A Simple Tip from Arnold Schwarzenegger on Reaching Your Objectives in 2024

Arnold Schwarzenegger explains his “one day at a time” approach to making New Year’s resolutions.

It’s that time of year when we sit down and write a list of all the things we want to change about ourselves. New Year’s resolutions are essentially individualized, ranging from physical health to mental agility to professional or artistic endeavors—but one thing they all have in common is how tough they can be to keep.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor, author, and bodybuilding great, gives his advice for creating objectives that you will be able to achieve and progress over time, resulting in major, long-term change in his first newsletter of 2024.

“You change your life by changing your days, one day at a time,” he said. “Make your daily goals something that stretches you, but don’t make them something so big that you’ll fail.”

He begins with the basic example of trying to include more low-impact exercise into your daily routine, as well as the widely used number of 10,000 steps. “If you walk 5,000 steps a day now and want to walk 10,000, let’s start with a smaller goal: 7,500 steps a day,” Schwarzenegger said. “Write that down, and then cross it off with a tally mark every day.” After a few months, when you’re effortlessly hitting 7,500, up your objective to 10,000.”

“If you read 12 books last year, don’t set a goal to read 50 this year,” he said. “Shoot for reading at least 10 minutes a day and mark that off until it becomes automatic, then grow your goal to 20 or 30 minutes.”

“Because success breeds success, we want to choose objectives that will make us a bit better, but not ones that will cause you to fail, become distracted, and give up… Trust me, as your victories stack up and you meet your goals on a daily basis, you will see significant change within a month or two. You’ll look back and marvel how you accomplished so much, and you’ll understand that significant, long-term success is about doing the tiny things every day until they become habit.”