How to Make 2024 the Best Year: 6 Questions to Ask Yourself

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  You need your starting point before you can get directions

  Mel compares goal-setting to Google Maps, which can't route you without knowing both where you are and where you're going. Most people skip straight to resolutions without stopping, and end up with goals they think they should have rather than ones they actually want. She has done this year-end ritual of six questions with Chris for 20 years, and now with their three kids too.

• 02

  Questions 1–3 look back; questions 4–6 look ahead

  The first three questions (highlights, hardest parts, lessons) show where you are now. The last three come from a business consulting practice Mel says top companies and executive teams use: stop, start, continue.

• 03

  Q1: What were the highlights of the past year?

  Don't rely on memory, Mel says, because you'll forget a surprising amount. Scroll your camera roll and calendar week by week. The point is to remind yourself that your life is bigger than how you feel right now, especially since year-end reflection often happens in a temporary low mood.

• 04

  Q2: What were the hardest parts?

  Get specific by sorting struggles into five areas: health and wellness; career, money and school; relationships, love and friendship; fun and happiness; and purpose, spirituality and meaning. Highlights and struggles can overlap. Mel's highlight of sunrise photos in Vermont sat alongside the loneliness of her first months there.

• 05

  Goals that grow out of your struggles are the ones you'll stick with

  Mel cites research showing that goals need to be relevant to your current life. Goals built on what's been hard tap into intrinsic motivation because they're personal. If not being lonely again matters to you, or not getting winded on the stairs, you'll act. After a loss, a goal might be giving yourself permission to be happy again.

• 06

  Q3: What did you learn about yourself?

  Answer across the same five areas, and ideally with family or friends, because they'll point out things you don't give yourself credit for. Mel's lessons: diet and exercise that worked when she was younger stopped working after menopause, and there's a difference between supporting someone and being responsible for their emotions.

• 07

  Q4: What will you stop doing?

  Mel says that sometimes stopping something changes more than adding something new. Examples include stopping complaining about your job or money and showing up differently. She walks through each of the five areas.

• 08

  Q5: What will you continue doing?

  Typical goal-setting never asks what's already working. This question avoids 'whack-a-mole', where focusing hard on fitness means neglecting your relationship, or paying off debt means skipping fun. Mel will continue using the Let Them Theory: letting people have their reactions and show who they are, and not managing everyone's meltdowns.

• 09

  Q6: What will you start doing?

  Starting can include restarting something you used to love, like making playlists, playing guitar or piano, taking cheap day trips, or doing 'Unfollow Friday' to curate your social feeds so they don't make you feel bad.