How to Set Goals for 2025
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December is one of my favorite months. It starts with my birthday—not the most exciting event since my partner doesn’t really see the point in celebrating, but it gives me the perfect excuse to treat myself guilt-free. Then comes the week leading up to Christmas, when my daughter and I dive into our favorite traditions together. On Christmas Eve, we watch a cozy holiday movie while we decorate cookies (which Dad and I secretly enjoy after she’s asleep and we’re watching Supernatural as I set out all of the presents and stockings). Christmas morning is pure magic, seeing my daughter’s face light up as she unwraps her gifts. But one of my favorite moments is New Year’s Eve. It’s the day I’ve been preparing for—the culmination of two months spent planning and creating my journal, carefully setting pages aside for my goals. When January 1st arrives, I get to put all that work into action and begin chasing my dreams.
(Of course, you don’t have to wait until January 1st to start working on your goals. You can begin anytime, and if you’re late to the party, that’s okay too. For me, there’s just something special about the clean slate of a new year.)
If it’s already January 1st, you might feel like your goals should already be planned, broken down, and ready to roll. But let’s be honest—sometimes the new year sneaks up on us. That’s okay. Goals don’t need a perfect start date. What matters is starting when you’re ready. Let’s talk about how to get your goals set up so you can make 2025 the year you truly thrive.
Why Are Goals Important?
Goals create direction and purpose. They give you something to strive for, a way to shape the path ahead. Whether or not you call them "New Year's resolutions," everyone has goals—they’re the steps we take toward growth and improvement. Goals are essential because they push us forward, challenge us to be better, and remind us that progress, no matter how small, is always worth pursuing.
What Goals Are You Setting This Year?
Are your goals about personal growth—like reading a certain number of books, prioritizing mental health, or improving your fitness? Are they focused on professional growth, such as advancing your career, learning a new skill, or building connections? Maybe your goals are for your home—renovating, decluttering, or creating a more comfortable space. Or perhaps they’re lifestyle goals, like traveling to new places or picking up hobbies you’ve always wanted to try.
Whatever your goals may be, this is your year to define them and make them happen!
Think SMART When Setting Your Goals
When setting goals, use the SMART framework to make them clear and achievable:
Specific: Your goal should be clear and well-defined. For example, instead of saying "I want to read more books," say "I want to read 12 books this year." A specific goal gives you something concrete to work toward.
Measurable: How will you track your progress? A vague goal makes it hard to measure success. But if your goal is to read 12 books, you can break it down to "1 book per month" and track your progress.
Achievable: Make sure your goal is realistic. Can you truly commit to reading 12 books this year with your schedule? Ensure it's something you can reasonably accomplish.
Relevant: Ensure your goal aligns with your larger objectives and values. Does reading 12 books fit with your personal or professional goals?
Time-bound: Set a deadline. When do you want to accomplish this goal? A clear timeline helps you stay on track and accountable.
Baby Steps: Break It Down
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by big goals, but don’t let that scare you. The key is breaking them down into manageable steps. When you tackle a goal one small step at a time, it becomes much more achievable.
For example, if your goal is to write a book (like me), don’t focus on writing the entire book all at once. Instead, break it down by word count or chapters, and focus on hitting one milestone at a time.
Similarly, if you want to read 12 books in a year, you don’t need to read them all at once. Instead, break it down into reading one book per month. By focusing on the smaller, more manageable steps, you’ll steadily make progress toward your bigger goal, and what’s even better is that you will SEE that progress that you’re making.
Remember: Success doesn’t happen all at once. It’s the result of consistent, small actions that add up over time. Keep moving forward, and you’ll get there!
Accountability: Share Your Goals
Sharing your goals with friends and loved ones can be a powerful motivator. When the people close to you know what you’re working towards, they can help you stay on track. Accountability isn’t just about having someone check in on your progress—it’s about having people who genuinely support you and want to see you succeed.
For example, if your goal is to cut back on drinking, a good friend won’t pressure you to have another drink. Instead, they’ll encourage your progress and help you stay focused on your goal. If you’re aiming to read 12 books this year, perhaps they’ll read along with you, and you can talk about each one. You could even join a book club together to keep the momentum going.
Accountability partners are there to help you stay motivated, offer encouragement, and celebrate your wins. So, don’t be afraid to reach out and share your goals—it’s much easier to achieve them when you have someone rooting for you!
Adjust, Adapt, Overcome: Stay Flexible with Your Goals
One of the keys to long-term success with your goals is staying flexible and open to change. Life is unpredictable, and sometimes things don’t go as planned. That’s why I believe in regular check-ins—every three months, I take time to reflect on my progress and assess where I am with my goals. I ask myself, What’s working? What isn’t?
If something isn’t going as planned, it’s OK to adjust. Maybe you need to modify your approach, shift your timeline, or even set that goal aside temporarily to focus on something else. It’s all part of the process. You don’t have to wait until the end of the year to evaluate where you stand. You can check in monthly, or every other month—whatever works best for you.
The key is to acknowledge your progress, no matter how small, and remind yourself of the steps you need to take moving forward. I don’t know about you, but there’s something so rewarding about looking back and seeing how far I’ve come. Whether it’s a list of completed tasks or the satisfaction of checking something off, those little moments of progress are what keep me motivated to keep going.
Adjusting, adapting, and overcoming challenges are all part of the journey. Keep going—you’ve got this!
Tools for staying on track:
Apps and Websites: There are plenty of apps you can use to track or progress or plan things out. My personal favorite is Notion. It’s online, so you can get to it anywhere, plus you can have the app on your phone and/or computer. It starts off completely blank, and you can turn it into whatever you want, whatever can help you. It might seem a little overwhelming at first, but there are so many creative people on YouTube who can point you in the right direction. Maybe one of these days I’ll make a blog about Notion specifically, because it deserves it.
Other apps could be Habitica, Strides, or Google Sheets where you can find free or purchasable templates that can fit your needs. Here is one that I’ve purchased and loved in the past.
A physical planner or a bullet journal: You can get a more basic one if you’re not interested in personalization or spending time to perfect things and add them, like this, or a more in depth one like this. A physical planner can help you map out tasks and review your progress monthly or weekly.
Bullet journals:(or BUJOs in that world), are going to be more specific to YOU and your needs, because you will be the one that sets it up yourself. I have a blog HERE that goes through mine and what all I added. You can make it whatever you want, decorate it, do whatever you want. With a BUJO you have creative freedom. You can create weekly planners, habit trackers, finance trackers, anything.
A Vision board: You could make a physical one and hang it up in your room by your door or bed, or you could go the digital route. Notion is also good for that, or even Pinterest (here’s my Pinterest vision board for the year). Have pictures of what you want to accomplish, quotes, milestones that align with your goals. A vision board, whether physical or digital is another way you can personalize what you’re looking for.
Habit Tracker: using a habit tracking chart to tick of your progress is satisfying and motivating. You can create one with your bullet journal, some of the planners I posted have trackers built in, you can create one on Notion, or Google Sheets, or you can download habit tracking apps!
Set a reminder on your phone, or calendar, for milestones or daily tasks related to your goals. Set up an alarm to keep you on track and remind you of your upcoming dates.
Rewards: Yes, completing the goal is going to be a reward in itself, and that’s great. It’s amazing. But, some times accomplishing goals can take some time, and it can be easy to lose motivation and get distracted. If you can give yourself milestones, and add rewards to said milestones, you’ll be more likely to get to those milestones.
Closing Motivation:
Goals are important. Goals give you something to strive for and make yourself better. The only person you should be competing against is yourself, always trying to become the better version of you. You can do this. When the right mind set, and the correct steps and motivations, you can do this.
