Give yourself the gift of success

There's still time to keep your promises to yourself

This Vanderhack is first appearing on December 10th. I know many people have long forgotten whatever this past year’s New Year’s resolutions might have been. They’ve moved on to 2026.

But it might be worth reviewing 2025’s goals. Most likely you set those goals for a reason, and they might still be relevant — and you might still have time to end the year with a win.

I was thinking of this lately because I heard from someone who had set a goal to do 100 strength workouts and read 12 novels over the course of the year. As of mid-December, she decided to count up her tallies. It turned out she had done 88 workouts, and read 9 books. In other words, she wasn’t quite there, but she was pretty close. In the last three weeks of the year it was certainly going to be possible to do 12 workouts and read 3 books. Perhaps not easy, but possible, and so that is what she set out to do.

So what if it’s arbitrary?

Now of course, on some level, this is completely arbitrary. Doing 100 workouts a year is two a week, so continuing at her regular pace would get her to 94 or so. There is no real difference between working out 94 times a year and 100 times. Likewise, one is not appreciably more learned by reading 12 novels instead of 10.

But I still think it’s worth it to push to hit the original goal, if that is possible. That’s because self-discipline is a critical component of success and satisfaction. When you truly want to do something, you want to be able to trust that you will do your best to make it happen, even if it’s sometimes difficult or unpleasant. Part of building that discipline muscle is keeping promises to yourself. Even if the promise is arbitrary, fulfilling the promise shows that you are a person of your word. I know most people reading this keep their promises to others. Keeping your promises to yourself is harder — but it is how you get big things done.

Be reasonable

Now, to be sure, you need to be reasonable. If you set a goal in January to run a marathon before the end of the year, and you haven’t trained for it, setting out to run 26 miles is going to invite failure or injury. Some goals are also not within our control.

But some are. So review your goals for the year. See if you can still hit some of them. If you can, consider going for it — even if that will involve a push.

In my case, I had said in 2025 that I wanted to write a novel. I am in the final edits of one non-fiction book I have a contract to write, and the second book in that contract is due in a few months, so there hasn’t been a great time for this. But when I reminded myself of that goal, I decided to do a modified version of National Novel Writing Month, and I wound up with a short (20,000 word) novella. It is a terrible novella. But now it exists, and I can make it better.

Do you have a promise you can still keep to yourself? You’ve still got three weeks left in the year. You may as well give it a try!