Looking Into 2026: What 30 Years of Goal Setting Has Taught Me

Jon Ford
2 days ago
4 min read

It’s early January and I’m sitting here with Fern setting some goals for the year ahead.

I’ve been setting goals for as long as I can remember. As a teenager, I was obsessed with golf. I wanted to be a professional golfer, and I wrote everything down: practice routines, competitions, pre shot routines, targets. Looking back, I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was learning how powerful goal setting could be.

Later, when I studied sport and exercise science, goal setting became more “formal”. I understood the theory behind it. But more importantly, I saw how it helped people stay focused, motivated and moving in the right direction, even when things didn’t go perfectly.

Since then, goal setting has been a constant thread through my life. I used it to help grow our family business, exit successfully, and eventually set up youHQ, a platform built around helping people reflect, set goals and stay connected to what matters.

For a long time, I thought goal setting was just about success. Hitting targets. Achieving more.

I don’t see it like that anymore.

Goals Aren’t Just About Winning

With neurodiversity in our family, and after a really tough year personally, I’ve realised something important: goal setting has also helped me feel in control when life feels anything but.

2025 was a hard year for us. My wife lost both of her parents. Anyone who has been through grief knows it’s not a straight line, it’s a rollercoaster. During that time, big ambitious goals didn’t make sense. What did help was simplifying everything.

Short-term goals.

Daily goals.

Sometimes hourly goals.

Things like:

Give myself time today
Give Louise space this month.
Focus on today - not six months ahead.

One of the best bits of advice I heard around dealing with grief was: plan one day at a time. That stuck with me. And it still applies now.

So… Are New Year’s Resolutions Actually Any Good?

I get asked this a lot.

Are New Year’s resolutions pointless?

Is January even the right time to set goals?

Honestly? I don’t think January is special, but it is useful. It gives us a natural pause. A moment to stop, reflect, and think about where we’re heading. The problem isn’t January. The problem is setting goals that don’t really mean anything to us.

I’ve tried lots of frameworks over the years. SMART goals. Performance goals. Values-based goals. I still use the ACT Bull’s Eye model regularly to review how close my actions are to the things that matter most to me (you can find it here if you’re interested).

But after 30 years of doing this, I’ve come to one conclusion:

There is no single “best” way to set goals.

What matters is that the process feels personal.

What Works for Me (At the Moment)

My process is pretty simple and it changes over time.

I still like to write things down. Ideas, thoughts, half-formed goals. I do a monthly review (sometimes every couple of months if life gets busy). I look honestly at what I said I’d do and what I actually did and review how I’m getting on across four categories - Health, Leisure, Career and Relationships. I then add my goals into youHQ, print them off, and stick them on the wall. Not because it’s clever, but because if I don’t see them, I let things slip.

And then I break things down into habits.

If I want to stop drinking beer or wine during the week - I don’t just rely on willpower. I remove it from the house. If I want to run in the morning, I put my kit and trainers by the door the night before. It’s key to make it easier to do the right thing.

What About Failing to Hit Goals?

I heard something recently from Dr Rangan Chatterjee that made me think. He suggested that one of the most harmful things we can do is set a goal and then not achieve it.

I get the point. Completely unrealistic goals can knock your confidence. But I also think there’s nuance here.

If we only ever set goals we’re guaranteed to hit, we don’t grow and we don’t improve.

Sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we miss the mark. That doesn’t mean the goal was pointless, it just means it was maybe a little too high or it was misaligned with your capacity right now.

I’ve been goal setting for 30 years, and I’m still learning.