It’s easy to predict the themes of most columns this time of year — start setting your goals for 2026, take a look back at how you accomplished your goals in 2025, etc. There’s nothing wrong with these topics, and they’re classics for a reason; strong, visionary leaders are supposed to check their vision and chart the path ahead.

Here’s the thing, though. We’ve all heard this advice more times than we can remember, and I’d be willing to wager that 90% of people reading this either don’t remember or haven’t recently checked what their goals were for 2025 around this time last December.

I include myself in this figure, and I think it’s clear why we all talk a big game at the end of the year and then quickly forget our plans by March. Goals are large, abstract plans, and they’re of the kind that is especially unlikely to survive contact with reality. Even the premise is a little absurd — markets rise and fall regardless of the earth’s relative position to the Sun, yet we insist on planning operations based on the artificial timeline of a solar year.

If you don’t believe me, I’d encourage you to dust off your plans from last year and see how closely they meet the needs of your operation today. I suspect you’ll find one of two things. If you’re like me, you’re iterating so far in advance that you won’t even be able to find a starting point. But if you do find them, I’d imagine you haven’t hit them all these 12 months later, although I’d certainly love to hear that someone has completed their yearly list of goals and that it had a positive impact.

Instead of focusing on the annual aspect, I keep a list of things that I want to accomplish and update it year-round. But listening to a podcast recently, they talked about an aphorism often misattributed to Confucius that says something to the effect of: A man who chases two rabbits catches neither.

Reflecting on that, it was impossible not to notice that I’m always chasing more than a few rabbits, myself. In a recent column I talked about the importance of knowing which lever(s) to pull. Today, I’m advising finding a few quiet moments amidst the fray of new years initiatives and really thinking through if there’s one rabbit that would make a particularly good stew for you.

Of course, finding the right rabbit to chase is not always the simplest thing. I was recently working on a SWOC analysis with my team, and while I’m jaded and tired of these analyses, they really are useful tools for telling you the thing that you should already know. In this case, they’re excellent for helping you identify which goal is worthy of your focus.

If you’re struggling to identify which rabbit to chase, try a SWOC analysis — a quick one, not the kind that requires a hotel in a different city. It can be extremely useful to get input from stakeholders on what they see as opportunities and threats, and maybe that perspective will be what stops you from running after two or three or ten rabbits and helps you focus in on the one worth chasing.

Once you have a goal in mind, you have to keep it present in your focus. Otherwise, you’re going to end up getting sidetracked by another rabbit and lose sight of the one you’ve been pursuing. I recommend writing down your goal and looking at it at least once a month to make sure it’s remaining top of mind in your day to day operations.

Whether you’re in a dark room by yourself or at the whiteboard with your team, use your time and focus to give yourself the opportunity to bring home that rabbit and enjoy a tasty stew at the end of next year.