10 Tips To Succeed With Your New Year's Chess Goals!

This year, we have launched a new initiative at Chess.com that I'm really excited about—the 2025 Chess Improvement Challenge! Over 25,000 people have signed up and set goals for their improvement in 2025. I'm excited to see what the community can achieve and more excited to see how the Improvers club can help people connect and support each other.

Achieving goals is both hard and very rewarding. Since 2012, I have written down a set of New Year's Resolutions and Goals every year. While I certainly haven't achieved every one by a long shot, I'm proud to have had some success. I appreciate being able to reflect on progress over the years, and I think I've learned a few things along the way. I decided to share what I've learned here in the hope that it may be useful to you as well!

1. Don't make resolutions. Set goals.
2. Set goals that mean something to you.
3. Set a lot of goals.
4. Be realistic.
5. Register now!
6. 30 days are critical! Build habits and streaks!
7. There's nothing wrong with not achieving goals.
8. Celebrate unexpected achievements!
9. Remember the Bigger Picture.
10. My goals.

1. Don't make resolutions. Set goals.

Even though I use the team "Resolutions" myself, I'm really setting goals, and I think the difference can be important.

1. Resolutions are commitments to some change.
2. Goals are results or achievements you work toward.

The typical "New Year's Resolution" is something like "I'm going to lose 10 pounds" or "I'm going to the gym every day" or "I'm giving up sweets."

The reason I don't like such resolutions is twofold:

• They involve a radical, perhaps unrealistic, change such as going from rarely or never going to the gym to going every day or completely giving up sweets. Such shifts, going from zero to one hundred, so to speak, are very, very hard. It's very easy to slip up and then give up. A key word is "change." Change is hard, and I would advocate building on success and habits over time rather than committing to radical transformations.
• There's sometimes an element of self-loathing in resolutions. There's a feeling of being unhappy with one's current person or status and an idea that if you can make this big commitment, you will be happy with yourself. I don't believe that's how it works. Start with being happy with who you are and where you are, and set goals that keep you moving in the directions you want to grow!

2. Set goals that mean something to you.

I like to set goals that are "achievements." Attempting something I've never done before that is an achievement or experience I will value is very motivating. It's not motivating to me to stick to a diet (though that can be a great thing!), but running a race or completing a hike is. Here are some goals that I've achieved and valued in past years:

• Run a Marathon (Note that I didn't start from scratch here. I was already running a lot of miles weekly, but committing to running a marathon in 2014 was a big deal for me.)
• Earn the National Master Title (The year I attempted this, I was already within striking distance, but really committing helped me outline my tournament schedule and study time to achieve it in that year.)
• Buy a House (Buying a house in 2015 when I had just started a small business was a significant undertaking, and it was tempting to keep renting, but making the commitment helped us get all of the ducks (finding a realtor, getting mortgage approval, seeing over 50 houses, making multiple offers) in a row.
• Watch all Best Picture Winners (I love movies, and this was a fun structure for me to experience more films from across film history and to get a sense of how films have developed over time. This is a good example of one that anyone can achieve, but it still feels special and is a source of pride.)

3. Set a lot of goals.

I don't set just one goal for the year. I started with about 10 goals, and now I set around 30. Some people might feel like this lacks focus, but I don't want to define a year in terms of just one goal and whether or not I achieve it. Life is complex, and all of us have multiple things we are working on all the time. I set goals in categories like "Travel and Lifestyle," "Health," "Professional," "Personal," "Learning," and, of course, "Chess." All are meaningful to me, and having three-five goals in each category tends to work well for me. At the end of a "good" year, I might achieve 75% of my goals. Sometimes (such as the chaos of 2020!) I only achieve around 40%. While it feels good to achieve more of my goals, in the years that I don't, there are often unexpected challenges, and my priorities for the year may have shifted. That's fine and normal! I'll re-evaluate next year.

4. Be realistic.

I've touched on this already, but I don't believe in setting really radical goals. If you've never run before, setting a goal to run a marathon makes no sense to me. Maybe someone out there can do it, but most people will soon realize it's not realistic and give up entirely.

One of the questions I always get from people outside of the chess world or casually in the chess world is if I'm trying to become an IM or a GM. It's assumed that one should have a goal to make the next title. For me, that's extremely unrealistic. I don't even have a goal set to make CM at present. The reason is that my life is full with family and with work, and I don't have the time to invest in really studying and playing at the level I would need to to improve my level. I'm not putting in the work that others at my level striving for the next title are, and I have no intention or capability to do so. It would be very arrogant of me to set a goal that's not associated with the level of effort needed to achieve that goal!

I see a lot of community members setting goals that I'm concerned are unrealistic. If you are rated 800 and have been for a while, making 1500 in 2025 will be tough. I would recommend a goal of 1200 for such a player, and even that may be challenging. I think your goals should be mindful of the progress you've been making historically. With effort, you can improve on the progress you make in a typical year, but you shouldn't expect your progress in 2025 to be radically different than your progress in 2024 without radically different effort, and you shouldn't expect to be able to invest radically different effort if you don't have the time or capability for it. Personally, fatherhood definitely shifted my goals!

5. Register now!

If you can commit now, do so! It's an amazing hack to set a goal to do something later this year and already register or purchase tickets. With a couple of minutes online, you've massively increased your chance of actually achieving your goal. Here are some examples that I've done that helped a lot.

• Register for races: I usually register for my race calendar at the beginning of the year. It helps me orient exercise throughout the year and is a big step on the path of achieving my fitness goals each year.
• Register for tournaments: Obviously registering for chess tournaments is a great step if that's one of your goals.

• Book travel: This year, one of my goals is to see a show on Broadway. I've never done that, but my wife and I love theater, and I've booked tickets for May and my parents are committed to watching the kids. I'm very excited!
• Contact a coach: Is one of your goals to get a coach? Start therapy? Contact them now! It may take some time to get on a schedule, but you can start the process now.

6. 30 days are critical! Build habits and streaks!

A great deal of progress is grounded in habits. Showing up is half the battle, and habits are key to that. If you can build a habit for 30 days (or better yet, 60), you are well on your way to having formed a lifetime habit, be it in exercise, diet, or chess play. It can be really effective to use sites and apps to build streaks, having a way to track habits and motivation to keep your streak helps a lot! Personally, I track streaks for language practice (using Babbel), daily chess play, solving the daily puzzle, daily exercise and push ups, and Chessable practice. I didn't start all of these at once, but I now have streaks that I really want to keep, and that helps motivate me even on days that I'm tired and don't want to follow through.

one year of chess ❤️‍🔥🥳 pic.twitter.com/kTxRvwZaTQ

— Sam Copeland (@Sam_Copeland) November 11, 2024

Really focusing on success in your goals in January can help here. If you can set a habit in January, you are much more likely to follow through all year, but if not, DON'T GET DISCOURAGED. Re-evaluate and re-commit during the year. I'm happy to rewrite a resolution at the end of the month if it's not working for me.

7. There's nothing wrong with missing goals.

As mentioned above, I only achieve 40-75% of my goals in a typical year. I never expect that I'll achieve all of my goals, and many of my goals I've repeated for multiple years before I actually achieved them. I also have no problem setting goals where I can't really control whether or not I'll achieve them e.g. I set a goal each year to win my State Championship. Obviously, I'm not going to win it every year because there are loads of other players vying for the title, and in many years I've had conflicts with illness or travel or the birth of a child, but it's a goal I like to set at the beginning of the year. I've achieved it twice, and I'll keep trying!

8. Celebrate unexpected achievements!

There are lots of great things all of us achieve in a year that we couldn't anticipate at the beginning of the year. Unscheduled travel, surprise opportunities, windfalls, etc. I leave a blank "Unexpected" category at the bottom of my New Year's Resolutions documents each year that I add these things to when they happen! Then at the end of the year, I have a better, more holistic perspective on all that I achieved. Some examples:

• Beating a grandmaster in classical chess: (I certainly couldn't set this as a goal for any particular year, but it's definitely an achievement I want to note.)

• The birth of my incredible daughters.
• Visited Chichen Itza and the Eiffel Tower.

9. Remember the Bigger Picture.

Why are you doing this?

I believe the goal should be to evolve and grow as a person—being the happiest, healthiest, and most impactful person you can be! Don't let success or failure in one specific goal for the year define you. If you are making progress, that's great! That's why I really value having a record of my goals over the year. I can see and celebrate the progress I've made year over year. It motivates me each year to set more goals and it strengthens my sense of identity. I recommend it highly and encourage anyone out there reading this to start building that record for yourself!

10. My goals.

In the interests of accountability, here are my chess goals since I've been tracking them! You can see a lot of misses and badly structured goals, but you can also see progress in different ways over the years. When I started, I had more time for classical chess, and I made more achievements there. Over time, I transitioned to invest more effort in content creation. In recent years, I've focused more on casual chess since family life doesn't allow as much competitive chess travel or content creation. Last year, I made some strides in blitz chess, and I feel great about that!

2012:

• Earn the USCF Master Title ✅

2013:

• Become the Highest Rated Player in Buffalo (excluding Regan) ❌

2014:

• Achieve Rating of 2250 (2310 peak!) ✅
• Acquire 25,000 Chess.com Blog Views (single blog nearing 100,000!) ✅
• TD a Tournament (Started a Chess Company!) ✅

2015:

• Achieve 2200 FIDE ❌
• Win the SC State Championship ❌
• Complete TBM Series ❌

2016:

• Play 1 Blindfold Blitz Game Each Day ✅
• Become a Senior TD (made it in 2018) ❌
• Achieve a 2200 Chess.com Blitz Rating ❌

2017:

• Achieve A 2200 Chess.com Blitz Rating ❌
• Contribute To An Opening A Day ❌
• Master Queen vs Rook ❌

2018:

• Complete The Best Move (Progress) ❌
• Play A FIDE-Rated Tournament ✅
• Forfeit 0 Daily Chess Games (Close) ❌

2019:

• “Learn” These Chess Openings on ChessTempo ✅
      - Open Sicilian White Repertoire
      - Italian Game White Repertoire
      - Semi-Slav Black Repertoire
• Record an Alekhine Video Series ✅
• Finish The Best Move ✅
• Add 1000 Positions to My Training Collection ❌
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ❌

2020:

• “Learn” Chess Openings on ChessTempo
  • 1.e4 responses ✅
    • Alekhine’s Defense
  • 1.d4 responses ✅
    • Dutch Defense
• Finish Dvoretsky’s “Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources” ❌
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ✅
• Get All Ratings Over 2000 (Bughouse, 3 Check) ❌
• Reach 2200 Blitz Rating ✅

2021:

• Chart All Blitz Games ✅
• Reach a 2400 Blitz Rating ❌
• Learn The Semi-Slav Defense ✅
• Learn The Caro-Kann ✅
• Complete Dvoretsky’s “Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources” ❌
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ❌

2022:

• Reach Champions League ✅
• Reach Round Three of the 2022 Daily Chess Championship❌
• Publish The Best Chess Games Of All Time + Annotations ✅
• Complete Dvoretsky’s “Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources” ✅
• Read and Archive Selected Booklist in Chess.com/Library ✅
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ❌
• Get Three *s on My Full Opening Repertoire ❌

2023:

• Survive To Round Three of the 2023 Daily Chess Championship ✅
• Solve All [Chess.com](http://Chess.com) Daily Puzzles ✅
• Break 2500 In Blitz Chess ❌
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ✅
• Win the 2023 SC State Blitz, Rapid, or Classical Championships ✅
• PR Puzzle Rush (50, 40), Puzzle Battle (2300) ❌
• Play One Titled Tuesday a month and every CCS Qualifier ❌
• Create a Chessable Course with all my Repertoire Lines ✅

2024:

• Survive To Round Three of the 2024 Daily Chess Championship ✅
• Break 2500 In Blitz ✅
• Play a FIDE-Rated Tournament ✅
• Win the 2024 SC State Blitz, Rapid, or Classical Championships ❌
• PR Puzzle Rush (50, 40), Puzzle Battle (2300) (I achieved my target in 3 minute) ✅
• Play Titled Tuesday and CCT Qualifier once per Month ❌
• Play 20,000 Games on Chess.com ✅
• Reach 3600 on Puzzles ✅

2025:

• Break 2600 in Blitz (likely challenging, but possible)
• Break 2400 in Bullet
• Break 2300 in Rapid (want to play more rapid on the ChessUp board!)
• Achieve 50 in Puzzle Rush (My PR is 48, and I thiiiink, I can make 50, but those last two will be tough.)
• Play 25,000 Games on Chess.com
• Play a Dozen Titled Tuesdays
• Establish Complete Professional Opening Repertoire (no more Dutch Defense...)
• Make Life Master
• Win the 2025 SC State Championship

I worry that my goals in 2025 are too ambitious. I don't like that I've set nine total goals! I think they are reasonable ones, though. The one I care most about is making Life Master. To that end, I've already scheduled out my tournaments for this year, and I think I can make the 33 classical games I need to get the title if I don't tank my rating. 🤞

I hope my experiences are useful to you! This process has been very rewarding for me, and I've appreciated reflecting on my experience for you here. Ultimately though, you are your own person—set whatever goals you want in whatever way you want! I wish you all the best of success in 2025, and if you haven't yet, be sure to sign up for the 2025 Chess Improvement Challenge!