At the beginning of the new year, you feel that you have been given a new opportunity to start over, and the enthusiasm of the beginning takes you to plan for the new year and set important goals to achieve throughout the year, but with the beginning of February, these goals begin to diminish, and your steps falter, and you return to old habits, and a new year of your life is wasted.
The reason is simply that you have set large and unrealistic goals. You will commit at first, then you will feel the weight of the task and begin to retreat from your goal plan. The secret of continuity is correctly organizing your thoughts to make your goals implementable.
Do you want a new year full of achievements? Bring a cup of your favorite drink and follow this article with us to learn the correct way to plan for the new year. You will find great ideas, but they require a little focus.
In this Article
The Right Way of New Year Planning

New year planning requires setting smart and achievable goals. It may take you some time to distinguish realistic goals that suit your time and capabilities and set small steps to achieve the big goal through the following ideas:
- Writing goals and reviewing them periodically:
Goals that are not written down will not be achieved, so write down your goals and review them at the beginning of each month to see the level of progress you are making. Your goals should be visible to you daily. You can pin them on a wall in your office, put them as a background screen on your computer so you can see them every day, or even put them on the refrigerator door with some encouraging phrases that will increase your motivation.
- Set a goal for each aspect of your life:
Our lives do not revolve around one direction, so New Year planning requires setting goals for several aspects of life (career success, family, financial aspect, spiritual aspect, health aspect).
Career success: To be distinguished and successful in your work, you must follow everything new and learn new things that increase your creativity. Put this idea within your new year planning so that you learn something new in your field of work every month.
Family: The secret of a woman’s success is her true communication with her family. Think about new activities that you can do with your children, a date night with your husband, and weekly communication with your parents. These details will make a difference in your relationship with your family.
Financial aspect: Think of a new way to deal with your money, learn new strategies for investing and saving, and set a budget at the beginning of each month to control your expenses.
Spiritual aspect: Spiritual happiness brings you peace and helps you carry out your tasks actively and overcome the difficulties that you may experience. Therefore, think about spiritual activities that charge your energy, such as journaling, practicing meditation, worship, and reading some verses of the Qur’an daily. Put these ideas into your planning for the new year and allocate time every day in the morning to practice one of these activities.
Health aspect: Your health is the most important thing you must take care of to achieve all your goals. Our body is the companion of all stages of our life and we must maintain it in good health, by including simple behaviors daily in our monthly plans, you will feel the difference in your physical fitness and health as well, such as: Eat healthy food twice a week, exercise three times a week, and reduce ready-made and canned foods.
Personal aspect: Making yourself happy is a priority to ensure your personal development and internal motivation. Include self-care within your personal planning, such as reading new books, mastering the English language, buying something you love every month, practicing your favorite hobby, allocating a special time for you every day to enjoy your favorite drink, reducing stress, following social media, and rewarding yourself after every achievement you make with your favorite picnic or your favorite chocolate.
- Set a time limit for your goals:
Leaving the period open to achieve goals will give you an opportunity to procrastinate and postpone, so set a time limit for each goal in the following way:
- Create a plan for each stage of your goal
- Turn the goal into daily activities
- Ask questions about the goal:
- What is the deadline to achieve my goal?
- When will I achieve my goal?
- How many stages does this goal need to be achieved?
For example: You would like to read ten books this year. Determine the names of the books you would like to read and set a date for each book and the duration of reading it each day. Even if the period is only a quarter of an hour, you will find yourself having achieved the desired goal.
- Your goals should be your own:
Do not try to achieve goals that you are not convinced of. A goal that you do not really want to achieve will be a burden on you and will be difficult to achieve. You must have real motivation and inner passion to achieve your goal.
- Be flexible in achieving your goal:
The goals we set for ourselves are not fixed, unchanging promises. Life may throw us new curves and we are forced to change or replace our goals, which frustrates us. Therefore, you must be flexible in new year planning and in achieving goals as well.
- Learn from the mistakes of the previous year:
Before you start new year planning, review your goals for the previous year and discover the mistakes you made to avoid them this year. The previous year’s achievements may inspire you to set new goals. Make 2023 an inspiration for you in achieving your new goals.
- Determine your priorities:
It is a wonderful thing to strive to lose weight, achieve financial stability, and succeed in your social relationships, but reconciling all of these things is difficult, so priorities must be determined and arranged during New Year planning. For example: If you are planning to submit your university thesis this year, you will have to follow all your activities, entertain yourself, and meet friends regularly. The priority will be writing your thesis, and so your new year planning must be by arranging your priorities.
- Take a rest:
Continuous work and constant effort consume our nerves, time, and health as well. When you have a schedule crowded with tasks, you will feel drained of energy and not enjoy achieving achievements. Therefore, you must take into account while new year planning, taking breaks, such as enjoying vacation days, taking care of your skin and body, and sharing your achievements with your friends. My favorite and most important thing is taking a short break between tasks.
- Set smart goals:
One of the most important steps in New Year planning is setting smart and clear goals. For example, instead of setting a goal to get an athletic body this year, you can set a specific goal, which is to commit to exercising every day for a quarter of an hour and then increase the duration every period.
To turn your goals into SMART goals, follow these steps:
- Setting a measurable goal: By dividing the goal into smaller stages that can be measured to monitor the progress we are making, thus you can transform the big goal into small tasks divided throughout the year.
- Setting a goal that can be achieved: Ambition is a beautiful thing, but when you set many big goals in a short period, the matter will become far from reality. So set realistic and achievable goals for yourself. Think about your time, effort, and priorities before setting the goal.
- Set goals that are compatible with your outlook on life: Keep in mind that achieving the goal will bring you happiness and development and will practically benefit you. If the goal is not like that, delete it.
- The goal must be achievable by a specific time: When the goal is specific to a period, the goal may take a few months, a year, or even several years to achieve.
This is what is known as the SMART technique, which combines the characteristics of the goal with one word, each letter of which symbolizes a specific characteristic
of the goal to make it achievable:
Specific: The specific goal is a simple and clear goal. For example: I will begin with the first steps of my project that I have been thinking about for years, which is opening a handicrafts store.
which is opening a handicrafts store.
Measurable: To measure the extent to which the goal has been achieved, I will start by measuring the level of profits I achieve from my project
Attainable: To have a clear mechanism to achieve the goal, to start promoting my project
and building relationships with customers.
Relevant: The goal should be realistic and lead to clear results. I should implement new ideas for the success of my project
and increase customers.
Timely: I will implement a number of required projects over a period of one month to present and promote my work
Steps to Help You Strengthen Your Will to New Year Planning

The secret of a person’s success in achieving his goals is willpower. It is the ability to resist immediate desires that are not in line with long-term goals. It is a constant internal challenge to say “no” when you are faced with temptations that prevent you from achieving your goals.
When you have willpower, you will be able to replace a ready-made meal with healthy food, and staying up late with sleeping early, and you will have the keys to control your life.
To strengthen your willpower, you must take simple steps that will help you practice willpower before new year planning:
- Stay away from distractions:
When the mind is busy, it certainly will not have the willpower, so when you have a task, stay away from all distractions, remove unnecessary things from your desk, put your phone on silent, sit in a quiet place, and focus on performing the task.
- Avoid excessive choices:
Excessive choices consume your thinking and effort and weaken your ability to resist temptation. Therefore, determine your choices according to your daily plan (when you start weekly planning, determine your clothes and meals for each day, the places you will go to at the end of the week, and the tasks that you must accomplish).
- Divide a difficult task into stages:
When you feel the weight of the task required of you, divide it into stages. Completing the stage will create within you a feeling of happiness and the mind will be motivated to finish the remaining stages and accomplish the task.
- Charge your energy:
Reward yourself after every achievement with things you love, such as going out for a walk, watching a movie, or drinking your favorite drink. Your enthusiasm will rise and your ability to have willpower will increase.
- Adopt new habits:
Good habits are necessary to achieve your goals. When you decide to achieve big goals, there are many habits that you need to introduce into your life. Before New Year planning, I advise you to read the book (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) by Stephen Covey, and you will learn the most important habits that successful people follow in life, such as waking up early and organizing time and lots of habits that help you with self-discipline.
- Take advantage of your active time:
Determine the time when you are most productive (some people are most active in the morning). Use this time to accomplish the most difficult tasks, as you will be fully present and active.
- Take care of your health:
Health and fitness are very important factors that will help you carry out your tasks and achieve your goals. While new year planning, focus on two important things: correct nutrition and exercise. When these two things turn into authentic habits in your life, you will have the ideal body and good health that will help you have a better life.
- Make a plan to introduce some new healthy practices into your daily routine. You can consult a personal trainer to get a realistic and appropriate plan for you and follow up with you to make sure you are on the right path.
- Schedule regular checkups to make sure you get enough vitamins
- Make sure you get enough water to keep your body healthy and hydrate your skin, which will make you feel better.
- Do a sport you like, such as dancing, brisk walking, or various exercises in a gym. After exercising, you will feel the endorphins flowing in your body, giving you a feeling of happiness and activity, and you will be more motivated to carry out your tasks.
New Year Planning Ideas

Do you want your new year to be more positive? Here are some ideas to make your new year a positive addition to your achievements
- Think of the present moment:
Learn to live in the present without continuing to fear and think about the future. Train yourself to go through life with greater awareness. 90% of your fears will not happen, so why drain your energy by thinking about them?
- Start with the steps for change:
Are you doing a job that you do not like and that does not add anything new to you? Think about how to find an alternative. Do not say that time has passed and I can no longer change. Look around you and you will find many opportunities and many people who have succeeded in changing the course of their lives from a job that they do not like to a job that they are creative with.
Change will not happen immediately, but when you decide to change what you hate, start directly with the first step, and the path will become clear before you, and then the results will begin to appear according to what you like.
- Turn a bad experience into a pleasant one:
When you are going through a bad situation, try to look at the positive side. When you are surprised by a traffic jam and your car stops for an unexpected period on the road, try to do something fun, such as listening to a useful podcast or a call with one of your friends, or relaxing a little and contemplating the events of your life. It will be fun if you can replace stress and anger with positive feelings.
- Gratitude:
The magic option to make your day better (gratitude). Set aside five minutes at the end of your day to practice gratitude for the beautiful things that happened to you today or for the blessings in your life to date. Your mood will change for the better and your appreciation for everything you have will increase. It is the gateway to transforming denial into acceptance and confusion into clarity.
- Express love with words:
Have you tried telling someone you love every day how much you love them and how grateful you are for their existence? Words have a special magic that restores the sparkle and charm of the relationship. I advise you to read the book (The Five Love Languages) by Gary Chapman and you will discover the basic love languages and the extent of their ability to change your life.
- Forgiveness:
Bernard Meltzer says, “When you forgive, you do not change the past in any way, but you certainly change the future.”
Forgiveness makes you stronger. You will not be able to develop your personality without abandoning old grudges and mistakes of the past. Forgive yourself first, accept your mistakes, and start over.
- Carelessness:
It is truly an art. When you master the art of carelessness, you will be able to control your life and avoid anxiety, and you will also control your actions because you will not allow many things to frustrate you. Try to include in the new year planning the idea of practicing carelessness.
- Spend more time with people who make you happy:
Some people add meaning to time and a new flavor to life, whether from friends, work, family, or even online. If there are people in your life that you love to spend time with and feel happy with, try to spend more time with them. These wonderful feelings that overwhelm you and sincere laughter will make your times more beautiful and your year more positive.
Inner Balance and New Year Planning

What does it mean to have inner balance? It is living in balance and being able to deal with the various elements in your life while maintaining a sense of stability, serenity, and inner calm.
When you achieve inner balance, you will be able to balance your work, social relationships, and practical success with your ability to control your emotions and maintain your health, and this will increase your ability the new year planning correctly.
If you feel a loss of control in some matters, here are some steps to achieve inner balance:
- Acknowledgment of the truth:
Take a real look at your life, your state of mind, and how you feel. Be honest with yourself. What are the things that you feel are out of your control? What are the things that you feel you care too much about? If the aspects of your life are unbalanced, write down the reasons for the imbalance and what you need to do to make your affairs consistent and balanced. Write down all of these things, make a comparison between them, and determine how you want to achieve inner balance in your life.
- Task planning:
Prepare a list of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks assigned to each of your goals, and start focusing again on the things that you fell short of before. Think about your previous achievements,
how did you succeed in achieving it?
How did you stay focused on your goal?
How did you deal with your fears, anxiety, and negative self-talk?
Benefit from your previous experience to achieve new goals.
- Start implementing the changes you want to see in a realistic way and small steps:
In the beginning, you must focus on one area and change one step at a time, and the steps will begin to sequence in front of you. For example, set a weekly date to meet your friends if you feel neglectful towards them, or decide to stop any activities that you do at eight o’clock in the morning every day to have breakfast with your children. These small changes will have a real impact on your life. Remember, it is not easy to achieve balance, but it is worth making an effort.
- Test your knowledge of your goals:
After you finish planning for the new year and setting your new goals, it is time to test the extent to which you benefited from the article and the extent of your ability to set the goal correctly. Now I will ask you four questions, if you can answer them, then you are in the right place:
Do I find myself pursuing this goal with enthusiasm despite its difficulty?
Can I convert this goal into daily and weekly actions and adjust them periodically until I reach my goal?
Do I have a way to measure my progress toward reaching a goal?
Am I prepared for all outcomes? Even if I do not achieve the result I dream of, do I realize the importance of my journey to achieve the goal regardless of the results?
If you answer the previous questions, you are on the right path to setting real goals.
Remember before you start new year planning that the goals you want to achieve are really important to help you move forward to be a better person, and remember also that reaching the goal will create new goals for you, which are to maintain what you have achieved and develop it as well. For example: If you succeed in doubling your monthly income, you must work at the same level, to maintain this result, and if you can obtain the body you dream of, you must maintain this achievement by exercising continuously and maintaining a healthy diet. Achieving the goal brings you many responsibilities to maintain what you have achieved and to continue your development process, but in return, it will make you a successful person who can manage her life and succeed in all its fields.
From Farashti Magazine, we wish you a happy year full of achievements and fulfilled dreams. Stay safe.
Frequently Asked Questions about New Year Planning
Why don’t I commit to achieving my goals?
We often start the new year by watching motivational videos to set big goals at the beginning of the year. We get excited, then we feel a desire to postpone the first step, then there is a large amount of internal resistance and we begin to evade, little by little, to return to our comfortable and familiar form of life. The truth is that we need to set realistic and appropriate goals that can be measured, as we mentioned in the article.
How do I start the new year planning?
First, go back to the previous year and think about your most important achievements and the mistakes you made so that you can avoid them, then start setting your new goals according to the SMART goal-setting technique. Do not set many goals so you do not become frustrated, and you must organize your time to accomplish your daily tasks.
Why do we set ourselves goals?
Goals help determine your path and purpose and make you feel satisfied with yourself, which pushes you forward to development and success. When you define your goals, you can develop a clear vision of the life you want, and it makes you feel the importance of time and renews your motivation for continuous striving every day.
Written by: Malaz Alomar
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