a small improvement. That’s a transformation.

You don’t need a year to see it. In just 90-days, small daily actions compound into massive results. You don’t need to overhaul your entire life every January, that’s unsustainable. You just need to focus, show up consistently, and let the system do its work.

That’s exactly why I designed the Permission to Achieve System™ around 90-day goals. It gives your brain clarity, urgency, and permission to actually finish.

What You Can Accomplish Right Now Matters More Than What You’ll Do “Someday”

The Stoics knew this. The Buddhists knew this. And now neuroscience knows this too: the only moment you control is right now.

“Someday” is where dreams go to die. “Someday” is a thief. Future You is a stranger your brain doesn’t care about.

But Next-Month You? The person you’ll be 90-days  from now? That person feels real. That person feels close enough to matter.

How to Choose Your One 90-Day Goal (Without Overthinking It)

Here’s how my system works: 

I identify four major goals for the year. Not ten. Not twenty. Four. I choose the areas of life I want to improve right now. And I always begin with a Life Area Assessment.

Here’s why: before you can choose the right goal, you have to know where you actually are. Not where you wish you were. Not where you were last year. Where you are today.

Think of it like GPS. You can’t get directions without first setting your starting point. The Life Area Assessment is that starting point.

I look at five key areas of life:

  • Health
  • Finances
  • Relationships
  • Career
  • Personal Growth

From there, I create four goals, one per quarter. One focus. One sprint. And at the end of 12 weeks, I move on with a clean slate and fresh momentum.

The Bottom Line

You don’t fail at goals because you’re broken. You fail because the system was never designed for your brain. Twelve-week goals work because they align with how ADHD brains actually function: urgency, proximity, dopamine, momentum. One goal at a time. Twelve weeks of focus. Then move on.

Stop waiting for someday. Start building today.

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult with healthcare professionals regarding ADHD symptoms and treatment options.

Citations & Further Reading

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