The new year is almost here; what are your hopes and goals for 2026?
Here are some strategies to help you make real progress toward your resolutions, and have a more successful new year overall.
1. Review Your Year and Celebrate Your Wins
Before you set goals for the year ahead, it’s so important to look back at the year you’ve had.
If the year didn’t go as hoped, you might be tempted to skip this step and move on. But if you can look at the numbers without judging or beating yourself up, you can learn quite a bit. As you reflect, ask yourself these questions:
- What caused me the most stress?
- What went well?
- What goals did I achieve?
- What goals did I not achieve that I want to focus on in 2026?
- Did I budget well this year, or at all? If not, how can I budget in the new year?
And remember, it’s okay if you had to course correct or the year didn’t look like you wanted it to. Give yourself grace for the year you had, and pick back up when you can.
2. Create a Plan for Financial Success
Going into the new year with a clear strategy provides a solid foundation to go after your top goals. But don’t overdo it; you don’t have to achieve everything this year. Just focus on one or two goals that you really want to achieve, and go from there.
Setting those goals makes you much likelier to make positive progress, and offers guideposts to help you move the needle, even just a little.
3. Find Accountability Sources
Doing the same thing year after year is likely to yield similar results. If you’ve struggled to reach your goals in the past, it might be time to bring in an accountability partner.
This can be as simple as reviewing your monthly spending with a spouse or a trusted friend, or even hiring a financial planner to help you dig in to your finances and come up with a plan.
Setting those goals makes you much likelier to make positive progress, and offers guideposts to help you move the needle, even just a little.
4. Prioritize Your Emergency Fund
An emergency fund may be boring, but it really is like a safety net protecting the rest of your financial goals. If you don’t have a healthy emergency fund in place, then you might be one surprise expense away from losing the progress you make toward your goals in the new year.
Whatever the year ahead brings you, your emergency fund is there to have your back.
5. Focus on Habits, not Goals
We’ve written before about the importance of setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, aka goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.
It’s important to break down your goals like that, because otherwise they can feel too vague and distant. For example, you might want to put more money toward retirement savings. But what does that actually look like? How much will you put aside each month? How much do you want to have saved by the end of the year? Where will that extra money come from?
The more detailed you get, the more your goals start to feel like an attainable plan, and not just another resolution destined to be forgotten by February.
About Your Richest Life
At Your Richest Life, Katie Brewer, CFP®, believes everyone should have access to financial resources and coaching. For more information on the services offered, contact Katie today.
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