One year ends and another one commences, so what did we search for when we were keen to pursue our New Year resolutions?

The Trends Data Team at Google have been hard at work compiling a list of exactly what Australians vowed to do better in 2026.

From data gathered between 1st December 2025 and 15th January and compared to the previous month, 4 categories dominated search ranging from making yourself a better person, physically as well as mentally and of course financially

  1. Getting fit
  2. Careers and finance
  3. Skills and hobbies
  4. Self improvement

Fitness and weight loss

As you would probably predict, every year this is a strong category, especially after the way we treat our bodies over the indulgent Christmas holiday period. Too much food, drink and other excesses target getting fit and healthy as a big objective for the new year

Top breakout searches in the period were

  •  “group fitness classes near me”
  • “learn to swim programs”
  • “learn to surf” was up +180%
  • “personal trainer”
  •  “how much exercise daily to lower cholesterol”
  • “best core exercises”, “hiit (High-intensity Interval Training) workout”, “how to improve vo2 max”, “pace calculator running” and “how to be healthy” were all up +100%
  • Searches for “how to start running” were up +60%
  • Searches for “certificate 3 in fitness” were up +230%
  • Searches for “best exercises to lose stomach fat” were up +260% and “how to lose weight without exercise” was up +230%
  • Searches for “does running help lose weight?” was up +150%
  • Search interest in “fitness journal” was up +130%

See? You’re not the only one thinking along these lines in January

Career and finances

It’s that time of the year when you start questioning what direction you are taking and obviously your job is a huge part in turning goals into realities and managing finances is essential if you are going to grow your wealth

Top breakout searches in the period were

  • “how to become rich in Australia”
  • “best way to learn trading”
  • Career-specific breakout searches included “how to become a life coach in Australia”, “how to become a buyers agent” and “how to be a teacher in Australia”
  • Search interest in “learn how to invest Australia” was up +210% during that period and “best way to learn budgeting” was up +20%
  • “how to make a resume” was up +30%
  • “how to become wealthy” and “how to become smart” were up +80% and +50% respectively

Skills and hobbies

Keeping yourself mentally fit also means making sure you remain happy and give yourself some “me” time

Top breakout searches in the period were

  • “how to learn to knit for beginners”
  • The desire to learn languages were strong with French,  Japanese & Spanish standing out as extremely popular  
  •  Musical instruments are always a big search term with guitar and piano dominating the search
  • “how to learn about cars”
  • “where to learn how to make jewellery”
  • Searches for “how to make bread at home” spiked +90%, “how to make sourdough bread” spiked +60% and “how to make a sourdough starter” was up +30%

Self improvement

Now that you have your job, finances and fitness sorted it makes sense to see how to improve yourself in other ways

Top breakout searches in the period were

  • “how to improve posture”
  •  “how to be a better person” spiked +370% during that period
  • Interest in “how to be healthy” was up +110% and “how to improve gut health” was up +100%
  • “how to become smart” was up +50%

The AI difference

With AI a big part of our lives compared to previous years its no surprise that we are relying on personal assistants and AI tools such as Gemini to better find the solutions in our quest to improve ourselves.

To help make this happen Google have suggested prompts that might help you find and then achieve your new year goals.

For your career Google suggests

To help you reflect and get on track for a new role, use Gemini to sharpen your interview skills. Try this prompt: “I have a job interview next week for [role]. Simulate a live, conversational interview with me, focusing on behavioural questions.”

For upskilling

Try prompting: “I’d like to learn basic French. Generate a 30-day guided learning plan for these topics and create an interactive multiple-choice quiz on the verb conjugations. Please also generate a set of flashcards for the 50 phrases.”

For self-improvement they have a couple of creative suggestions

Need some help building a training plan? Try this copy-paste prompt: “I want to run a marathon in August. I recently finished a half-marathon in two hours, and I can train 5 days a week. Create a monthly training plan that will help me continue to build my endurance.”

For some page-starters as you work on becoming a better you: “Give me seven unique, one-sentence journalling prompts for the week that encourage reflection on my goals and progress.”

So good luck to everyone in setting those goals and of course sticking to them