I hate New Year’s resolutions.

I know, I know, I’m not the first to say this (and I certainly won’t be the last).

But here’s why I hate them as a neurodivergent person: Everybody expects your goals to be some big, huge achievement.

Most New Year’s resolutions are centered in huge, external achievements, and don’t give heed to the intricacies the majority of us experience—things like mental health victories in a world of medical misogyny or getting yourself to do a task you’ve hated your entire life for more than one day.

Basically: New Year’s resolutions celebrate only the biggest, best achievements, and leave nothing for the little achievements that actually make the biggest differences.

Sound familiar?

Trust me, I get you.

I used to set huge, unrealistic standards for myself.

“To motivate me,” I used to say.

But all they ever did was disappoint me in the end.

And that feeling, lemme say it, fucking sucks.

So today, we’re going to go over a different approach to New Year’s resolutions, one I’ve been using for a few years now after recovering from workaholism.

It’s called yearly planning, and I hope you’ll absolutely love it.

Disclaimer before we begin: Yearly planning is best done with a pen and paper. If all you have is your phone or tablet, so be it, but if you can find a notebook and a pen, you’ll see much faster results.

Summary

Today, we’re going to take a serious deep dive into what yearly planning looks like for a neurodivergent person like yourself.

Specifically, we’ll be covering:

• The difference between yearly planning and New Year’s resolutions
• Why we even bother with yearly planning
• What a yearly plan looks like
• How to decide what is achievable (for you)
• And examples of what is achievable for me

I hope you find this week’s blog post insightful!

As always, if you’d like to see more from me, keep up with my writing, or meet other like-minded neurodivergent people, check out my Substack and our Discord.

Isn’t yearly planning just setting New Year’s resolutions?

It’s inevitable.

When we settle down into a new year, we’re all thinking about what we want this year to look like.

Now, whether you set resolutions or not is entirely up to you.

They don’t really work for me, and I’ll tell you why: Resolutions are almost always about the outcome, not the effort.

For example, many people’s New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight.

But you know what would be much more effective?

If their New Year’s resolution was “work out three times per week” instead.

See the difference?

One is about the outcome (which we have little to no control over), and the other is about the effort (which is entirely in our control).

That is the difference between yearly planning and resolutions.

Why bother with yearly planning?

So now that you know the difference between yearly planning and New Year’s resolutions, here’s why we should do it at all:

1. Yearly planning helps us prioritize the areas of our life we want to focus on,
2. Yearly planning helps us take action to get to where we wanna be,
3. And yearly planning helps us say no to anything outside our plan.

Whether you know it or not, saying “yes” to one thing is actually saying “no” to a thousand other things.

So… best be careful with what you’re saying “yes” to this year, love.

What does a yearly plan look like?

1. Break up your current life

The simplest way to start your yearly plan is to break your life up into six parts:

1. Work → what do you do?**
2. Finances → how much do you make?
3. Health → what can your body and mind do?
4. Relationships → who do you know?
5. Recreation → what do you do?**
6. Spirituality/Self → who are you?

** Notice how they’re the same question? This is intentional; do not only prioritize work this year (or ever). You will burn out.

2. Now create your ideal life

Using the same six parts from section one, take time to ideate what you want your life to look like in one year.

We tend to overestimate what we can achieve in one year and underestimate what we can achieve in five years, so don’t set your expectations too high.

Remember: These outcomes should relate directly to actions you can take today.

For example, if you’re currently houseless, don’t expect yourself to be able to buy a house in one year. But with the right steps in place, you could totally achieve that in five years!

That said, here are those six parts redefined for this section of the plan:

1. Work → what will you do?**
2. Finances → how much will you make?
3. Health → what will your body and mind do?
4. Relationships → who will you know?
5. Recreation → what will you do?**
6. Spirituality/Self → who will you be?

I’ll give examples of these both below.

For now, focus on yourself.

3. Choose your top three priorities

Here’s where things start to get a bit tough.

It’s easy to take stock of your current life (even if it’s tough to accept) and dream about where you want to be in a year or five—it’s hard to choose what’s your priority.

That’s why I say choose three.

It’s impossible to grow in every area of life all at the same time; we just simply aren’t wired that way (both as neurodivergent people and as humans in general).

If you know you’ve got a short attention span or not a lot of time on your hands this year, you can prioritize two or even one piece, as well.

That’s the beauty in this: The choice is yours.

4. Create your goals (with extra steps)

Okay, okay, the hard part is over, I promise.

Cutting out three (or more) parts of your ideal life is hard, but now you know exactly what you want to focus on this year.

This is a major success! Props to you for getting this far.

Now, we put the pieces all together and create your yearly plan.

1. First, define your goals based on your ideal life. These should be SMART goals, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. (You’ve already got the timeliness, achievable, and realistic out of the way, so just focus on being specific and measurable.)
2. Second, bullet point 3-4 milestones that’ll take you to that goal. What do you need to achieve every 3-4 months in order to see this through by next year?
3. Finally, list the actions you’ll need to do daily or weekly to reach each milestone. There will likely be multiple for every milestone, so it’s best to start with one goal and work your way down your list.

Aaand that’s it!

That’s your yearly plan for this year.

You’ve got goals that are within your control, milestones to check-in with every 3-4 months (set calendar reminders now), and actions you know you’ll need to take every day or week in order to achieve those goals.

If you’re looking at your goals now and realizing they’re way too big for just one year—don’t fret.

Let’s go over how to decide what is achievable for you.

How to decide what is achievable (for you)

As neurodivergent people, we are constantly compared to neurotypical people, whether we see/hear/experience it actively or not.

It’s just the result of systemic ableism; society expects us to be a certain way, and we simply are not.

Nothing we can do about systemic ableism (at least not by ourselves), so it’s best to accept it and move on.

What you don’t have to accept, though, is those expectations and put them upon yourself.

Expecting yourself to be neurotypical is a fast track to burnout. Trust me, I know, I’ve been there.

So, instead, here’s how to lower your expectations and keep things cozy for your differently-abled mind:

1. Take a neurotypical goal and cut it in half. (Example: “Work out four times per week” → “Work out twice per week”)
2. Stop comparing yourself to others and create goals that are laughably easy. (Example: “Perfect my nightly skincare routine” → “Splash warm water on my face every day”)
3. Prioritize goals centered in your special interests. (Example: “Work out twice per week” → “Walk a dog twice per week”)
4. Create goals that your ideal self would do. (Example: “Work out twice per week” → “Practice intentional self-care twice per week.”)
5. Create goals that you can take action on daily, so you’re less likely to forget. (Example: “Write a book” → “Write 500 words daily”)

If this is your first time creating a yearly plan or attempting to create goals for yourself, you’re not going to get it perfect on the first try.

Part of the reason we set milestones every 3-4 months is so that we can adjust our goals as needed.

So don’t think you have to know exactly what you’ll be able to achieve now—just start somewhere and go for it!

What is achievable (for me)

What would a blog post about lowering your expectations be without using myself as a prime example?

If you’ve never met me, I’m a recovered workaholic and high performer. I’ve gone from building up 6-figure business and working 7 days a week to working 2 hours per day, 4 days a week, and back to working full-time with side hustles, now all under the scope of keeping things realistic and relaxed.

No more frenetic hustling, grindset, girl bossing, or any of that bullshit.

These days, my days look more like a silly sitcom than a David Goggins speech. I spend more time crocheting for my loved ones than cutting corners, and I spend more time sleeping than sending emails.

My life is cozy. My expectations are low. Pressure is nonexistent.

And that’s because I’ve tailored my life to myself, not to whatever expectations I thought society had for me. (Turns out no one gives a shit what you do with your own life, as long as it doesn’t negatively impact them.)

With that said, here’s a glimpse into my yearly plan for 2026:

1. Send 12 handmade birthday cards this year (that’s only one per month!)
2. Post 25 blog posts & 360 newsletters (I write every day, so this is achievable)
3. Do the splits (I love yoga and hate exercising)
4. Grow our Discord to 150 (that’s only 5 members per month from where we are now)

Yes, these goals still require work, but what’s important to note is that I’ve been a professional writer for 8 years now, so the writing work really doesn’t bother me.

The splits and handmade birthday cards are just for fun, so growing the Discord is really the only goal I have that I have little control over—and even then, with one good blog post, I could achieve all 60 members in one week!

The achievability in each of these is high—for me.

They may not be for you, and that’s okay.

That’s good, even, that you notice that, because that means you’re closer to yourself and your own personalized life than you think.

Conclusion

Creating a yearly plan can be a lengthy process, but with some self-acceptance and some sit-down time to think and plan, you can create this whole document in under an hour.

All it takes is following the steps, knowing yourself (or at least who you’d like to be), and putting pen to paper to get your thoughts out of your head and somewhere concrete.

I believe in you! You can do this!

And if you still feel like you can’t, send me an email any time, any day at atlaskatari@gmail.com.