Every January, the same ritual: a dozen resolutions written in the glow of a fresh calendar, and by February a dozen small guilts. The problem was never the ambition — it's the format. Resolutions describe a person you'd like to become; goals name a result and a first step. This worksheet runs the conversion: up to five goals, each with the smallest possible beginning attached, and a switch that flips the day you actually begin.

Why the new year works (and why any Monday does too)

The pull you feel toward January 1st is a real, measurable force. Researchers call it the fresh start effect: temporal landmarks — new years, birthdays, Mondays, the first of the month — reliably spike goal-directed behavior, because they let you file the old failures under "past self" and start the ledger clean. The practical upshot cuts both ways. The new year is a genuine tailwind — use it. But the same research means the line is wherever you draw it: miss January, and February 1st works, and so does next Monday. The year starts when you say it does.

Five goals, and the cap is the feature

The worksheet stops you at five, and it won't apologize for it. Decades of goal-setting research say two things with unusual confidence: specific, concrete goals outperform vague do-your-best intentions, and attention is finite — every goal you add quietly taxes the rest. Twelve resolutions is how none of them happen. Five goals with first steps is a year with a shape.

So make each one specific enough to fail. Not "get healthier" — "run a 10k by June." Not "read more" — "twenty-four books." If it can't be missed, it can't be met.

The first tiny step is the whole trick

Every goal on this page gets a first tiny step: the smallest action that officially begins it. Book the physio appointment. Write the opening paragraph. Put the running shoes by the door. The step's job isn't progress — it's ignition. A goal with a first step is a plan; a goal without one is a wish with a deadline. And when the step actually happens, flip the goal's begun switch — the progress line counts begun goals, not finished ones, because in January, begun is the only honest scoreboard.

Before and after this page

Two neighbors make this worksheet twice as useful. Do the year in review first — its lessons chapter has a way of writing your goal list for you, and its summary card makes a fine page one. And when a goal here deserves more than a first step, hand it to the 12 Week Year planner: same goal, but with weekly tactics and an execution score attached. Review backwards, aim forwards, then run the engine.

Download the goals card when the list is set, and put it somewhere December-you will find it. That version of you is the only reviewer whose opinion counts.