Struggling with goal-setting that never sticks? You're part of the 80% who abandon New Year's resolutions by February. Here's why traditional productivity systems fail for many people, and how I discovered a sustainable alternative that actually works with human psychology instead of against it.
Goals. It's such a short word, but completing and tracking them can be a huge endeavour. I tried and failed for years until I created a system that works for me.
Do any of these situations sound familiar?
Excitedly writing a list of New Years resolutions in December, only for them to have fallen by the wayside by February.
Brainstorming a huge list of goals, realising that you've bitten off more than you can chew, getting overwhelmed and ending up achieving nothing.
Setting ambitious weekly targets that collapse the moment Life happens.
Feeling guilty every time you see your abandoned goal tracker.
Starting fresh with a new system every few months because 'this time will be different'.
Failing, then waiting for a specific time like Mercury coming out of retrograde (or Monday, or the 1st of the month, or your birthday) before starting again.
Buying expensive planners/apps thinking the right system will fix everything.
Setting goals that sound impressive but make you miserable to work on.
Comparing your progress to productivity gurus on social media and feeling inadequate.
Abandoning goals completely after one 'bad' day instead of just getting back on track.
Believing that you are the problem, and that you just don't have what it takes to get things done.
If you can relate to any of these, you're not alone – studies suggest that over 80% of New Year's resolutions are abandoned by February. I was one of the 80% casualties for years.
Things started to change for me towards the end of 2024. It had been a rough year, and when I did my annual personal audit after Christmas, I was really disappointed by how little I'd achieved. That got me thinking about all the Decembers I'd felt the same way, so for 2025, I gave myself one new goal:
Find a tracking system that works for me.
I gave myself other goals, too, and I'll talk about those in another post, but my primary purpose for 2025 was to work out a sustainable goal-setting system that I could stick with. I decided that if was the only thing I achieved that year, I would be delighted.
I'm going to change the subject for a bit, as I think it's worth talking about the idea of an 'inner child'. This isn't to be taken literally; rather, it's a concept describing the part of the psyche that carries the emotions, beliefs, and experiences from their childhood. The inner child can have both positive and negative aspects, and can affect how an adult interacts with the world and the choices they make. I realised that many of the negative reactions I had to my goal-setting plans were those that could be associated with the inner child: the frustration when things went badly; the days when I looked at my enormous list and just said, "No!"; giving up on the whole thing – basically throwing my toys out of the cot.
This got me thinking about ways that parents encourage children to modify their behaviour, which eventually led me to remembering an episode of the show Supernanny. Presenter Jo Frost successfully uses sticker charts to reward little kids for doing the things their parents wanted them to do, and I figured if it works for actual five-year-olds, maybe it could help my Inner Five-Year-Old's goal-setting tantrums.
And that's how The Crankysaurus Chronicles was born.
Instead of fighting against my natural tendencies toward procrastination and overwhelm, I decided to work with them. Rather than demanding perfect consistency from myself, I created a system that celebrates showing up and making progress, even when life gets messy.
The result? A goal-tracking method that actually sticks because it's designed for real humans, not productivity robots.
You can learn more about how my ROAR system works in The Revolutionasaurus.
And before I go, I want to acknowledge that traditional productivity methods do work brilliantly for thousands of people. If you'd like to explore some tried-and-tested alternatives to dinosaur supervision, you can find a list of other goal-tracking and productivity systems in The Helpfulsaurus.
If you've struggled with goal-setting failures in the past, it doesn't mean you're lazy, undisciplined, or fundamentally flawed. It might just mean you haven't found the right approach for your brain yet.
Sometimes the best solutions come from the most unexpected places – like realising that what works for five-year-olds might just work for adults too.
Until next time,
Carpe skateboard! 🛹🦖
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