“By the end of 2025 a bingo card is gonna hate to see me coming… because yep, I’m gonna make one, I’m gonna use it, and I’m gonna achieve all my goals.” Tiara, a writer posting on TikTok wonders why she didn’t think of this before. “It’s genius.” While some people make lists or vision boards with inspo pictures of who they want to be or what they want to do, a new trend is taking hold: bingo cards.
Think of it as a little bucket list for your New Year’s goals, but in the literal shape of a bingo card. Last year, one brand design team posted their bingo cards on TikTok, including goals like winning a designer award, reaching certain numbers of social media followers and signing specific types of clients from new industries. On Reddit, one user posted about how they’ve been making bingo cards for six years, including items like “solo mission,” “blood donation” and “home upgrades.”
“Reframing resolutions from a homework assignment or a task that “has to get done” to a playful achievement that you “get to do” is genius, says Nikki Innocent, holistic career coach in New York.
Here’s how this new format might be just the inspo you need to bag that resolution list or vision board, and prepare to ring in 2026 a year from now with that bingo board complete.
Why a bingo card might work better for you than a vision board
For the less crafty among us, we might wonder why it matters if it’s a bingo card, a list, a vision board, a pile of Post-its or a note in our phones. Innocent shares the reasoning behind gamifying your resolutions.
“Neurobiologically, this reframe will activate the brain’s reward system, increasing dopamine, which has been shown to enhance motivation, attention and pleasure, while also supporting your memory. Not only is the dopamine a huge bonus to this playful approach, but it also fosters neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new neural pathways or connections, which is vital for learning new skills and tapping into innovative solutions to old problems or obstacles,” she says. And, of course, bingo cards are just more fun.
“Play also is a wonderful entry point for regulating your stress—it lowers your cortisol levels (the stress hormone) which improves your ability to mentally process, while also reducing the drain on your body that stress, especially chronic stress, inflicts. Often issues like burnout are a result of a stuck stress response system, but play is one of the key ways to break through the common sticking point of processing the stress that gets held in your body.”
She points to the fact that we are more likely to solve complex challenges through playful approaches rather than rigid processes, including “gamifying” tasks.
Most people don’t keep their resolutions. Some reports even show that 91% of people fail to achieve the goals they set for the new year. So clearly, we are going to need all the gamification we can get.
“The act of sharing your goals is also something that’s been shown to increase your likelihood of achieving them,” Innocent adds. So you can even post your bingo card in a high-traffic place in your home, such as your fridge, to keep you motivated.
How to make your own bingo card and achieve your goals
First, you don’t have to make your own bingo card. Premade bingo cards with common goals to try out are available to print online. For example, PureWow’s printables include spaces like “try a new social hobby (Billiards! Dancing! Art group!),” “read two fiction books” and “make one new friend.”
However, if you’re starting from scratch, here’s what to do:
- Choose a board: It can be a dry erase board, bulletin board, poster or a simple piece of paper or journal page.
- Make your grid: You can draw the grid with a marker, use strips of decorative tape or any other tools you want to make a 25 box table (5 rows by 5 columns) with enough room to write your goals in each. If you are using a Google Doc, you can go to “Insert” and make a 5×5 table in just a few clicks.
- Personalize it: Add images, colors, borders, or any other things that make it feel more like you or that you find inspirational.
- Fill in your goals: Select goals that are SMART—meaning specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound—to improve your success rate. Choose fun goals, like try a new type of latte to get out of a rut, along with more serious goals for variety.
- Select a marker: How will you mark off a goal when you’ve done it? You can use simple Post-it notes on a big chart on the wall, you can check off your goals with a pen or you can use a reward sticker (after all, it felt great to get one on your papers in elementary school, right?).
- Reward yourself: If it’s been a while since you’ve played a real game of bingo, the objective is to get five in a row—diagonally, vertically or horizontally. When you accomplish this, you can yell “bingo!” (Even if you are by yourself! Trust me, it’s fun.) You can decide on a rewards system such as purchasing a small prize for yourself. Or, you can simply bask in the glory of accomplishing your goal, especially knowing most people don’t make it that far with their resolutions.
- Bingo with a friend: Most games are better together. Have a friend or your work team make one as well and compare successes together as you go.
“Bingo card goal setting is a fun and novel idea that might work for many people—especially us with ADHD. As an ADHD business owner and lover of vision boarding, this unique way of setting goals feels like it will keep the excitement going all year long,” says Meg O’Neill, an intuitive business coach in North Andover, Massachusetts. She even decided to reward herself with a special prize each time she got bingo. “I know that will have me focused on reaching certain goals at certain times. It is unique, spices up something you might have done many years in a row and is getting me excited for a new year.”
And remember, you don’t have to take the task too seriously. As O’Neill says, “We all could use a little more fun!”
Photo courtesy of Boontoom Sae-Kor/Shutterstock
