The Missing Piece When Planning My New Year Goals
The Problem With How We Talk About Goals, Vision, And Follow Through
I’ve always felt like I just sucked at planning goals every year. I’d feel excited about the new year, then quickly overwhelmed by what to actually do. I tried the usual advice… vision boards, early alarms, choosing a word, signing up for things that were supposed to keep me accountable. And still, nothing ever really stuck.
For a long time, I assumed that meant I just wasn’t disciplined enough. But eventually I realized something else was going on.
We tend to talk about New Year goals as if one approach should be enough… like if you just dream clearly enough with the right images, or plan hard enough, or push yourself enough, everything will magically fall into place.
What finally changed wasn’t more motivation or a better system. It was realizing that I was only using part of the process and expecting it to do everything.
Once I saw that, it was simple. Change actually has three parts: the dreaming, the planning, and the backup plan.
Step One: Dream
Finding the real reason behind your goal
For some people, this can be the hardest part. Dreaming can feel vague, uncomfortable, or even pointless. It can sound like you’re being asked to imagine a perfect future that doesn’t feel realistic. But I’ll let you in on a little secret… if you have a goal at all, there’s already a dream inside it! Even if you’ve never explicitly said it out loud.
Let’s take a common goal that a lot people start out the new year with… like wanting to lose ten pounds. (insert eye-roll) The dream usually isn’t the number. It’s what you hope that goal will change about you… it can be feeling more comfortable in your body, having more energy, or feeling more confident in certain situations. The same is true for goals like getting better grades, going to bed earlier, being less stressed, spending less time on your phone, or wanting to feel more organized. Underneath each one is a feeling, a value, or a need.
This step isn’t about imagining a fantasy life. It’s about pausing long enough to ask a simple question: What am I actually hoping this change will give me?
Tools like vision boards, a word of the year, or imagining a future where things are going well can help some people notice patterns. But you don’t need anything elaborate. Even just playing mad libs with this one sentence can help you identify it… “I want this because…”
Why Your Goals Don’t Always Give You What You Expect
Not every goal we have actually comes from within and even when it does, we sometimes expect it to give us things it can’t.
Many goals are tied to an unspoken belief about what will change once we reach them. For example, someone might want to lose weight because they believe it will finally make them feel confident. Or want better grades because they believe it will make them feel capable or secure. Or want to be more productive because they believe it will bring calm.
Sometimes goals really do change practical, external things, like improving physical comfort, increasing energy, or making daily life easier, but other things people hope for, like confidence, self-trust, or feeling “okay” with themselves, usually don’t come from hitting a finish line. That’s why it helps to slow down and look at two specific things before planning anything else.
First, listen to the language you use around the goal.
that’s often a sign the goal is tied to pressure, expectation, or comparison… even if the goal itself sounds reasonable.
If your thoughts sound more like:
that’s more often a sign the goal is connected to something that genuinely supports you.
Another helpful question is: “What do I believe this goal will give me?” If it’s an internal feeling like confidence or belonging, pause here because those usually don’t come from achieving a goal, even if the goal can still help in other ways.
That doesn’t mean the goal is wrong but it does mean the goal isn’t going to solve the whole problem.
This step matters because people often feel empty after achieving goals. Not because they failed but because they expected the goal to fix something it was never designed to fix. This is also why people burn out chasing goals that never seem to satisfy them.
When you can name what you’re really hoping for and where that hope is coming from, you can plan in a way that supports the right thing, instead of hoping the goal will change how you feel.
Once you’ve named what the goal is really for, planning gets a lot simpler.
Step Two: Plan
Turning Goals Into Realistic, Repeatable Actions
(The step where rubber meets the road.)
Once you have a sense of direction, you need something more grounded: structure.
Planning is about turning those feelings and values into things you can actually do in real life. It answers practical questions like:
This is where behavior-based goals, routines, and systems come in. A behavior-based goal isn’t “be healthier” or “do better in school.” It’s something specific and repeatable, like:
Systems are the things that make those behaviors easier. Things like:
Structure works best when it supports the direction you found in step one, not when it tries to replace it. This step often feels less exciting than dreaming, but it’s where clarity starts to show up.
Step Three: Back Yourself Up
How to Plan for Real Life
This step is the missing piece for a lot of people.
Most of us plan for our best selves… you know the one… the motivated version, the focused version, the well-rested version. Very few of us plan for the version of ourselves who gets tired, distracted, overwhelmed, or discouraged.
Backing yourself up means planning for what happens when things don’t go as planned. Planning for failure is where the if-then plans come into play.
Here are some examples:
These backups exist to protect your relationship with yourself. They help you keep going without turning every slip into proof that you’ve failed. Most follow-through problems aren’t motivation problems. They’re backup problems. We didn’t plan for being human and then subsequently we aren’t kind to ourselves when we have tripped or momentarily failed.
Why This Three Step Approach Actually Works
Most New Year planning falls apart because we only use one of these steps.
We dream without planning.
We plan without dreaming.
Or we do both and forget to set ourselves up for success.
Then we assume we need more discipline or bad at following through when we fail. But usually, we’re just missing a step. When dreaming, planning, and backup work together, goals stops feeling like pressure and start feeling supportive and exciting.
How to Try This Without Overthinking Your Goals
You don’t need to map out your entire year.
You can start by simply noticing:
Are you dreaming without structure?
Are you planning without direction?
Are you expecting yourself to be perfect without a backup plan?
That awareness alone can change how planning feels.
A Note for Parents and Teens: Why Goal Setting Often Feels Hard
I see this pattern show up with teens and kids all the time especially around journaling, goal setting, and “figuring out who they are.” Teens and kids are often given tools without context and assume they’re failing when those tools don’t work.
If you’re helping a young person with goals this year, it can be incredibly powerful to start by not focusing on outcomes, but on exploring what they actually want and why. If you want a gentle, ready-to-use set of prompts to help them, I’ve put together a collection of journal prompts for teens that support self-reflection, emotional insight, and clarity without judgment.
You’re Not Bad at Planning Goals
Sometimes the problem isn’t effort or motivation. It’s that we’re missing a step and blaming ourselves instead of the process.
I love this simple framework! I think I’m great at dreaming, good with making a plan, and pretty bad about backing myself up. That third step is something I’m going to implement in my own goal setting this season!
I can’t wait to hear how it goes! I think the step I want to test next is accountability.