Do you believe in New Year’s Resolutions?

The number of people I know who made resolutions for 2026 was surprisingly low; when asked, most gave a general theme or direction rather than specific outcomes.

This led me down the rabbit hole of effective goal setting and resolutions.

There’s a powerful psychological reason why motivation increases on January 1st, it’s dubbed the ‘Fresh Start Effect’. Researchers have shown that temporal landmarks like a new year, a birthday, or even just a Monday, make us feel disconnected from our past failures and gives us a clean slate to start afresh.

On the first day of a new year, searches for the term “diet” spike by over 80%. This motivational boost is real but often fades, so how should one go about setting up systems and processes to ensure their goals bear fruition?

The answer seems to lie in the type of goal we set.

A massive 2022 meta-analysis published in the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology analysed dozens of studies on goal setting in sport to see what actually works. They found that Process Goals were significantly better than the other types.

Here’s the difference:

  • Outcome Goal: “I want to lose 5 kilos.” (The end result).

  • Performance Goal: “I want to run 5km in under 25 minutes.” (A specific performance metric).

  • Process Goal: “I will go for a run three times this week.” (The controllable action).

The analysis found that setting process goals had the largest effect on improving performance. This is because they are entirely within our control and they build self-efficacy. When you successfully stick to the process, you build confidence and momentum, which makes the outcome far more likely.

Surprisingly, the study challenged the ‘SMART goals’ idea and found no significant performance difference between setting highly specific goals and non-specific goals.

The main takeaways are:

  1. If you haven’t already, create resolutions for the new year! Use the blank slate to motivate you to make the changes you’ve been putting off.

  2. To effectively achieve those resolutions, create process goals. Just focus on specific actions to take rather than outcomes.

i’ve revamped my default to-dos in my journaling setup to help achieve my resolutions

Also Happy New Year to everyone reading this, genuinely wishing everyone the best in achieving everything they want this year!!

had to lowkey cut this post short because I need to get it published before the end of the day but I will probably do a lot more posts on goal setting, journalling, and setting up systems to be successful!