New Year Goals with Anti-Goals and No Goals

[JoelR]

Every year about this time, every webmaster and admin forum asks its members to share their New Year Resolutions for the next year. In over 15 years worth of admin forums, we haven't evolved this question.  It's the same question, with often the same answers, every year.  

This year, I want to challenge community managers with a twist: what are your anti-goals and no goals?  

• Anti Goals: the constraints that keep you aligned with your values
• No Goals: distractions or non-goals to keep you focused on what truly matters

For example, say you’re striving to increase community engagement. Your goal might be to grow active participation by 10%, but your anti-goals could include:

• Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity (no spammy threads just to inflate numbers)
• Don’t overload moderators (burnout is real)

For non-goals, these are distractions disguised as opportunities. Maybe you’ve always wanted to launch a new forum section or experiment with paid advertising. If those don’t align with your core priorities right now, explicitly labeling them as non-goals can keep you focused on what truly matters.