3, 2, 1: A model for marrying the micro to the macro

Make your dreams reality in three steps using the 3, 2, 1 model.

If you want to achieve your goals you have to be able to marry the macro to the micro.

The big picture and the small steps.

The dream and the plan.

The dream motivates you.

The plan moves you.

Without the dream, you’ve got nothing to aim for.

Without the plan, you don’t know where to start.

After all, a dream without a plan is just a wish.

But where do you begin?

When, in 2018, we decided we wanted to move from London to live nearer the sea, we used the 3, 2, 1 model.

Here’s how it works.

Start by thinking about what you want in 3 years’ time that you don’t have now.

And think big.

(We over-estimate what we can achieve in 1 year but underestimate what we can achieve in 3.)

Flesh out your big goal so it becomes real in your imagination.

Be clear about WHY you want it.

And what you’re prepared to sacrifice - to say NO to - in order to get it.

For us, we wanted more space for the kids, to live near the sea and still be within reach of London.

We were (reluctantly) prepared to leave behind our community of 15 years and start again.

That’s the ‘3’.

Next, pick something you’re going to have to do within the next 2 months to make that dream a reality.

This moves your thinking from ‘what’ you want and ‘why’ you want it to ‘how’ you’re going to get it and by ‘when’.

This becomes a 2-month project.

2 months is about a day of work assuming 1 hour per week.

For us, that 2 month project was settling on a location.

We knew we needed time to explore options and a framework for ruling them out but that without a 2-month deadline we might procrastinate forever.

So we worked out that cost of house + local schools + 20 mins from the sea + fast trains to London = North Kent or South Kent.

8 weeks later we’d shortlisted Whitstable and Folkestone and discovered the town we now live in.

That’s the ‘2’.

Finally, set yourself a task to complete within ‘1’ week that gets your 2-month project moving.

Ideally a biggish task to set you in motion and build momentum quickly.

Something that ties together your 3 year dream and your 2 month project.

For us, that was a family recce to the beach in Whitstable and an accidental but fortuitous pit-stop in a town we'd never heard of called Faversham (where we eventually moved to in May, 2021).

So a 3-year goal.

A 2-month project.

And a 1-week task.

3, 2 ,1.