The "Avoid-at-All-Cost" List: How Billionaires Actually Set Goals and How You Can Crush 2026
Today is January 1st.
You are probably feeling that familiar buzz of optimism. You have a fresh notebook. You have a vision board. You have a list of twenty things you are absolutely going to change about your life in 2026. You are going to learn French, get six-pack abs, start a podcast, and finally read In Search of Lost Time.
Statistics say you are doomed.
Research consistently shows that the vast majority of resolutions fail by January 19th. They call it "Quitter’s Day." The gyms empty out. The Duolingo streaks end. The dusty copy of Proust goes back on the shelf.
Why are we so bad at this?
We usually blame our willpower. We tell ourselves we are just lazy. We think we need more grit or better discipline.
The data says the problem is actually the opposite. We don't fail because we don't care enough. We fail because we care about too many things.
The Science of "Goal Competition"
Let’s look at the research.
In 2012, researchers Amy Dalton and Stephen Spiller published a fascinating study in the Journal of Consumer Research titled "Too Much of a Good Thing." They looked at "implementation intentions." This is the psychological term for planning exactly when and how you will act. Usually, this is the gold standard for getting things done.
But Dalton and Spiller found a glitch.
Implementation intentions work wonders when you have a single goal. But when you apply them to multiple goals? The whole system collapses. The researchers found that managing multiple plans creates "goal competition." Your objectives start fighting each other for your limited mental energy and resources.
When you have twenty goals, you basically have NO goals and a recipe for anxiety.
This aligns with the foundational work of Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, the godfathers of Goal Setting Theory. Their research, spanning decades, proved that specific and challenging goals lead to high performance. But a crucial part of their findings is often overlooked: complexity kills execution. When the demands are too high and the targets are too numerous, performance drops exponentially.
So, how do we fix this?
Stop adding and start subtracting. And to do that, we turn to the Oracle of Omaha.
The Pilot and The Billionaire
There is a famous story about Warren Buffett and his personal pilot, Mike Flint (the story is probably apocryphal, but F it, who cares if it works?). Flint had flown for Buffett for years, but he still had big career ambitions he hadn't achieved.
One day, Buffett joked, "The fact that you’re still working for me tells me I’m not doing my job."
He told Flint to go through a simple exercise.
Step 1: Write down the top 25 career goals you want to achieve in your lifetime.
Flint took some time and wrote them down.
Step 2: Circle the top 5.
This was harder. Flint really had to think about what mattered most. Eventually, he circled his top five.
Step 3: Focus.
At this point, Flint had two lists. List A had his top five goals. List B had the other twenty. Flint told Buffett he would start working on the top five immediately. Then Buffett asked him what he planned to do with the other twenty.
Flint replied, "Well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other twenty are still important. I’ll work on them intermittently when I have time. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them dedicated effort."
Buffett stopped him.
"No. You’ve got it wrong," Buffett said. "Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five."
The Dangerous Seduction of the "Good" Idea
This is the part that hurts.
Eliminating bad habits is easy. We know we should stop doom-scrolling or eating junk food. The real challenge is eliminating good habits.
The items on your "List B" are not bad things. They are things you like. They are professional certifications you want to get. They are hobbies you enjoy. They are side projects that might help you in the long run.
That is exactly why they are dangerous.
These "List B" items have just enough value to justify spending time on them. They steal energy from your top five. They are the reason you make a millimeter of progress in a million directions instead of a mile of progress in one direction.
As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, has said, we often think focus means saying "yes" to the thing we want to focus on. But focus really means saying "no" to the hundred other good ideas that pop up every week.
Does It Actually Work?
I have used this method for years. It is terrifying at first. You feel like you are giving up on your dreams.
But the results are undeniable.
By killing off my "List B," I freed up the mental bandwidth to run multiple marathons. (I’ll see you in Chicago this year!)
It also gave me the singular focus required to write a book that became a bestseller in South Korea.
I did not have more time than you. I did not have more talent. I just had fewer open tabs in my brain.
The Sum Up
Here is how to apply the Buffett 25/5 Rule for 2026:
List Everything: Write down twenty-five goals. Don't censor yourself. Put it all on paper.
Pick The Winners: Circle the top five. Only five. No cheating.
Create The "Avoid" List: The other twenty are now dead to you. They are distractions.
Accept The Trade-off: As highlighted by the research from Dalton and Spiller, you cannot optimize for everything. You have to choose.
Get To Work: Take those top five and apply the Locke and Latham principles. Make them specific. Make them hard.
Most people will start tomorrow by trying to do everything. They will end up doing nothing.
Be the person who does five things.
Happy New Year. To Your Success.
— Kristopher, illogicalinfluence.com
Sources
"The Warren Buffett 5/25 Rule for Success," by James Altucher, LinkedIn Pulse, 2015.
"The Power of Goal Setting: Unlocking Success through Purposeful Planning," by R. Bradshaw, Apollo Technical Blog, Jan. 2, 2025.
"Quote on saying 'no' to most things," by Warren Buffett, Inc.com, 2019.
"The Scientific Argument for Mastering One Thing at a Time," by James Clear, JamesClear.com, 2014.
"Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Goals," by James Clear, JamesClear.com, 2018.
"Too much of a good thing: The benefits of implementation intentions depend on the number of goals," by Amy N. Dalton and Stephen A. Spiller, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2012.
"The 25/5 Rule for Finding Focus," by Sarah Peck, SarahKPeck.com, 2019.
"Why Resolutions Rarely Stick — and the Goal Hack That Does," by J. Shaw, Medium, 2025.