substack.com - Want a better 2026. Set annual goals

Tip

Goal setting is a process of self-discovery that fosters a sense of control and belief in one’s agency. A simple, four-step annual process involves reflecting on the past year, evaluating life satisfaction across key categories (Health, Wealth, Growth, Relationships), planning Specific, Actionable, and Measurable (SAM) goals, and conducting monthly reviews. The aim is not just achievement, but building the compounding belief that you can figure things out.

A Simple Annual Goal-setting Process that Actually Works in Real Life

Yes, I know how that sounds.

I didn’t believe it either.

Turns out, people who set meaningful goals tend to be happier than those who don’t. There is research behind this [1, 2], but you don’t need a meta-analysis to see why it works.

If you aim at something that matters and make progress, you feel in control.

If you miss it, you learn how to adjust and try again.

Either way, you are moving.

But, let me tell you a secret: achieving the goal is not the main point. The dopamine fades quickly. What lasts is the belief that you can figure things out. This belief compounds. Over time, it changes what you attempt and how you live.

Failure is part of life. You will fail on some (or even all) of your goals. As Randy Pausch said, brick walls exist to show how badly we want something. Sometimes they make us push harder. Sometimes they make us rethink.

Sometimes failure means doubling down. I know couples who endured years of IVF and loss to have a child.

Sometimes it means stepping back. I know someone who worked relentlessly for a promotion, got it, and died a month later. Not every goal is worth the cost.

This is why goal setting is really a process of self-discovery.

It helps you figure out what would make you flourish, not what you need to get approval from your parents.

You can start with someone else’s system. I did. Over time, adapt it to make it your own.

My system is deliberately simple. Complex processes bore the hell out of me, and bored people do not follow through.

Once a year, late December or early January, I set aside half a day to reflect and plan. Below is the minimum viable version of the process I use.

Step One: Reflect on the past Year

Open a blank document and write: *What went well this year?

*List everything that comes to mind. Think not only of achievements, but also of trends. Keep going until you are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Then write: *What didn’t go well?

*Be honest. This is not for publishing.

Once you exhaust your memory, look at your calendar. We forget more than we realise.

Pro-tip: I do my review in a Google spreadsheet (here is the template I use - feel free to copy). Two reasons: tracking the history year after year and ease of access from anywhere.

Step Two: Reflect on Your Life

Answer these five questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the life you are living?

Reflections from Step One will help you get to the number that feels right.

1. What would improve your satisfaction to N+1?

If you answered “10 out of 10” to the previous question (congrats!), you can change this to ” What would make it even better?”. There are often a couple of needle movers here.

1. Are all of your important relationships in harmony?

According to Harvard’s 85-year study on adult development, the single biggest predictor of long-term happiness are strong, positive relationships. This question is a litmus test and if your answer is anything but “yes”, set a goal to address the gaps next year.

1. Do you have any big, unfulfilled dreams?

As mentioned above, this is not for publishing, so write down all the crazy dreams you have. Sometimes you don’t realise until you vocalize.

1. What is your legacy project?

Some people know this, some don’t. It’s OK not to know. It is worth figuring this out in the long run - maybe next year.

These last 4 questions will feature in the next step, when you plan your future goals.

Step Three: Plan the Year ahead

I use four categories for my goals: Health, Wealth, Personal Growth, Relationships.

When I started, I had more categories which I simplified over time. For instance, Career goals fit into Wealth and Personal Growth; Travel goals fit under Relationships (since travel mostly revolves around building fun memories with my husband and kids). I found that less is more.

But if you need a fifth category, add one.

Write down every goal that you want to work on next year. This can be a “one off” goal, like “Climb Kilimanjaro”, learning goal like “Do Agentic AI course”, or habit forming goal, like “Meditate for 15 minutes daily”.

A good rule of thumb is to have 2 to 5 goals in each category. My problem is that I end up with 15 or more. I am like a kid in a sweets shop. First time, don’t aim for perfection, if it is 15, let is be 15 🙂.

Then make each goal SAM: Specific, Actionable, Measurable. For instance, “Learn about meditation” is not measurable. “Meditate daily for 1 month with the help of a meditation app” is. The former is meh, the latter is calling my name.

Pro-tip: account for “bad weeks”. Life will provide them generously.

Now go back to your answers from Step Two. Do your goals reflect what would improve your life, repair important relationships, honour your dreams, and move you toward a legacy you care about?

Do not skip this check.

Step Four: Review Monthly

Set a monthly reminder. Keep it simple. Most people abandon New Year goals by February. A reminder in March is often enough to start again.

Pro-tip: You are allowed to delete goals. (I know, sacreligious!)

Last year I set a goal to do a long road trip with my kids.

After a four-hour “test drive” full of arguments, tantrums, constant snacks and complaints about music, I crossed it out and wrote: Not ready yet. I still consider this progress.

Is monthly goal review enough? In my experience, yes. As a working parent, I optimise for systems that survive real life. A monthly reminder allows me to scan through the goals, remember the ones I forgot and set up quick next steps for the ones that got off track.

And that’s the end of the goal setting process.

Optional Tips & Tricks

1. Set your north star vision in every goal category and your overall life mission

This year, I pondered on both “what” and “how” of my goals. As a result, I have come up with my north star vision for each goal category, e.g. vision for Health, Wealth, Personal Growth, and Relationships. Once I had this, I pruned my 15 goals per category down to four or five. It keeps them aligned and grounded. It is also a bit scary, because I have nowhere to hide now 🙂.

2. Use AI thinking partner to analyse and re-work your goals

I put my mission, vision and goals into an AI thinking partner prompt. It gave me good feedback. Regardless of how I modified my prompt, AI told me that “Hit 10K subscribers by the end of the year” is a vanity goal and I should not set it. It said I should just write good content instead. So here I am, with the content goal for next year.

If you want my prompt - see the footnote ¹

If you have any tips that worked well for you in goal setting, please add them in the comments! And of course, please like, subscribe and share 😉

A Few Ideas I Borrowed from Others

• Chris Guillebeau for original annual goal setting process
• Stephen Duneier for inspiration to achieve ambitious goals
• Jesse Itzer for adding more fun through his Big A## Calendar idea

You are a rigorous thinking partner and life strategist, well-read on Brendon Burchard and Brian Tracy.

Below is my Life Mission and Vision.

Your job is to evaluate my 2026 goals for coherence and alignment with my mission.

Mission:

Vision for each of the goal categories:

Health →

Wealth →

Personal Growth →

Relationships →

Instructions

For each 2026 goal that I provide:

Assess alignment with the Mission and Vision (strong / weak / misaligned)

Identify whether the goal compounds towards mission or merely consumes effort

Check for any goal conflicts across pillars

Suggest simplifications, mergers, or deletions

Challenge me to think bigger on my goals if required

Call out anything that smells like status-seeking, fear, or over-optimization

Give me back top 5 keystone goals in each category (Health, Wealth, Personal Growth, Relationship) that would make others easier or unnecessary and ensure that each of those goals is SAM - Specific, Actionable, Measurable.

Each goal should be formulated as one sentence

Be direct. Prefer subtraction over addition. Optimise for my core principles.

Here is the current list of goals:

Footnotes

1. AI prompt to help condense, align and enlarge my goals. ↩