Does Your New Year’s Goal Need a Reset… Already?
By the time the clock struck midnight, you had written your New Year’s goals and were ready to tackle them! You knew your motto of the year and your word of the year. You even created a vision board. Halfway into January, maybe you still feel like you’re overstriding down a hill. It’s easy. You’ve got this. Why didn’t you make these changes before?
However, the uphill portion is approaching, if it’s not here already. You’re tired, feeling overwhelmed, and aren’t quite hitting your New Year’s marks as you thought you would.
If this is you, or if you see yourself not making it all the way up the hill, don’t give up! And yet, don't force yourself to work towards a goal that's likely unattainable in the long-run either. While January 1st set the goal, consider a goal revision. You can think about this as a course correction rather than a new destination.
So, let’s reassess that goal. Ask yourself the following questions:
Is your goal physically written down?
If you weren’t one of those who went through an extensive, soul-searching process to perfect your New Year’s goals and wrote one down, it’s OK. Let’s take that step now. This is an important part of the process and will help you to get some clarity on your goal formation.
2. Is your goal a SMART goal?
If you’re a therapist, a teacher, a business executive, or involved in any career where others assess your goals and progress… you might want to throw up when you think about SMART goals. But, they’re actually helpful! And, yes, you can apply them to your personal life. You can Google SMART goals, but basically, SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Undertaking this goal-writing process goes a long way towards goal attainment. Here’s an example:
Non-SMART: “I’m going to get in shape.”
SMART: “I’m going for a 20-minute walk in my neighborhood, five days a week, because my health is important to me.”
3. Can we reconsider your thoughts on “achievability”?
Can you point to the behavior you’re wanting to see? Can you count it in some manner? For the most part, we can easily make specific and measurable goals. However, whether something is achievable can tap into our inner stubbornness and/or ambition. “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do! I can achieve anything that I set my mind to.” That’s great… and, in the short-term, it’s a delusion.
Using the work-out example, if you had written, “I’m going for a 3-mile run and then engaging in weight-training for ninety minutes at the gym, seven days a week, because my health is important to me,” I would challenge the achievability of that goal. Unless you’re a professional athlete, working out is not your job. Do you truly have that much time to dedicate to working out? And if you haven’t been working out consistently, your body isn’t going to be happy with that sudden change. At best, you’ll be too sore to work-out on day three, or maybe you eventually want to be able to engage in this type of training. If that sounds like you, break it up into smaller steps. Consider starting with a walk-run for a mile, three days a week, or begin weight training with one session per week with a personal trainer to learn correct form and prevent injuries. This is where smaller steps are needed.
Whatever your end goal is, you don’t have to change it! Just be cautious of achievability factors and consider creating subgoals in service of the larger goal.
4. How many goals did you write?
This is one of my personal struggles. I can write down a half-dozen goals that I want to achieve… and in 2025, that’s what I did! They’re specific and measurable. On their own, maybe they’re achievable. But when I stack up six goals at the same time… now I’ve crossed the achievability threshold in a different manner.
If you also have lots of areas in your life where you see that change is possible and desirable, decide where you want to start. Can you focus on just one goal for two to three months? Once you get into a new habit in that area of your life, you can add in goal #2. Similar to our previous discussion of subgoals, this small step process helps to scaffold life changes in a manageable way.
5. Are you OK to continue to revise your goal?
Once you start a new life practice, things that you didn’t consider may arise. Be cautious of rigidity and all-or-nothing thinking. In other words, don’t get too attached to the goal that you’ve set and force yourself to failure. If life changes or if unanticipated ramifications arise, allow yourself the flexibility to change your subgoals, extend timelines, and even modify the end goal. For example, you set a goal of buying only organic fruits and veggies. When put into practice, you realize that your budget cannot support all-organic produce right now. Maybe you modify and choose to buy organic for the fruits and veggies that have the most pesticide exposure and build as your budget allows. Flexibility is key.
Your life is important to you! In service of leading a healthy, impactful life, your New Year’s goals are important to you! Don’t give up, yet don’t blindly push yourself into misery. Allow yourself to make course corrections. Try considering these questions, making adjustments to support your goal attainment.
However, if you’re feeling stuck in other ways, consider seeking professional support. Working with a therapist can help you gain insight into your maladaptive patterns, encourage accountability, and devise individually tailored goals for change. If you feel that 2026 is the time to seek therapy, please reach out!