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This is the time of year when we’re reminded New Year’s Resolutions are unsustainable. What seems like a solid plan on January 1 loses momentum after a few weeks, and by February you’re back keeping all your clothes in a sprawling heap on your bedroom floor (just as, ahem, a hypothetical).

Golf resolutions are the same. I can tell you everything I want to do differently this year. The hard part is doing them faithfully for the next 12 months.

That brings us to goals, which are not the same as resolutions, but also present challenges. If resolutions are difficult to maintain, goals are a worthy destination without a clear map to get there. That’s why the most effective tact might be through something experts call “backward planning.” It’s when you put a system in place by starting at the end.

The case for backward planning



Multiple psychological studies like this one from Cambridge University have shown how backward planning can be more effective in completing tasks because it helps maintain motivation, holds us to a more realistic timeline, and forces us to problem-solve more strategically than in the abstract beginning. It’s how I’m looking at my goals for 2025, I can share my thinking to explain how it works.