We are approaching the time when millions make resolutions and goals for the new year. That arbitrary turning of the calendar marks a time of new beginnings. What follows is often failure. Perhaps goals shouldn’t be our focus? Ryan Michler writes:
“Goals are emotionally dependent, standards are identity-based. Standards keep you anchored in the present, goals keep you trapped in the future…Your life changes when your identity upgrades, not when your goals get bigger.”
Ryan discusses how setting standards — that is who you want to be, or who you refuse to be — make you resilient and create an unmovable foundation to build you goals upon. This personal code is non-negotiable and should be founded in truth.
Then you are ready to set goals – getting healthy, finding a new career, achieving your purpose. You can’t do this on a whim. Without a plan, your probability of failure is quite high. It’s not enough for most people to say, “I’m going to do it” and poof, your goal manifests amazing success.
Your plan should start with a Past Year Review. You can’t move forward without first looking back. Here is a simple approach from Sienna Colonese:
1️⃣ Perform a 2025 audit
What were your goals at the beginning of the year? How far did you get? Which were not achieved, and why? How did your goals align with your deeper passions and vision?
2️⃣ Analyze your emotions
What emotions did you experience the most this year? Were you regularly experiencing stress, frustration, or low motivation? How much gratitude, abundance, and fulfillment did you feel?
3️⃣ Outline your optimal life
What does your “optimal life” look like? The vision that makes you excited, and the one where you experience all the emotions you desire. Get clear on this picture.
4️⃣ Align goals
Align your goals for the next 12 months with your optimal life vision. Set meaningful, detailed, and measurable goals. Keep them within your vision field EVERY day.
Want to get more detailed? Use the findings of your Past Year Review of 2025 and set your Objectives (goals) for 2026. Most of this is a summary of of Ryan Michler’s plan in Sovereignty, which goes into much more detail.
- Pick a timescale. Here we will use 12 week Objectives.
- Employ Specificity, that is, don’t say “I want to be healthy.” Rather, describe what exactly healthy means for you, and what metrics you will use to get there.
- Use the Four Quadrants to define your Objectives:
- Calibration: Take care of your well-being first, particularly things that are getting in the way of your Objectives, including mindset, and mental and emotional health.
- Connection: How do your Objectives improve relationships with all the people you interact with?
- Condition: This is focus on your physical health. Your health can no longer be an afterthought. Being sick or dead will interfere with your Objectives.
- Contribution: How do your Objectives make an impact on other people?
Defining your Objectives with this level of Specificity is half the battle. This isn’t set it and forget it. You need Tactics that help you stay on the correct route to achieving your Objectives.
- Set thirty and sixty day checkpoints.
- Review your objectives at these times and make necessary adjustments.
- Define two additional Tactics for each Objective. For example, if you want to read six books in ninety days:
Primary Tactic: Read for thirty minutes every day.
Secondary Tactic: Read for two hours every weekend.
One of your most important Tactics is the After Action Review. This doesn’t just come at the end of the Objective period. Use this after a project, after difficult conversations, and especially at the end of every day. It only takes a few minutes to ask these questions:
- What did I accomplish?
- What did I not accomplish?
- What did I do well?
- What did I not do well?
- What will I do moving forward?
Take two minutes, every morning and every night, to review.
Get yourself an old-fashioned notebook or journal, or a device if you must, and skip mindless New Year’s resolutions. Take control of your life. No more letting others push and pull you along. Don’t wait until December 31st. Use the whole month.
Make 2026 the year you Find Your Purpose, Find Your Story.
Darrick Dean 