New Year's Goals List: 9 Ideas You Can Start Today When You Feel Lost
Every year around this time, you feel like you should set some New Year’s goals, but you don’t know where to begin. Looking at other people’s goal lists, you feel a bit envious and a bit lost. Their goals sound great, yet they don’t seem to have much to do with you.
That’s okay. We’ve put together 9 New Year’s goals you can start right now, each one helping you slowly get to know yourself.
1. Track Your Spending and Save
Lots of people’s New Year’s goals are “make more money” or “save a certain amount.” If you want to manage your money better, start with the simplest step: tracking your expenses!
Begin by recording food, entertainment, fixed costs, and so on. After a while, add up your unplanned expenses each month and sort them further to see which ones were out of your control (getting sick, things breaking). Once you have a clear picture of your spending habits, you can set a savings goal next year.
This year, just start with the simplest thing: tracking your spending!
2. Keep a Journal
Many people can’t come up with New Year’s goals because they have so many open questions inside. They don’t know what they want, and they’re not sure what they don’t want either.
So this year, write down more of your moods, thoughts, and the things that happen in your life. Get to know your preferences, habits, and emotional patterns. That way, the goals you set in the future will truly fit you, instead of just following the crowd.
- 📝 Further reading: What to Write in a Journal: 8 Practical and Fun Ideas
3. Pin an Entry for Your “Things I’ll Do When I Have Time” List
Whenever an idea pops into your head, add it to this list. Over time, you’ll be amazed at how many things you’ve wanted to do that used to get lost in the back of your mind.
The next time you’re bored, you won’t have to wonder what to do. Just pick something from the list! By the end of the year, you’ll have actually done a lot of the things you once wanted to try.
- 💡 Check out the message board . Our fellow journalers’ pinned entries are so creative!
4. Shift Your Identity (from Atomic Habits)
When you see yourself as a certain kind of person, you naturally do things that match that identity. So you can make “shifting your identity” a New Year’s goal.
For example, instead of “I want to get healthy,” try “I’m someone who takes good care of myself,” and you’ll naturally start exercising and eating healthier. Instead of “I want to read more books,” try “I’m someone who loves learning,” and you’ll find yourself picking up a book or looking things up to answer the questions on your mind.
How would you shift your identity?
5. Collect New Experiences
The reason a year seems to fly by is that almost every day is the same, and we spend most of our time working. Kids are different. Every day brings something new, so time feels like it moves more slowly for them.
As we get older, we need new experiences even more: try foods you’ve never eaten, go places you’ve never been, do things you’ve never done before, and mark every “first.”
6. Collect Your Recipes
Eating and drinking are among life’s most basic pleasures. Try collecting recipes: cooking, tasting, taking photos, and writing down your thoughts. The process itself can bring you joy. Besides your own cooking, you can also include dishes from restaurants you love.
Every dish carries memories and connections to people. When you’re alone, it can offer support and comfort; when you’re with others, it creates wonderful memories. It’s more than a life skill. It can deeply shape your everyday mood and happiness.
7. Sort Through Your Phone Screenshots
Does this sound familiar? You see something useful or exciting, take a screenshot, and tell yourself you’ll look at it later. Before you know it, your screenshots have piled up, along with a heap of half-finished ideas.
Pick a time each week to sort your screenshots into categories (work, inspiration, food), delete the ones you don’t need, and save the important ones to a cloud album or your journal.
You took those screenshots because something caught your eye or an idea moved you. They capture your curiosity about life and the things you want to try. So sort them out, and then actually go do them!
8. Declutter: Toss the Clothes You Haven’t Worn in Five Years
The new year is a time when we want to redefine “who I am and how I want to live.” Decluttering is exactly about clearing out the things that no longer fit who you are now, so your life can look the way you like.
Some things are hard to let go of because you never know when you might need them again, but clothes you haven’t worn in over five years don’t have that problem. They’ve gone unpicked through countless seasons, and they’re usually uncomfortable or no longer suit your current style or body.
Many goals take months to show results, but decluttering makes your life more comfortable and organized right away.
9. Get Outside More on Nice Weekends
Exercise is one of the top three New Year’s goals that people set year after year and quickly forget. It sounds great, but it’s also easy to put off. So start with the simplest, most accessible approach!
When the weather’s nice, go for a walk, soak up some sun, breathe fresh air at a nearby park, or take a proper look at the shops around your neighborhood. Sometimes we live in a place for years without ever really exploring it.
Even just walking can slowly build your stamina and an exercise habit, and you might stumble on a few little joys along the way, making your weekends both relaxing and meaningful.
When it comes down to it, these New Year’s goals are about three things: managing your money, sorting out your inner world (journaling, pinning a “when I have time” list, shifting your identity, decluttering), and collecting new experiences and everyday joys (collecting recipes, sorting screenshots, getting outside on weekends).
If you still don’t know what New Year’s goals to set for yourself this year, start with this list!
Over the year, build up little by little and let the answers gradually come to you as you learn what you care about and what suits you. By this time next year, you’ll be able to write a list of New Year’s goals that’s truly your own.
- 📝 Further reading: Why Do New Year’s Goals Always Fail?
- 📝 Further reading: How to Set New Year’s Goals You’ll Actually Achieve
- 📝 Further reading: How to Write a Year-End Review: 5 Simple Questions to Help You Reflect on Your Year
