Achieve a Major Goal in 8 Weeks
Join the Spring Launch (4/18/2026 thru 6/15/2026)
We are well into 2026 and summer will be upon us in no time. Now is a great time to revisit a resolution, start a new project, or just double down on a goal you set at New Year’s. If you want to shift into high gear and get a major project finished before summer, join me for the Spring Launch.
By participating in this program, you will:
- Set a goal or resolution that makes a material difference to your health, wealth, or relationships, which you will achieve in 8 weeks
- Troubleshoot and overcome any practical difficulties that stand in your way
- Build measurable emotional resilience to draw on as you pursue other challenging goals in the coming year
*The soft start was the free 3-session course, “Prepare Your Project to Launch.” The formal start of Launch is Saturday, 4/18/2026, during Thinking Day, when I encourage all Launchers to finish defining their initiatives.
Launch has been life changing for me. Every Launch, I learn so much about myself beyond the goal that I set. I guarantee by the end of Launch, you will have learned something profound about your way of thinking. You won’t just achieve a goal; you’ll understand yourself more deeply in a way that will help you forever.
Launch has been an amazing experience, the best thing that has ever “happened” to me in the realm of productivity and “managing myself.” I implemented a new productivity system, I was able to stick to it, and I achieved my specific work goals. I have foundational universal skills for productivity and emotional resilience.
Read more about the teaser here:
Prepare Your Project to Launch
Don’t see the form? Email us: support@thinkingdirections.com
Do you want to achieve a new goal or a lagging goal or an “impossible” goal?
Major goals take significant effort to achieve — but effort alone is not enough. If you only focus on putting effort toward the new goal, you can easily get burned out or create chaos in the rest of your life. To achieve a major goal — especially one that is new to you or has already been difficult — you need to be able to manage your priorities and your motivation for everything going on in your life. That can be overwhelming. Launch gives you the support you need to do it.
Typical problems goal-setters have is that they don’t know how to:
- Set goals that motivate dedicated effort over weeks or months
- Fit work on their goals around the rest of their lives
- Deal with the inevitable rough patches when life gets in the way
- Regroup when it doesn’t go as planned
- Create momentum that keeps them working hard, even if the project takes longer than they planned
Launch helps you solve all of these problems by giving you a comprehensive coaching support system including:
- Individualized coaching from me at the start to make sure you set a goal that will motivate you
- A weekly 20-minute video that lets you anticipate and navigate around the predictable problems that arise as you settle into a routine, get some momentum, deal with setbacks, and feel pressure to finish
- Daily thought work (by email) to help you coach yourself through motivational problems and build emotional resilience
- Two group coaching calls a week with me (or occasionally Lin Zinser) to address your questions and problems and get help
- Fellow goal-seekers who will share your journey. Hearing other people’s problems normalizes the difficulties. Seeing their success inspires you. The cohort always bonds, and members become mutual cheerleaders.
Let’s keep it simple
The Thinking Lab includes self-study courses on all of the tactics you need to set a major goal and motivate your work on it. And in fact, there is a self-study version of Launch in the Lab! And, if you are new to my work, it can be overwhelming. You can spend all of your time taking interesting courses instead of working toward your goal!
That’s not what we want! With this Launch (Spring 2026), I am doubling down on eliminating any overwhelm you might feel. I aim to give you enough guidance so you can get working and enough coaching so that you can deal with the problems as they come up, without you feeling like you need hours of instruction in addition.
So I’m condensing hundreds of hours of material into a carefully curated series of 20-minute videos for Launch. I will share as we go through the program. They are:
- Choosing a goal to be your “initiative”
- Figuring out when you will work on it
- Identifying a “key result” you will finish in 2 weeks or less to ensure you get momentum
- Why building emotional resilience is inherent in pursuing a major goal
- Consistency in working toward the goal
- Making the work motivating
- Resolving conflicts with other projects and life
- Dealing with pressure to finish something
- Identifying “old baggage” that gets in the way
- Moving forward despite residual “old baggage”
- Keeping the momentum going
- Consolidating gains
You will get 1 through 3 when you join, to help you define your initiative. Then you’ll get one video weekly to guide you through the rest of the program.
If you are totally new to my work, I’ll encourage you to also watch my new series of 20-minute videos teaching you how to Do What Matters Most. These will be coming out weekly in the Thinking Lab during Spring Launch 2026. They are on:
- What matters most: the top value at stake
- Thinking through issues on paper
- Resolving conflicts with a decision
- Gaining certainty with action
- Understanding emotions with introspection
- Countering temptation with awareness
- Eliminating pressure with choice
- Sidestepping resistance with experimental steps
Anything else you need, you can get in the coaching calls with me.
This doesn’t mean you can’t go through the detailed classes — and some of you might want to. For example, sometimes people come into Launch to decide on a central purpose, and there’s a self-study course for that, so working that course could be your initiative. And the self-study version of Do What Matters Most has bonus classes on procrastination and perfectionism that may be of vital interest. But for most people, the self-study courses will be a bonus to dip into, not the main focus.
Your goal is the main focus!
Wait a minute, this sounds like a lot of time. How much work is this going to be?
This definitely takes time, above and beyond the time you put in on your project. How much time depends on your schedule and your interest — and whether you have already done the exercises in the course Do What Matters Most.
At a minimum, you need to budget at least 3–4 hours/week for this program, over and above the time you need to do the work to achieve your goal. Most days you will spend 15 minutes “thinking on paper.” Most weeks you will take an hour either to attend a coaching session or to do more in-depth thinking on some issue. For example, unless your goal is already clear, you will probably need a little extra time right at the beginning to clarify your goal.
You can spend a lot more time than that, because you will have access to literally hundreds of hours of recorded materials in the Thinking Lab. To help you prioritize, I offer specific suggestions for small (3 hours), medium (4–5 hours) and large commitments (>5 hours/week). To make extra listening as easy as possible, all Launch-related recordings are available in the form of private podcasts. So, you can easily listen while driving or exercising.
If you are very pressed for time, I strongly recommend you join early and go through the exercises in Do What Matters Most in advance. Alternatively, you can go through them as part of your work on your project.
If that sounds like a lot of time, maybe your goal isn’t important enough to warrant a two-month push. The motivation for doing this thought work is your achieving your goal. If you are sure you’ll achieve your goal without the program, then don’t sign up! If you don’t have a meaningful goal you want to achieve, then don’t sign up!
If you have a goal that you really want, but you dread putting the time in, then you need this program. The thought work is how you sort out why you don’t feel motivation to do something that is good for you. It’s also how you change your perspective so you do. Once you learn how to troubleshoot that kind of motivational disconnect, you will have a skill that you can draw on for the rest of your life.
What if I don’t know what goal to set?
If you have a vague yearning for something, but you don’t know now exactly what, you need more of the resources to get you started. In addition to the specific goal-setting work in this program, you will have access to courses in the Thinking Lab such as Developing a Central Purpose. Your goal for the eight weeks may be to identify a major direction for your life, or develop a skill, or you may take a couple of weeks at the beginning to sort out your goal. There are many, many resources available to you once you are in the program, and you can use them as much or as little as you need to get what you want.
What exactly is “thought work”?
“Thought work” is the 15-minute assignment you do each day. These will always be done in writing. Essentially, I will ask you to answer some thought-provoking questions related to your goal. You will write out your answers in the form of “thinking on paper,” or sometimes follow the steps of another tactic. It is fine if you don’t know the answer to the questions at first. These are not tests. They are chances to “pick your own brain.” In the program, you will learn how to answer your own questions, even when you don’t know the answers at first. My job is to make the questions interesting and relevant to you, and to teach you how to adjust your thinking as you go, so that every one of these 15-minute sessions is helpful to you.
What does it look like? Here is a video of me doing “thinking on paper” in my journal (sped up 4x):
Two weeks in and I’ve already had so much success I’ve gotten my money’s worth from Launch. This was remarkable because I had started from a very low point in my life, following from the death of my dearest friend. Thank you Jean and Lin.
The only person who can achieve your goal is you. But we can give you the moral and practical support so that if you falter and don’t know how to get back on track, you have the resources you need to regroup, recommit, and restart.
Every day in the program you will receive an email in the morning. It is just the day’s 15-minute thought work. That is really all you need to do. You don’t need to get overwhelmed. You will be able to achieve your goal, one step at a time. Convinced?
When I joined Jean’s Launch program, my goal was to improve my guitar technique—but I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Jean helped me realize that the way I’d set the goal was part of the problem. Using her tools, I got way more specific and focused on learning I’m The One by Van Halen—a notoriously challenging song I’d been avoiding because it felt out of my league. That one shift unlocked everything. I made more real progress in 8 weeks than I had in the past 6 months. Her tools helped me push through self-doubt and frustration, and honestly, they’ve completely changed how I think about setting and achieving goals. I’ll be using what I learned from her for the rest of my life.
How will this “thought work” actually enable me to achieve my goal in 8 weeks? Isn’t action the key?
Of course, action is the key. Much of your thought work is going to be reviewing what you did and didn’t do, and why, so you can repeat successes and avoid repeating failure. The thought work is how you stay on top of action and make sure that you are giving this goal the attention it needs so it actually gets accomplished. The thought work is essential to the three promises I’m making:
Promise #1: You will set a goal or resolution that makes a material difference to your health, wealth, or relationships, which you will achieve in 8 weeks
How do I know it will make a material difference to your health, wealth, or relationships? Because you will figure that out as part of the thought work. That is a critical step to setting a goal that motivates you to take the action. You will have the benefit of my feedback to make sure that your goal is sufficiently meaningful that it can be worked on consistently over these two months.
How do I know you’ll achieve it in 8 weeks? Okay, there is a little bit of sleight of hand here. The thought work is going to guide you to set a stretch goal that is realistic. It will also ensure you re-assess its realism, if needed, as you take steps toward it. Some people in the program will eventually conclude that their initial idea for a goal is impossible to achieve on this time scale. If that’s the case for you, you will figure out what is possible and do that instead. But you won’t give up prematurely! The other two promises will ensure that.
If you do the work, I guarantee you will be satisfied with your investment in the Launch. So, I am offering a 100% money-back guarantee.
If you signed up for the program in good faith, and have put in the effort to implement the advice, but it just doesn’t work for you, let me know by May 16. Simply email me with the subject line: “I want to take advantage of the money-back guarantee.”
The only requirement is that before I give you your money back, you agree to have a 30-minute conversation with me in which we can discuss what wasn’t working for you and why. This will enable me to fine-tune the program in the future and/or be more specific about who should and shouldn’t sign up for it.
I was getting settled in to listen to your Ending Procrastination course [a bonus in Do What Matters Most] this afternoon when I had a sudden realization: I don’t have any procrastination that needs ending anymore! This is a massive change in my life; I would’ve identified procrastination as the internal obstacle to my happiness from the ages of 15 to about 25, and in the years since it’s still been a major problem.
The last 4 months or so have been different. I can’t think of a single time where procrastination has been an issue, and I don’t have any fear of it “rearing its head” at some unknown point in the future. And I haven’t even been trying to address this! Procrastination was something that was bad but manageable, not worth making a priority, and it’s gone!
It’s all down to your courses and the work I’ve been doing based on them. I have a much better sense of my values, how to manage my motivation, and how to identify and solve conflicts. Some of the progress is simply in renaming: What in the past I might have called “procrastination” I now see as a proper way to address my needs or handle new information. But a big part of it is that I don’t fall into the same conflicts or behavioral patterns anymore!
Thank you again for your wonderful work! I feel like the entire world is open to me and I could leap to the moon if I wanted!
Promise #2: You will troubleshoot and overcome any practical difficulties that stand in your way
I predict that every single person in the program will run into difficulties following through on his or her goal before the end of the program. Some will have problems the first day. Some may only have them at the end of the first month or later. But everyone will have problems. It’s inherent in pursuing a challenging goal. If you could achieve your goal without making uncomfortable changes to the status quo, you wouldn’t be enrolling in the program.
Here’s my second prediction: when you have problems, you’ll be tempted to avoid the issue. This is a predictable motivational event. If things don’t go well, if you have something that looks like difficulty or failure, it will be unpleasant. Every person on the planet feels aversion to unpleasantness.
It is going to take a bit of effort to take a look at what happened and regroup. If you don’t have a system in place to help you do so, your goal will just mysteriously slip out of mind, perhaps even for a week or two at a time. If this happens to you, it will eventually pop back into mind, and you will feel guilty because you’ve been ignoring it. That would make it even more unpleasant to examine, leading to greater aversion to it.
One of the key purposes of regular thought work is to prevent that kind of vicious cycle from starting. You will take a look at how things are going on a regular basis, in a neutral, non-self-critical way. You will learn to look at problems objectively, without jumping to the conclusion that something is wrong with you, or you’re “bad,” or “lazy.” There is no insulting yourself in the thought work. It is 100% constructive. If you have any trouble with the thought work turning into self-recriminations, ship a copy of it off by email to me and Lin Zinser, then come to the next coaching call. When we see your “thinking on paper,” Lin and I can help you reframe and get a different perspective. Our goal is to teach you that you can always get oriented in a constructive, positive direction by doing thought work.
That said, you may need to develop some emotional skills to deal with the problems in a nonjudgmental, positive way. Hence the final promise:
Promise #3: You will build measurable emotional resilience to draw on as you pursue other challenging goals in the coming year
You can find a lot of sappy quotes about how failure is just a step on the road to success. And it’s not failure unless you give up. And it’s not failure, it’s a learning experience. And they’re all true. And that doesn’t make failure any fun. To anybody. Ever.
Therefore, I am not promising that the next two months will be fun. I expect you to experience some failure along the way, sooner or later.
What I am promising is to teach you skills for dealing with it, emotionally, so that you can come back and make a new effort.
This is the quality of emotional resilience, which you are going to measure and build throughout the 2-month program. How? Thought work. Yes, the thought work is how you build that strength. The thought work is designed to give you self-understanding. This means you are aware of your strengths and your weaknesses. Your skills and your limitations. Your motivation and your lack thereof. When you can be objective about what you bring to the table, you can set more realistic goals and troubleshoot obstacles in a matter-of-fact, efficient manner.
Learning to do this may require some coaching. That’s why there are two coaching calls every week. If you run into a tough spot, you can get help within a few days. Send us an email — I promise at least a short response as soon as I can, and we can talk about it on the next coaching call.
By the end of the program, you will have measurably more emotional resilience. This is a capacity that you can draw on for the rest of your life.
How do I know I can help you?
I’ve been teaching these skills for a long time. Over the years, I have run several programs similar to this. In every case, the people who did the thought work in a structured way on a regular basis got amazing results. The people who used my goal-setting tools got amazing results. The people who learned the introspective tools got amazing results.
This particular program was run for the first time in January 2021, and it was a huge success. It has significantly more support to help you do the work consistently. I doubled down with daily emails and 8 group coaching calls a month. It paid off. I have repeated it at least twice a year since then, freshening the materials each time, and I expect to continue offering it on a regular basis.
Why this design? It works. I got the idea for Launch when I checked out some competitors to the Thinking Lab and found some things they were doing that helped me be more accountable when I test-drove their programs. I adapted what I learned for the original Launch 21 program and it worked very well. In addition, Lin Zinser and I are both fully certified by the Life Coach School in a unique coaching process that meshes with everything I’ve been teaching for 20 years. It helps ensure that you don’t just get advice on the calls, you learn how to do your own thinking and solve your own problems. It’s a very effective method that we’ve both found can help you re-set your approach in a short conversation of only 15-20 minutes.
The program has been extremely successful, as you can tell from the testimonials. I offer the money-back guarantee because the results from the previous rounds were not a fluke. I believe you can and will achieve the results I’ve promised, because I have built in more than enough support for anyone who puts in the effort. If I’m wrong, I need to know that.
As I tell people in the Thinking Lab, be a squeaky wheel. I am always eager for feedback, good and bad. If you raise an issue, and I see I need to add something to the program, you can bet I will. I may write a new article. I may set a topic for a class. I could even put together a new mini-course. I am committed to doing everything I can do, to support you in doing your own work.
Defining a single initiative to focus on for a six or eight week period was incredibly helpful. I’ve tried setting long-term goals, with shorter annual goals, and then quarterly goals in the past. In those cases I found that I had too many things to work on at a time, and I’d lose momentum. Choosing a single item for a short period has been wonderful (wish I knew this 40 years ago!). Your method of thinking on paper is also working well for me.
Thanks for the great course Jean and Lin. I feel very good about being able to apply what I’ve learned in the Launch over and over again. The methods will benefit me for a long time!
Coaching Call Schedule (proposed)
Saturday, 4/18 from 10 am to 6 pm ET, Thinking Day
Monday, 4/20 at 3 pm ET
Thursday, 4/23 at 8 pm ET
Monday, 4/27 at 12 noon ET
Thursday, 4/30 at 3 pm ET
Monday, 5/4 at noon ET
Thursday, 5/7 at 8 pm ET
Monday, 5/11 at 3 pm ET
Thursday, 5/14 at 8 pm ET
Monday, 5/18 at 12 noon ET
Thursday, 5/21 at 3 pm ET
*Tuesday, 5/26 at 8 pm ET
*Friday, 5/29 at 12 noon ET
Monday, 6/1 at 3 pm ET
Thursday, 6/4 at 8 pm ET
Monday, 6/8 at 12 noon ET
Thursday, 6/11 at 3 pm ET
Monday, 6/15 at 3 pm Celebration
Listening to coaching calls is easy with the private podcast option!
Many Launchers are inspired by listening to coaching calls that they don’t attend. Others want to re-listen to particular advice. This is easy with the private podcast option. All coaching calls are posted to a private podcast feed that you can follow automatically in your favorite podcast app. Catch up on recordings when you drive or exercise. Coursework, bonus recordings, and Thinking Lab classes are also available on private podcast feeds.
There are too many benefits to list, but the main highlight is that not only have I had successful meetings, I am now convinced that I can resolve my challenge in a win/win manner. This is such a meaningful result.
This is something that, despite my conscious conclusion to the contrary, seemed completely impossible emotionally when I started. In retrospect, I realize that unintrospected emotional issues were undermining my attempts to build alignment.
There is one huge integration that surprised me. As I shift my focus back onto my central purpose, I realized that what I learned can offer a unique twist on my product. I will be creating a product that expresses my own view that no free man is a threat to any other free man. Honestly, in all the world, I had absolutely no idea that this work on my initiative would pay such massive dividends for my central purpose.
Let’s summarize exactly what you get
- A simple goal-setting process coming to you when you register
- The Thinker’s Toolkit mailed to your home (USA only) (and soft copy)
- Day 1: Finalize your goal with help from Jean’s live group coaching as part of Thinking Day (part of the Thinking Lab)
- Daily: 15-minute follow-through process, coming to you by email each morning
- Weekly: Two live group coaching sessions each week, to help you get out of your own way and/or apply tools to your situation
- Monthly: New live classes each month on managing your mind (part of the Thinking Lab)
- Monthly: Open Q&As (mix of one-hour “Ask Me Anything” or a “Thinking Day” in the Thinking Lab)
- A new tool for measuring emotional resilience
- Access to 20 self-study courses, including “Do What Matters Most,” “Tap Your Own Brilliance,” “Just-in-Time Planning,” and “Defining a Central Purpose” (part of the Thinking Lab)
- Access to a library of more than 50 Thinking Lab Tools that you can use to augment your thought work (part of the Thinking Lab)
- The skills you need to stick with and achieve challenging goals for the rest of your life
- Completion of your goal, and a chance to celebrate with others
The most important thing I learned from Launch is the value, while pursuing your goals, of being around like-minded goal-pursuers. Even though I’m someone who generally likes to be and work alone, there is considerable value in being around like-minded people, even if they’re not personally invested in your goal. Learning from their trials and triumphs, as well as working with expert coaches on these issues, helped engender more accountability and inspiration/motivation as I pursued my goals.
As a result of Launch, I have started to build the foundations of my feature stories/advertorial business that I otherwise kept putting off and just couldn’t generate that push I really needed. Jean and Lin got me to focus on the question: Right now, to get started, what are the most important things I must do?
The answer: clarify my purpose and goals (my Initiative statement, which Jean and Lin pressed me to get clearer on), get at least a rough preliminary business plan down, and write some new cost-free feature stories that I could more quickly use to market, while also looking to find a variety of people to write about to continue producing fresh stories to market.
As a result, I completed two feature stories, marketed one of them on social media, and, before the end of the 8-week Launch workshop, scored my first (technically my second) paid commission thanks to my efforts.
Before Launch, I lacked the motivation to really start my business. But now I think that maybe—just maybe—I can start something with my business idea and earn some money from it, thanks to the Launch program.
Frequently Asked Questions:
I am already in the Thinking Lab. Is this included? No, but you qualify for a discount or an extension of your subscription, since the fee includes time in the Lab you’ve already paid for. Email me for details.
I participated in a previous episode of Launch or something similar. Do I get a discount on this one? Sorry, nope.
How does this program relate to Do What Matters Most? Recordings of Do What Matters Most are included in the Launch as part of the curated content that you go through during the 8 weeks. But in this package, you get many more opportunities to apply the ideas, ask questions, and chew the material.
Do I really have to register by midnight April 18? Yes. The program starts April 18. Everyone will go through it in the same sequence. On April 18, as part of Thinking Day, I will be on the Zoom bridge from 10 a.m. – 11:45 a.m., 2 – 3:15 p.m., and 5 – 6 p.m. Eastern. I encourage you to attend live during one of the sessions to get help setting your goal!
That said, the page will stay up until Wednesday, April 22, mainly because some people in the Thinking Lab may attend Thinking Day and decide to add this on. You can join as long as the page is live, and you’ll need to hustle a bit in the first week!
What are the group coaching calls? The group coaching calls are designed to help you see what is getting in the way of following through. Submit questions in advance about your daily 15-minute thought work, material from Do What Matters Most, and/or specific obstacles you run into. Note that the calls will be run by Jean Moroney or occasionally by Lin Zinser. The calls are generally on Mondays and Thursdays at 12 noon, 3:00 p.m., or 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The time varies to accommodate people in different time zones. If you want to know the full schedule, see the sidebar at the above right.
How does the Launch relate to the Thinking Lab? As part of Launch, you get the whole 8 weeks of the program in the Thinking Lab, so that you have access to all of those resources while you are working toward your goal. The Launch program is like a super-charged membership in the Thinking Lab, because there are many more group coaching opportunities.
Will there be other Launches? Yes, the Launch program runs for 8 weeks, usually three times a year: New Year’s (January – February), Spring (between March 1 and July 1), and Labor Day (September – October).