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What do you want to achieve in 2026? According to a Finder survey, 71% of Aussies have made a resolution, with improving physical health topping the list.
Every January, we set new year resolutions with the best intentions. Eat better. Move more. Save money. Stress less. And yet, February sees many of those goals fall by the wayside.
Drastic and vague changes are hard to make. In fact, Psychology Today lists out a bunch of reasons why New Year’s resolutions are hard to achieve for the majority. (Hint: you can’t all-or-nothing your way to self-improvement).
Let’s try something different this year.
We call it ‘Paying for Progress’.
The core premise is simple. Set your resolution as normal, but make it more goal-focused and actionable. Then, every time you make progress towards that goal, put a certain amount of money aside.
Whether this is into a savings account, an emergency fund, a holiday hoard (of money), etc, is up to you. Progress doesn’t have to be crazy, just consistent. The amount of money you put aside doesn’t need to be large, just enough to see your savings grow while still being affordable.
You may want to break the resolution into smaller goals to make them a little easier to achieve.
Imagine getting to the end of 2026 and being both ripped and savings’d up. Happy New Year!
One reason new year resolutions fail is that they are enough to get you started but not enough to keep you going. There is often an internal or external motivator that keeps pushing you.
According to Dr Mahoney, in an article discussing the psychology of New Year’s resolutions, by Australian Catholic University (ACU):
“The goal acts as a starter engine; it gets the behaviour change vehicle going. But the vehicle needs fuel to keep it moving to its desired destination, and many of us go no further than turning over the engine.”
Saving $10,000. Running a marathon. Completely overhauling your budget. Doing DIY renovations to the house rather than paying a professional to do it…these are big, long-term goals and require significant motivation to keep the fuel tanked topped up.
Paying yourself for progress helps nurture that motivation.
This approach works because it’s flexible. You decide what counts as progress, and how much you ‘pay’ yourself.
Anything and everything including:
You’re not aiming for perfection. You’re creating a positive feedback loop where effort leads to immediate reward. Let’s circle back to the word ‘positive’ for a second; it’s important to reward yourself for progress and set up a positive feedback loop, not punish yourself for failure to make progress.
There are no fines for skipping leg day.
You want to give yourself extra incentive to do the thing, not extra incentive to scrap the activity entirely.
But how can you apply this to your resolutions? We’ll explore how to Pay for Progress some of the most common new year goals.
Instead of focusing only on outcomes like weight loss or strength gains, reward the behaviour itself. You showed up and put in work. That counts.
But also, reward/treat yourself when you hit a milestone.
Try this:
Alternatively, you can give yourself a little treat once you’ve hit a significant fitness milestone, using the money you’ve saved. Just make sure not to overdo it, and keep your goals in mind.
Bonus points if the treat is related to health & fitness, like new sneakers or gymwear.
To take your workouts, and savings, to the next level, you could even create a home gym and cut out those expensive memberships. We’ve got just the article to help you get started.
‘Get better with money’ is a common resolution but it’s quite vague (seriously, what does it even mean?) and has the tone of a criticism rather than a goal. Ducking back to Finder and its research again, 85% of Aussies have set a financial goal for 2026. These include:
That’s a little more tangible, and way more rewarding when you give yourself money for managing your money.
Examples:
Tools that promote transparency and predictability, such as Beforepay Pay Advance, can help support this mindset by giving you another tool to manage cash flow surprises. We’ve got your back when you need it.
If you have something on your mind, however…
Mental wellbeing and stress reduction are hard resolutions to meet, because they’re incredibly hard to measure. You can’t always see the effects of taking care of your mental health, but they are there. Paying yourself for consistency creates a gentle structure. For example:
We all know looking after yourself physically, emotionally, and mentally, has value. But it can sometimes be lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life. This method brings it to the forefront in a tangible, progress-focused way.
This strategy succeeds where traditional resolutions struggle because it:
Instead of starting the New Year with pressure, you start with momentum. And even $10 a week is enough to create some pretty unstoppable momentum.
New Year resolutions don’t have to be all-or-nothing promises that lie forgotten in the dust by February. Make this the year progress pays you back.
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