Thanksgiving is around the corner, and soon the holiday season will give way to a brand-new year—a time when many of us start thinking about New Year’s resolutions.
Whenever I bring up resolutions, I can almost hear my children teasing me with Ronald Reagan’s famous line to Jimmy Carter during their 1980 debate: “There you go again.” And honestly, I understand the cynicism. Most of us have made plans we never carried through.
Yet planning matters—not only for individuals but also for countries. China, for instance, just passed its 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026–2030. As Michael Hyatt points out, people don’t fail because they lack willpower or self-discipline. They fail because they lack a system for making and executing plans.
In his Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals, Hyatt outlines such a system. His five steps are:
Believe in possibilities
Reflect on the past
Plan for the future
Find your motivation
Put it into action
Step One: Believe in Possibility
Before anything else, we must clear out negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs. As Hyatt writes, “Impossible has never been a fact—it’s merely an opinion.” Only when you believe change is possible can you generate the motivation to pursue meaningful goals.
Step Two: Reflect on the Past
One major reason goals fail is that we drag the worst of our past into our future. Unresolved failures become emotional baggage that weighs us down. Hyatt highlights two key themes here: regret and gratitude.
Regret, he says, is a gift. Research shows that strong regret often fuels decisive action—a phenomenon known as the “principle of opportunity.” Breakthroughs often begin at the very spot where regret sits heaviest. So it’s worth asking: What do I regret most from the past few years? And more importantly: If I don’t want this regret to repeat, what part of my life needs to change?
Gratitude is the second theme—a skill that helps us shift from scarcity to abundance, to recognize what we already have rather than fixate on what we lack. Hyatt recommends simple but consistent practices: gratitude meditations upon waking and before sleeping, brief reflections before meals, or keeping a gratitude journal. As he puts it, “Start and end the day with prayer… focusing on the blessings I do have.”
Summarizing the past doesn’t drain you; it replenishes your emotional reserves and fuels what comes next.
Step Three: Plan for the Future
Hyatt insists that annual planning must be done in writing. Putting thoughts into words forces clarity. He uses the SMARTER framework: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Risky, Time-bound, Exciting, and Relevant.
“Risky” means your goals should stretch you beyond your comfort zone. “Exciting” means the goals must matter to you—not to others’ expectations.
Step Four: Find Your Motivation
Motivation isn’t magic—it’s a system. Small, scientifically informed habits can help your brain work with your goals rather than against them.
Step Five: Put Plans into Action
This step is about building a review system that keeps long-term goals visible in daily life. Hyatt recommends three levels:
Daily review: one minute every morning. Ask: What can I do today to move one step closer to my annual goals? Write down your top three tasks—no more.
Weekly review: about twenty minutes. Reconnect with your motivation, reflect on progress and obstacles, and set your “Big Three” goals for the week.
Quarterly review: with around eight annual goals spreading across four quarters, every three months you pause to celebrate wins, restart stalled efforts, revise goals, or even delete and replace goals that no longer fit.
This three-tier structure ensures your goals never fade into background noise. They become a steady rhythm of deliberate, daily actions.
As the new year approaches, I’m planning to give Hyatt’s method an honest try. Like each New Year, our resolutions come and go, but the big question remains: how do we shape a life that aligns with who we hope to become? Perhaps the answer lies in a system that turns goals into daily actions. In learning to review our days, weeks, and seasons, we are really learning to review our lives — and, little by little, to steer them with greater clarity and purpose.