Enjoy a Successful New Year With Twenty Rules

Starting a new year can be depressing or exciting, depending on how you look at it. For anyone, it is the opportunity for a fresh start and a new game plan. You can enjoy a successful new year with twenty rules for yourself. Setting Goals for a Successful New Year With this in mi

By Your Bro · Sun Jan 06 2019 · Self Improvement

Starting a new year can be depressing or exciting, depending on how you look at it. For any man willing to be honest with himself, it's the cleanest opportunity you get all year for a fresh start and a new game plan. But resolutions written on January 1 and forgotten by January 21 aren't a plan — they're a mood. What follows is a real framework, plus twenty rules to run your year by.

How do you set goals for a successful new year?

You set a successful new-year goal by conducting a brutally honest self-assessment first, then converting your weaknesses into attainable, short-term micro-goals that you track weekly. Focus on specific, objective metrics — pounds lost, sessions completed, dollars saved, pages read — so you can't lie to yourself about progress.

Only when you accept your true flaws and weaknesses can you build a plan to fix them. Read that again. Most men skip this step because it hurts. Then they wonder why the plan they built on top of a lie collapsed in February. Do the honest self-assessment first, in writing, and don't show it to anyone.

For example: you don't like how you look with your shirt off, and you decide fifteen pounds needs to go. Don't set "lose fifteen pounds" as the goal. Set "lose 1.25 pounds a month for a year, measured every Sunday." Then attach micro-goals: log every meal in a calorie app, hold to a 1,500-calorie ceiling on training days, hit four thirty-minute workouts a week. Every one of those is trackable. Every one of those is win-or-lose by Sunday. That's a plan.

Mindset Makes the Successful New Year

Consistently maintain a positive but honest mindset — bitterness and self-pity are the two most reliable ways to torch a year. Life coaches like Robin Sharma recommend a daily gratitude journal: one thing you're grateful for, every day, in writing. It sounds soft. Try it for thirty days and report back.

The way you start the day is the way you run the day. Put together a basic morning routine — movement, journaling, ten minutes of quiet — before your phone gets its hands on you. You'll notice your first hour is the sharpest one you have, before the noise of the day chips away at it.

The Twenty Rules to Run Your Year By

1. Get up at the same time every day, weekends included.
2. Make your bed. Small wins compound.
3. Move your body for thirty minutes before you check your phone.
4. Drink a glass of water before your first cup of coffee.
5. Read ten pages of a real book every day.
6. Never post an opinion online you wouldn't sign your name to in a room of strangers.
7. Say what you'll do. Do what you said.
8. Track one financial number every week — net worth, savings rate, or debt paid down.
9. Have one hard conversation you've been avoiding, every month.
10. Cook one meal at home for every meal out.
11. Lift heavy things three times a week, even if it's just a kettlebell.
12. Walk after dinner instead of scrolling.
13. Learn one new skill per quarter. Actually finish the course.
14. Call your parents. Weekly.
15. No screens the first and last thirty minutes of the day.
16. Save at least 15% of every paycheck before you see it.
17. Own your mistakes fast — the apology is cheaper the sooner it's paid.
18. Say no more than you say yes. Your calendar reveals your priorities.
19. Do one thing every day that scares you a little.
20. Review the year on December 31. Keep what worked. Cut what didn't.

Play the Long Game

This is a marathon, not a sprint. You will have great weeks and terrible weeks. Judge yourself on the month, not the day. Installing new behaviors takes 60–90 days, and there is a well-documented "wall" around day 21 when the novelty wears off and the discipline hasn't kicked in yet. Everyone hits it. The ones who stay on the plan for the next ten days are the ones who succeed.

FAQ

What if I'm already off-plan by February? Restart the same day. Don't wait for next Monday, next month, or next January. The men who succeed are the ones with the shortest gap between failure and restart.

Do I need to do all twenty rules? No. Pick five. Do them for ninety days. Then add more. A man doing five rules well beats a man doing twenty rules badly, every time.

How do I stay accountable? One trusted friend, one weekly text: "Did you do the five things?" That's the entire accountability system. It works.

— Your Bro