After ten years of using the Your Year exercise template for my personal year-end planning, I have revamped it to do more with less. I distilled the reflection questions from 50 down to 12, six looking back and six looking forward.
Though I will miss some of the detail those earlier questions helped capture, I believe this set still reflects the events, feelings, and changes that matter most for understanding the past year and clarifying the path forward.
Though the goal setting portion of the Your Year template remains unchanged, I encourage you all to include a section about “What I’m Saying No To or Stopping” which is both in the reflection questions as well as a section I now include in my yearly goals. This reflection is often some of the hardest but most rewarding parts of the planning. Stopping a habit, saying no to a commitment, or letting go of something you have held for a long time can be really hard. It triggers our loss aversion. Yet doing so can free up mental, physical, and emotional energy for the things that matter more.
Here is the updated and revised Your Year exercise for 2026
I would love to hear if you have a similar ritual, whether you have used my template, or what you are looking forward to shaping in your own goals this year
Note: the original / full length version will continue to be linked from the earlier post in case you prefer that version.
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Categories: Productivity, Self & Finance
Ex- HubSpot, HP, Early hire @ Automattic / WordPress.com. Founder World Nutella Day. MBA Alumni Advisory Board @ Santa Clara University.
When I Have Time by Sara Rosso 
I used to write blog posts with annual goals, very similar to what you have in the next year section. I think I wrote 10-15 of these posts before pausing. Setting multiple goals never worked for me. Setting one goal but ambitious worked well.
I stopped writing such summaries/goals around the kids, and then resumed setting fitness and learning goals only.
Thanks for sharing your templates!
“one goal but ambitious” – that really puts focus on it! I think this can be really useful for people who don’t want to get as granular. One of the reasons I include things like smaller “Health” goals – including all of my appointments I need to get done over the next year – is it seems like ambitious and audacious goals tend to get more brain space / energy than the basic needs, so I wanted to make sure not to forget them.
You’re definitely onto something though – that’s why one of the 6 questions for the upcoming year which survived in this revision asks about the most important goal!
Do you have an idea what yours will be for 2026?
I have some clear fitness goals – 10K steps/day over the course of the whole 2026, climb Malyovitza in the summer. A stretch goal to get back to the gym after a 7-year break (I had that for 2025 and failed). I’ll set a reading goal.
But in all other areas of life, I don’t have anything yet. It’s harder and less comfortable to put in writing.