At the start of a new year, I always find it interesting to look ahead at the upcoming 12 months and write down my plans for them. Of course, many such plans can change and fail, but I find writing them down and sharing them helps solidify the ideas and gives them a fighting chance of success.

To help me work out what I want from 2017 and what’s most important to me, I wrote down a number of ideas and looked at my list of 100 Things for inspiration. After some revisions, here’s what I landed on:

• Become a writer
• Improve my mental health
• Read 24 books
• Sleep 7-8 hours a night
• Drink 5-8 glasses of water every day
• Weight 10.5-11 stone
• Get fit

To achieve these, I’ll be using a method I learned from a book called Mastering the Art of Change by Leo Babauta. If you’ve never read the Zen Habits blog before, please go check it out this year.

Part of the method is breaking down the things I want to achieve into teeny, tiny habits that I can’t really fail at. Starting with the goal (above), I work out what habit I need to reach that goal, then make that habit ridiculously easy. Here’s what my list looks like in that format:

Goal: Become a writer
Ideal habit: Write for an hour every day
Starter habit: Write for five minutes a day

Goal: Improve my mental health
Ideal habit: Meditate for ten minutes a day
Starter habit: Mediate for one minute a day

Goal: Read 24 books
Ideal habit: Read two books a month
Starter habit: Read one page a day

Goal: Sleep 7-8 hours a night
Ideal habit: Sleep 8 hours a night
Starter habit: Be in bed 6 hours a night

Goal: Drink 5-8 glasses of water
Ideal habit: Drink 8 glasses of water a day
Starter habit: Drink 1 glass of water a day

Goal: Weigh 10.5 – 11 stone
Idea habit: Eat 3 meals and 2 snacks every day
Starter habit: Eat breakfast every day

Goal: Get fit
Ideal habit: 21 minutes of exercise every day
Starter habit: 1 minute of exercise every day

Each month, I’ll be working on just one habit and after 30 day’s I’ll review my progress before deciding whether the habit is safe enough to move onto the next challenge. I’ll post these reviews on my blog as a way of keeping some public accountability to my year.

What will you do this year?

Today’s featured image is by Bill Ward.