Making new money habits stick

Every January, millions of people worldwide engage in a ritual as old as the calendar itself. We make resolutions, set intentions and promise ourselves that this year will be different.

The tradition of New Year’s resolutions stretches back more than 4,000 years to ancient Babylon, where citizens made promises to their gods at the start of each year, hoping to earn divine favour for the months ahead. 

The Romans continued the practice, making vows to the god Janus, the two-faced deity of beginnings and transitions for whom January is named. While the religious element has largely faded, the impulse remains the same: the turn of the calendar offers us a psychological fresh start, a chance to shed old habits and embrace new possibilities.

Yet despite all this history, the statistics on New Year’s resolutions are dismal. Studies suggest that roughly 80% of resolutions fail by February. We’ve all been there: the gym membership that doesn’t get used, the journal with only three entries, Duolingo’s increasingly desperate push notifications. The problem isn’t that we lack willpower or commitment. The problem is that we’re often setting the wrong goals in the wrong ways.

My mantra for 2026 is simple: asking “is this worth spending time on?” It’s a deceptively simple question, but it cuts through the noise of endless distractions, from doom-scrolling to pointless meetings, forcing me to confront the opportunity cost of my choices. So, as you go about your goal-setting for 2026, remember that all goals are not created equal. Some move our lives forward in meaningful ways. Others merely keep us busy and distracted.

Engineering success with SMART goals

If you want to set goals that actually stick, you need more than motivation and good intentions. You need a framework. Enter SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. While this acronym has become something of a business cliché, its endurance speaks to its effectiveness.

Specific: means banishing vagueness from your aspirations. “Get healthier” is not a goal; it’s a wish. “Run three times a week for 30 minutes” is a goal. Specificity turns an abstract desire into action, dramatically reducing the friction between intention and execution.

Measurable: ensures you’ll know whether you’re succeeding or failing. This isn’t about obsessive tracking – it’s about creating feedback loops that allow you to adjust course. You can’t improve what you don’t measure, and you can’t celebrate progress you can’t see.

Achievable: asks whether you have control over the outcome.

Realistic: means the goal is feasible while still pushing your boundaries. A goal should stretch you without breaking you. Writing a novel this year when you’ve never written more than an email is a recipe for disappointment. Committing to 500 words three times per week is a challenge that builds capacity rather than crushing it.

Timely: this may be the most important, because it doesn’t just mean setting a deadline. It means something far more profound: appropriate prioritisation. It asks: “Why now?” And, more importantly: “Why this, instead of something else?”

The 4,000-week problem

If you’re lucky enough to live to 80 years old, you’ll have roughly 4,000 weeks on this planet. Four thousand weeks to learn, love, create, contribute and experience everything life has to offer. When you frame your life this way, the question “is this worth spending time on?” becomes existential.

We operate under a dangerous illusion that we have unlimited time to pursue unlimited goals. We build endlessly expanding to-do lists, as if we’re immortal. But the mathematics of mortality is unforgiving. Every goal you commit to is a goal you’re choosing over every other possible use of those irreplaceable weeks.

This isn’t meant to be morbid – it’s meant to be clarifying. When you truly internalise that your life is finite and your time a precious, non-renewable resource, you develop a fierce protectiveness over how you spend it. You start asking harder questions about which goals actually matter and which are just noise masquerading as ambition.

Not all goals deserve your 4,000 weeks. Some goals are imposed by others’ expectations. Some are artefacts of who you used to be rather than who you’re becoming. Some are perfectly fine goals – for someone else. The art isn’t in setting more goals. It’s in setting fewer, better goals that align with what you genuinely value and who you genuinely want to become.

This is where the “timely” component of SMART goals reveals its deeper meaning. A timely goal isn’t just one with a deadline – it’s one that deserves a place in your life right now. It’s a goal that, when you ask yourself “is this worth spending time on?” comes back with an unambiguous “yes”.

The hidden power of loss aversion

There’s a psychological phenomenon that makes properly set goals even more powerful: loss aversion. Once you’ve committed to a clear, specific goal, you’ve created something to lose. And humans are wired to avoid losses far more intensely than we’re motivated to pursue gains.

Behavioural economists have demonstrated that the pain of losing something is roughly twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining something of equal value. When you set a goal publicly or even just write it down clearly, you’ve psychologically taken ownership of it. Failing to achieve it now feels like a loss rather than simply a missed opportunity.

This is why vague aspirations often fail – there’s nothing concrete at stake. But when you register for a 5km in April, put it on the calendar and start tracking your training, you create something real. Quitting stops being neutral. It becomes a decision to lose progress, confidence and momentum.

Smart goal-setters deliberately harness this quirk of human psychology. They write goals down, share them selectively, create tracking systems and set milestones. Each of these actions deepens the sense of ownership and increases the stakes of giving up.

But this leverage only works in the service of goals worth having. Loss aversion applied to the wrong goal just means you’ll cling to something that doesn’t matter, simply because you hate the feeling of “failing”.

Make this year different

As you contemplate your goals for 2026, resist the urge to create a long, ambitious list. Instead, start by asking yourself the harder questions: what really matters to you? What would you regret not doing with your 4,000 weeks? What would make this year genuinely different rather than just busy?

Then take your answers and apply the SMART framework. Make them specific enough that your future self will know exactly what to do. Make them measurable so you can track progress and correct course. Make them achievable enough that you won’t burn out, but realistic enough that they’ll actually stretch you. And make sure they’re timely – not just in having deadlines, but in deserving the precious weeks you’re about to trade for them.

Remember: you’re not trying to become a different person overnight. You’re trying to make deliberate choices about where your limited time and energy go. You’re trying to design a year that you’ll be proud of when you look back on it 12 months from now.

The power of goal-setting isn’t in the goals themselves. It’s in the clarity, intentionality, and self-knowledge that proper goal-setting demands. It’s in the way good goals focus your attention, organise your priorities, and help you say no to the things that don’t matter so you can say yes to the things that do.

Give careful thought to the goals you set for yourself this year. Time is your most precious commodity. Don’t blow it.

Thomas Brennan is a co-founder of Franc, a South African fintech that helps people invest easily and affordably.

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