How to Set Goals for the New Year: A 5-Question Check

To set goals for the new year, pick one to three, write each as something you will do rather than something you will stop, make it specific enough that you could tell whether it happened, and check that your goals do not compete for the same hours. That is the short version. The rest of this page shows how to do each step, with a rewrite table, a time check and a worked example.

This page is about writing the goals. If you also want the surrounding plan, a theme, check-in dates and a template, the new year planning guide covers it. Here the focus is narrower: turning a loose wish into a goal you can act on.

If you would rather start from a single word that points the year, see how to choose a word of the year.

What the research says about new year goals

Resolutions have a mixed record, and the numbers are worth knowing before you write yours. In a large Swedish experiment on New Year's resolutions, 58.9% of people who set approach-oriented resolutions considered themselves successful, compared to 47.1% of people who set avoidance-oriented ones. Overall, 55% of responders considered themselves successful in sustaining their resolutions at a one-year follow-up. The success measure was self-reported, and it came from one national sample, so treat the figures as a hint about direction, not a forecast.

An approach goal names something you will add or do ("walk after lunch"). An avoidance goal names something you will stop or keep away from ("stop snacking"). The gap in that study is a reason to phrase goals as actions.

Older work on the same question looks bleaker. The same paper summarises an earlier study in which 77% of participants had maintained their resolutions after one week, 55% after one month, 43% after three months, 40% after six months, and 19% at the two-year follow-up. That is a description of how goals tend to fade, not a verdict on you. It is also a good argument for choosing fewer goals and building in a way to look at them again.

On wording, the paper notes that studies on goal-setting theory demonstrate specific goals as being superior to vague or abstract goals, and that goals are more effective, and often only effective, in combination with feedback. Two practical consequences follow. A goal needs a concrete shape, and it needs a place where you will see how it is going.

The five-question goal check

Most goal advice gives you a mnemonic. This page gives you five yes-or-no questions you can ask of any draft. A goal that gets five yes answers is ready. A goal with a no gets rewritten before it goes on the list.

1. Is it something I will do? The sentence should start with a verb you can picture, such as walk, write, call, practise or cook. "Be healthier" fails. "Walk for 20 minutes after lunch" passes.
2. Could a stranger tell whether it happened? If two people would disagree about whether you did it, it is still vague. Add a number, a count, a date or a finished object.
3. Is it mine? Some resolutions are inherited from a magazine, a relative or last year's list. A fair test is to ask what you would do next week if nobody ever heard about it.
4. Does it have a place to be seen? Feedback is what turns a goal into something you can adjust. Decide now where it will show up: a weekly review, a note, a calendar entry or a daily intention.
5. Does it fit alongside my other goals? This one gets skipped most often, and the next section explains why it matters.

Rewrite table: from wish to goal

Here are twelve common resolutions, each rewritten to pass the five questions. They are examples of the pattern, not targets to copy. Change the numbers to suit your life.

Common wish	Why it is hard to act on	Rewritten goal
Get fit	No action, no measure	Walk or run for 30 minutes, three mornings a week
Eat better	Vague, and no feedback	Cook dinner at home on four evenings a week
Stop scrolling	Avoidance, with no replacement	Read for 20 minutes before bed instead of using the phone
Read more	No quantity	Finish one book a month, starting with the one on the shelf
Learn a language	No size, no end	Do a 15-minute lesson on weekdays until the first course unit is finished
Be more present	Nothing to observe	Put the phone in another room during dinner
Spend more time with family	Cannot be checked	Call my sister every Sunday and plan one weekend outing a month
Write a book	Too large for a year's start	Draft 300 words on Tuesday and Thursday mornings
Be more organised	A trait, not an action	Do a 15-minute tidy and plan on Sunday evening
Stop procrastinating	Avoidance	Start the hardest task for 25 minutes before opening email
Find a hobby	Open-ended	Try three different classes by March, then keep one
Be less busy	Avoidance, and a feeling	Leave Friday afternoons free of meetings where I control the calendar

Look at the pattern in the right-hand column. Each goal begins with an action, contains a quantity or a limit, and implies a place where it can be checked. Notice, too, that the "stop" goals turned into "instead" goals. Naming a replacement also gives the new goal a time slot to occupy.

Check your goals against your hours

A list of five good goals can still fail as a set. University of Exeter researchers describe inter-goal conflict as the situation when pursuing one goal makes it difficult to pursue another. They explain that it occurs either because the objectives are incompatible or because pursuit of both goals draws upon a limited resource, such as time or money. Their example is that a person's goal to spend more time with their family may conflict with their goal to get promoted at work.

The practical lesson is that clashes are easier to deal with when you can see them: the researchers say that such conflict between goals may be more manageable if it is conscious. You do not need a special method for that. A short arithmetic exercise does the job.

The weekly hours check

1. For each draft goal, write the hours per week it needs. "Walk three mornings, 30 minutes" is 1.5 hours. "Draft 300 words twice a week" might be 3 hours.
2. Add the hours for all goals.
3. List the hours you already spend on fixed things: work, commuting, sleep, meals, care for others.
4. Subtract the fixed hours from the 168 in a week. The remainder is your flexible time.
5. Compare. If the goals need more than about half of your flexible time (a rough rule of thumb, not a research finding), you probably have a conflict that will show up in week three, not in January.

Two goals in the same time slot are the obvious clash. The less obvious one is two goals that draw on the same energy, such as an early-morning run and a late-night writing session. When there is a clash, you have three honest options: drop one goal, shrink one goal, or move one goal to a later quarter. All three are fine. Writing the choice down is what matters.

This is also where the eight areas of life help. If all of your goals sit in Work and Learning, the hours check will probably be tight, while Relationships, Rest and Health have nothing planned. Xenith's Life Dimensions divide life into eight areas, and the wheel of life guide shows one way to spot lopsided lists before you commit.

Choose how many goals

The research above does not name a perfect number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. A workable rule that follows from the hours check is to choose one to three goals for the year, with each of them small enough to survive an ordinary week. Everything else goes on a "later" list, which is a normal and useful place for it.

If three goals feel like too few, remember that a goal is a direction, and the weekly work under it can be varied. One goal like "finish a first draft" supports many weekly actions. For a deeper breakdown by area of life, see personal OKRs by life dimension.

Add an if-then plan

Once a goal is clear, tie it to a cue. The National Cancer Institute's summary of the research describes implementation intentions as if-then plans that link situational cues with responses that are effective in attaining goals or desired outcomes. In plain terms: "If it is 7:30 on a weekday morning, then I put on my shoes and walk."

The cue should be something that already happens, such as finishing breakfast, sitting at your desk or closing the laptop. Our habit stacking guide goes deeper on picking cues.

Pick your start date on purpose

January 1 is a popular start, but it is not the only one. A Wharton summary of the fresh start research reports that these fresh starts aren't actually limited to January, and that they take place throughout the year, with landmarks such as a birthday, the beginning of a school semester, or even next Monday.

That gives you flexibility. If the first week of January is full of travel and family, choose the first Monday after things settle. If a goal begins to feel off in March, a new month is a fine moment to rewrite it. A rewrite is a normal part of the process, not an admission of anything.

A worked example

Here is a full pass, starting from a typical set of January wishes.

Draft list: get fit, eat better, read more, learn Spanish, write a book.

Step 1, apply the five questions. None of the five passes yet: they have no action, no measure, or both.

Step 2, rewrite.

• Walk for 30 minutes on three mornings a week.
• Cook dinner at home on four evenings a week.
• Finish one book a month.
• Do a 15-minute Spanish lesson on weekdays.
• Draft 300 words on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Step 3, hours check. Walking is 1.5 hours, cooking adds roughly 4 hours beyond what takeaway would need, reading is about 2.5 hours a week for a 10-hour book, Spanish is 1.25 hours, and writing is about 1.5 hours. The total is about 10.75 hours a week. If the person's flexible time is 25 hours, that is over 40%, which is close to the rule of thumb above and leaves little room for a bad week.

Step 4, cut and defer. The person keeps walking, writing and Spanish, and moves cooking and the monthly book to a "later" list. The load is now about 4.25 hours.

Step 5, add cues and a place to look. Walking follows the morning coffee. Writing starts when the laptop opens on Tuesday and Thursday. Spanish happens right after lunch. All three get a line in the Sunday review.

The result is three goals with cues, quantities and a check, in place of five wishes. Nothing was lost along the way: the other two are on a list with a date to look at them again.

Using Xenith for this

Xenith does not set goals for you, and it is not meant to. Two parts of it fit this process. Daily Intentions lets you write what a day is for and tag it to a life dimension, which gives each goal a regular place to appear. The free Weekly Review Generator gives you a short set of prompts for the weekly check. You can do the same on paper, and the method works either way.

Common mistakes when setting new year goals

• Writing goals as things to avoid. Rewrite them as what you will do instead.
• Skipping the hours check. Each goal looks small alone, but the set can be too large.
• Treating the list as fixed. A goal can be shrunk, moved or retired when the facts change. That is feedback at work.
• Choosing a goal because it sounds impressive. Question three exists for this reason.
• Having no place to look. If a goal never appears in front of you, it cannot receive feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions