What's a realistic rating to shoot for in a year's time for a beginner?

I just started playing chess toward the end of November and earlier this month I decided I would commit 2021, to the maximum extent practical (being a father of 3 and a full time teacher), to becoming the best possible chess player I can be.  

That being said, what's a reasonable rating to aim for within a year's time?  1200?  1500?  I paid for a platinum membership here and I've mentally committed to about 2 hours a day to studying, practicing, and (naturally) playing chess.  So far it hasn't been difficult because it's so enjoyable.  But I want to write down some measurable goals and wanted to make sure I'm on the right track.

I'll provide more details of my gameplan if anyone is interested.

Thanks in advance!

There isn't much way of knowing - everyone advances at different paces and there are a ton more variables such as what time control you will be using (you can play more games of a shorter time control, but it will also have more variance).

I think the best way is to probably set a reasonable goal like 1000 chess.com rating (preferably rapid; bullet and blitz are not best for learning) and work towards that. Based on your progress speed, you may decide on choosing a higher rating like 1100 or 1200. How long will this take? Who knows? The average chess.com rating is about 1200 (I'm leaving out a bunch of details like rating pool, time control and accuracy of rating being representative or not), so this means that half of the players on here NEVER reach this rating. 

The good news is that 1000 and even up to 1200 is VERY reachable if you are willing to put in the work and time (which you are on the right step for already it seems).

Maybe set a goal of 1000 for the year and if you reach 1000 quickly, then change it to 1100 or 1200 by the end of the year 2021. Good luck and have fun with the chess learning

This resource may also be of use to you for navigating the opening stage of chess without heavy memorization of lines:

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again 

Yeah. It depends. I'm 44 and father of 2 with full time job. I started in January. I've just made 1500 on Daily. Partly, the answer depends on your approach. Improvement requires a combination of study, games (the right kind), analysis, and combining these to understand what to stop doing, start doing, and keep doing. Get this right and 1500ish in 12 months is reasonable. I tend to think of my first 12 months as having learned how to learn how to play chess.

If you want to invest only 2 hours in chess (it's a very low amount of hours per day) then i highly, highly suggest analyzing stockfish games on your own... get on stockfish, play some random moves, stop and THINK about a position, take 30 minutes if you want to and then go over all that you have thought about and what u have missed.

Doing that i believe you will reach 1500 in here relatively quickly

Maybe 1000?

If you’d Study hard 1200-1400 in a year could be reachable

I play for over 30 years nows, but only occasionally and without any help or studying openings etc. I am between 1100 and 1200. I think it really depends on how you train and of course your natural ability.

meraba sa :cool :cool :cool

There is no "realistic goal" in a year. It's like math, some people are better than others, But I'd say 1300 to 1400 would be a good goal, but anything over 1200 would show effort.

Some players are more natural that others, and can get to 1400 in a couple months, and quite a bit higher than that after a year. I suspect those are mainly kids and teens, and perhaps even early 20's, when their brains are still wired for learning.

Actually average rapid rating at the moment is 908 at the moment:
https://www.chess.com/leaderboard/live/rapid

Blitz is even lower.  Sorry for the off topic.

@OP

Try to get to 1 000 in a year. That would be a good achievement at this moment, and if you manage to be even better - great, even if you go up like 300 points it is still ok. It might take a while as you have an established rating now so will not be getting +150 from one game as is the case with new accounts. 

Here are some general tips for you:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

According to my birth certificate I am old, but people around me tell me I am acting like a child. So inside I still have a young brain that can learn a lot fast. I expect it will take me 6 months to get a 2000 rating. 

I found out that the most important thing not to do is to play chess when drunk. 

@k666608

AMEN!!! Nothing good comes from that. Hence my rapid rating😂

Setting a goal of playing certain amount of games( or doing tactics) in a certain period of time would be much more realistic in my opinion because everyone is different, some learn fast some take time. Set a weekly quota and work on it. Be Consistent.

If you can increase your rating by about 500 points per year, you'll be an Expert in about three years. That's better than about 98% of the players on chess.com.

probably a good goal

At the end of every year there’s always several really sincere ‘gonna commit to chess next year!’ threads 

Good luck :-)

Children, maybe one day you gonna understand playing chess is a hobby, a passion to someone and target here is to ENJOY playing it and not some virtual points w/o any value called rating here. If you want to have a real elo rating, start playing in a chess club and became a club player. 

I joined in late october, hoping to get 1000 before midnight. I'm about three wins away now, but I've started drinking.

I do find at this level it's a bit of luck if I meet someone genuinely at this level, or someone who is overrated on their way down.

But yeah, ratings are ratings. The best player is the one having the most fun