A New Year and the Opportunity to Reflect

It’s that time of year…let’s talk about goals!
I love the new year because the milestone is a great opportunity to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Whether or not you accomplished all your goals from 2025, you surely accomplished much to be proud of. Shortfalls and mistakes are there for us to learn from and take the lessons with us into 2026. What will we do differently this year? How will we grow as martial artists and people?

I like to start with the framework of setting SMART goals:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Reasonable
Time-oriented

Remember, goals aren’t just fluffy ideas like “I’ll be healthier this year.” Rather, they are constructed in a way where we know exactly what to do and whether or not we have achieved them.

Momentum, Habits, and Starting Small

For example, I wanted to learn some Chinese, so I set the goal of doing at least one lesson on duolingo each day of 2025. I just got my 365 day streak. I still need you to speak Mandarin very slowly to me and translate 75% of the time, but I completed the goal and have a ton of momentum moving forward.

Momentum is so powerful where goals and forming habits are concerned. We want to make it easier to accomplish our goals than it is to fail in whatever ways possible. Momentum often makes it seem easier to continue than it is to stop. If you’ve gone running a few days, it feels easy to do a week. If you’ve gone for a few weeks, it feels easy to do a month. If you’ve gone for few months, the rest of the year will be a cinch. Like so many things, the beginning is the most important part.

Starting your goals can and should be easy. Start small and start today. You can even stop reading and start right now!

Focus on the Process

When formulating your goals, focus on the process rather than the end result. If you want to get great at martial arts, instead of thinking about achieving a certain rank or mastering a given technique, just make your goal to come at least 2 times each week for the year. At the end of this you will have spent hundreds of hours improving your skills and physical and mental health, all the while feeling great about achieving your weekly goal of getting to class. Steady progress stacked on itself has a powerful compounding effect. Keep adding!

If you do fall off the wagon and miss a day or somehow fail part of your goal, try not to let it completely derail your efforts. You can make up what you missed the next day. Instead of letting a mistake be the end, let it be a bump in the road. Get right back on track, keep that momentum and enjoy the feeling of recommitting to your goal.

Growth Is Easier Together

This year I invite you to share your goals with me or anyone else who you think will do a good job of holding you accountable. Often we don’t need anyone to shame us, but we could use a friendly reminder and the support of someone who cares. I’m so grateful to each of you for being part of our community at the dojo in the past, present or future. A big part of what we are doing is learning from and supporting each other in practice and in life. I can’t wait to see what we all accomplish this year!