New Year’s Resolutions: How to Meet Your New Year’s Goals

At the start of a new year, many of us dive into the ritual of crafting New Year’s resolutions, convinced that this is the year we’re going to be different. But let’s be real: more often than not, these resolutions fizzle out. In this guide, we’re going to dish out some practical strategies to transform your New Year’s resolutions into tangible, doable New Year’s goals. Here’s what we’ll be covering:

1. Why New Year’s Resolutions Never Work for You
2. Understanding WHY You’re Setting New Year’s Goals 
3. Two Ways to Approach Setting New Year’s Goals:
4. Here’s Why You SHOULDN’T Be Too Specific with Your Goals:
5. How to Stay Accountable for Your New Year’s Goals 
6. 15 New Year’s Goals to Try in 2024
7. Our FREE 2024 Goals and Habits Tracker

FYI: Scroll to the end of this article for a FREE resource to track your 2024 goals!

Why New Year’s Resolutions Never Work for You

The reality is that New Year’s resolutions don’t work for most people. There are a lot of reasons that people fail to meet their goals. Some of the most common ones are that you:

Don’t see the bigger picture: Arbitrary goals like “lose 20 lbs” won’t be as easy to achieve because they hold no meaning. When you align your goals with your big-picture idea of the person you want to be, you’ll be much more successful.

Set unrealistic expectations: Overly ambitious goals can lead to frustration and burnout that ultimately prevent you from making progress in a smaller way toward your overall goal.

Don’t have a plan: Without a well-defined plan or actionable steps to reach your goals, you’re likely to get sidetracked and not make progress. 

Set too many goals: Trying to accomplish too much at once can be overwhelming, especially if you’re setting goals for different areas of your life, like work, health, relationships, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to stick to only one area of your life or only one goal, but it does mean you need to be selective and realistic with the goals you choose to focus on. 

Don’t have any accountability: Without accountability, whether that be a way to track your goals individually or an accountability pact with friends, it’s easy to let your goals go unaccomplished.

Don’t take time to reflect: Especially if you’re prone to setting overly ambitious goals or you experience a lot of life changes in the year, it’s crucial to regularly examine your goals. Adjusting to be more realistic or consciously deciding to let a goal go is not the same as failing to accomplish a goal.

Understanding WHY You’re Setting New Year’s Goals 

Many of us set goals that just sound pretty in our heads. This often leads to over-ambitious and unrealistic goals that may not even be aligned with our true values. 

Before you set any goals, try writing down what you want to be like and what you want your life to look like at the end of the year (or maybe even in several years). 

Ask yourself: 

1. What do I want to feel like?
2. What do I want my physical surroundings to look like?
3. What do I want my job to look like?
4. What do I want my free time to look like? 
5. What do I want my social life to look like? 

You might discover that you want to feel more comfortable or confident in your body. While losing weight might help, setting a strict goal of fitting a certain size or losing a certain number of pounds won’t help you internally feel better about yourself. Instead, setting a goal to develop a consistent workout routine or finding a workout class you enjoy can help you feel the way you want. 

Imagining your ideal social life might lead you to understand that you want to put more time and effort into hosting. Or, you might find this a good year to focus on fewer social engagements and more intimate gatherings as you draw your circle smaller. Understanding this will help you set goals that match your values in this area of your life.

Two Ways to Approach Setting New Year’s Goals:

Essentially, you can focus on one area of your life to improve or set one smaller goal for each area of your life.

The approach you choose will largely be dependent on what is realistic for you. If you’ve decided that one of your goals is to pivot your career to an entirely new field, setting seven other goals for other areas of your life isn’t realistic because you’ll need to put so much time and energy into this large goal you’ve set. 

On the other hand, if one of your goals is to rediscover an old hobby, like crocheting, you can easily also set a goal to save enough for a big purchase and also find a workout class you love. 

Even if each goal individually is realistic, you need to look at your goals holistically to see if they are all realistic.

Here’s Why You SHOULDN’T Be Too Specific with Your Goals:

We’ve all heard of SMART goals and just about every article about New Year’s resolutions tells you to be specific with your goals. But what if being specific might actually be to your detriment?

Oftentimes, we decide on a goal like “lose 20 pounds” or “work out five times a week” when we have no benchmark to base it on. If you already work out three times a week on average, five times might be a realistic goal. But, if you’re just starting to work out, you have no idea how much you can work out or even what kind of workouts are best for you. In the latter case, being too specific can actually be unmotivating if you can’t easily achieve that goal. 

Now, not being specific in your actual goal does not mean that you don’t need a plan. You can set a general goal and then create a specific plan on how you want to get there. This can help you leave room for you to figure things out and get more specific over time. 

How to Stay Accountable for Your New Year’s Goals 

Setting goals for the New Year is like giving yourself a roadmap for personal growth. But let’s face it, sticking to those goals can be a challenge. That’s where accountability comes in – it’s the secret sauce to turning your aspirations into accomplishments. Check out these practical tips to keep your New Year’s resolutions on track.

1. Write your New Year’s goals down

This is always the first step. Try brain-dumping any and all goals you think you might like to have. This helps you do two things: 

1. Identify any patterns/a larger focus of a certain type of goal that’s most important
2. See all of your potential goals together to identify what may be realistic

Once you have a robust list, start eliminating goals that you don’t really care about that much. Also eliminate goals that are unrealistic or are more long-term (beyond a year). 

Don’t forget to be realistic. Select 1-2 bigger goals in 1-2 areas of your life or smaller goals across different areas. 

2. Even if your New Year’s goals aren’t specific, your plan should be 

Maybe your goal is to create a consistent workout routine. That’s pretty general. However, your plan might look like this: 

1. Try weight lifting, ballet classes, yoga classes, pilates classes, and kickboxing classes to figure out what movement or combination serves me best.
2. Start working out only 1-2 days a week for at least a month
3. Add a day each month 
4. If I fail to be consistent one month, don’t add a new day the next month. Keep trying that number until I get it, or decide to stick with the number of days I currently have. 

It can be hard to be specific with something that you don’t know about. If you don’t currently work out, you can’t know if two days or five days is your ideal workout routine or what type of workout or combination of workouts is best for you. This plan gives you guidance on a more general goal so that you can work your way towards specificity. 

3. Set metrics to track your New Year’s goals

Once you’ve gotten clear about your plan, you need to set some key performance indicators. Or, how you’re going to measure whether or not you’ve achieved your goal. 

If your goal is to host a quarterly party or dinner for your friends, that’s an easy one. Did you host 4 events or not?! 

For a goal like getting a promotion, you’ll need to use your plan to provide some metrics. For example, did you: 

1. Set expectations for how to achieve a promotion with your boss
2. Track your weekly accomplishments at work (you’ll want to track this for each week instead of as one big accomplishment)
3. Review your progress toward your outlined expectations on a quarterly basis
4. Put together a comprehensive overview of what you’ve accomplished and how you’ve grown over the year
5. Have a follow-up conversation with your boss on how you met the expectations set out for a promotion 

In this case, the “metrics” are much more like a to-do list than a quantitative “metric,” like “did I work out three times this week?” 

4. Track your progress toward your goals

Most days, remembering what you had for breakfast yesterday can be hard. So, how are you supposed to keep track of how often you worked out or what work you accomplished without tracking it? For more habit or task-based goals, a goal and habit tracker can be immensely helpful for daily tracking. If you have career or financial goals, try using a work accomplishment tracker or financial tracker. Luckily for you, we have a 2024 Goals and Habits tracker with an annual goals tab, tabs for each month, and a review tab that gives you all the juicy insights. Scroll to the end of this article to get your FREE copy!

5. Schedule a quarterly or mid-year review 

If you don’t understand what progress you’ve made, why you maybe haven’t made as much progress as you’d like, and what external factors have changed in your life and are potentially impacting your goals, you’re not likely to achieve them. Add a calendar event for yourself every quarter to spend half an hour reviewing your goals. Focus on the progress you’ve made so far and identify what may be blocking you or what adjustments you may need to make. Using a goal tracker makes this process incredibly easy!

6. Don’t be afraid to adjust your goals

Adjusting your goals to be more realistic is not a failure. In fact, it’s an incredibly important measure to ensure you stay on track and motivated. Nothing is more unmotivating than feeling like you haven’t made any progress yet! 

15 New Year’s Goals to Try in 2024

After reading all of our tips and advice, if you feel ready to tackle some New Year’s goals in 2024 – try these!

1. Get a raise or promotion
2. Get a new job
3. Start or rediscover a hobby
4. Save X amount or Save for Y
5. Pay off your student loan or debt (or X% of your debt)
6. Start investing or Invest X amount
7. Find a workout class you like
8. Develop a consistent workout routine 
9. Start a side hustle
10. Make $X in your side hustle 
11. Host a quarterly dinner or party 
12. Read X books
13. Learn X new recipes
14. Call 1 family member or friend a week to check in and talk
15. Volunteer X hours

Got more ideas? Drop them in the comments of our TikTok about New Year’s resolutions!