Don't Quit! Reassess Your 2025 Chess Improvement Goals!

The end of January is a GREAT time to check in on your progress on your improvement goals for the new year. Many people struggle to achieve the goals they've set for themselves at the beginning of the year.

January 17 is known as "Ditch Your New Year's Resolution Day," and January 10 (the second Friday of January) is the even more popular "Quitter's Day." These holidays exist for a reason. It's difficult to set and achieve annual goals.

I believe there are two big reasons for this:

People set goals that are too ambitious.

It's easy to have big hopes and dreams as one contemplates the new year; people often set goals that require radical change. Change is hard, and it is often better to set goals that involve evolutionary change (building on habits that are already working for you) rather than radical change.

The beginning of the year is overwhelming.

During the Christmas and New Year's holidays, people often have some more free time. Once the new year begins, it's back to work, and there's a lot to catch up on! I personally find the beginning of the year quite stressful, and it's very easy to immediately start missing the mark on your goals.

The key is, if you didn't succeed at the beginning of the year, DON'T GIVE UP!Just because you may have missed some targets at the beginning of the year doesn't mean you can't still crush your goals. Every day is a fresh day! It's almost impossible to set a new goal and IMMEDIATELY succeed from day one. It takes time to build new habits and routines.

If you are struggling, don't give up, but do RE-EVALUATE AND RESET YOUR GOALS!

I always take time at the end of January to reflect on all my goals. Sometimes, I learn that my goal is too ambitious, and I scale it back. Sometimes, I learn that the way I framed my goal was poor— maybe it's hard to measure or assess; in that case, I keep the idea of what I want to achieve, but I try to find another framing. Finally, sometimes I learn that my goal may just not be as important to me as I thought. Have no qualms about striking a goal so that you can focus on what you do care about.

Personally, so far, I'm reasonably on track for most of my goals, and I had a good first tournament of the year at the Charlotte Open, but I'm WILDLY missing the mark on my goal to publish more videos on my YouTube channel. I do still want to do that so I'm really going to try to focus on that in February.

How are you doing on your 2025 Chess Improvement Goals? Have you achieved any milestones yet? If so, share them in our achievement forum! Are there any goals you are revising? How are you planning to adjust?