How Do I Set My Goals for the Next Year?

Five principles that help me set and reach my goals: keep them realistic, keep them big, balance the areas of life, review weekly, and pick one main direction.

There are a few important principles that help me set and reach my goals.

1. A goal has to be realistic. I rarely try to pull off something my own mind simply doesn’t believe in. Of course, over the years the borders of what feels possible keep widening, but in any given year I try to set goals that are at least visible on the horizon rather than somewhere up in the clouds.

2. A goal has to be big. When we think and plan small, small problems and difficulties are enough to stop us. When a goal is large, only big black swans can get in the way of it — and those show up relatively rarely.

3. I set goals across different areas of my life so there’s balance. If I only succeed in family and work, while service, health, rest and the people around me are left on the roadside, then overall I won’t be all that happy.

4. I used to try to set 52 goals for the year — one for each week. Now I set fewer goals, but I work with them more systematically and review every week which items on the list I can already start on. A weekly review system matters just as much as the list of goals itself.

5. For each year I choose one specific main direction. When you try to do everything at once, your attention scatters across dozens of small tasks, and the result is that nothing turns out well anywhere. Our attention is a very limited resource. So I’m learning to sacrifice secondary things in favour of the main ones.

This year, the focus of my attention will be creating and distributing educational content.

And what will your main direction of growth be this year? What things do you want to change in 2024?