6 Steps To Realign Annual Goals (Even If Your New Year's Resolution Already Failed)

25% of New Year's Resolutions fail before 2 weeks in January and it jumps to 80% by February.

Many of us start February already feeling like the year is a failure. We set aspirational goals for the year telling ourselves, "2026 will be different," but end up back at the same place in a month or less. Many people will chalk the year up as a failure and try again next year, but you're not most people.

Instead, let's start February out strong and realign to those aspirational goals we set last month.

Step 1: Identify January Mistakes

More than likely, the mistakes made are already top of mind.

Don't beat yourself up about what mistakes were made and what could have happened if you stuck to your goals. Instead, objectively identify exactly what mistakes were made that led to goals falling short.

Step 2: Dig Into The Root Cause Of The Mistakes

Identifying the mistakes is good, but we need to go deeper to identify why.

It's harder to keep looking at the mistake, but digging in is essential to fully rooting out the cause. Common causes are seeing others succeed with less perceived work, strong and unexpected emotions, or getting bad news that caused a regress.

Step 3: Come Up With A Plan To Remove Or Reduce The Root Cause

Before we can get back to the plan, we need to reduce or eliminate those root causes so that the mistakes don't happen again.

Many people rely on motivation and the goals themselves to propel them forward. But good feelings don't last, so come up with a system that you can fall back on when the bad feelings come or others seem to succeed instead of you.

Step 4: Reaffirm Q1 And February Goals

Annual goals are still 11 months away, so we need to bring the goals forward in smaller pieces to give us closer targets.

Many marathon runners do this by not focusing on the finish line, but just trying to keep running to the next telephone pole. Take the big annual goal and identify what needs to happen by the end of Q1 to make it a success, then do the same thing by setting February goals to get to the Q1 goals.

Step 5: Forget January Mistakes

Now that we've dealt with the mistakes and root causes from January, forget them.

It doesn't do anyone any good to continue to dwell on mistakes. Instead, focus on the new goals and successfully achieving them.

Step 6: Put February Goals Into Action Today

The best time to take action toward your goals is immediately.

Start February off right with action that gets the momentum building again. Just focus on doing one thing toward your goals today, then do that every day focusing just on what you can do that day and let it compound for the month.