Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.
kipchoge
How to set goals for the new year, this 2025?
Routine doesn’t bind us. Routine gives us flow. Freedom. It tells us what to do, when to do it, how to go about our day when we’re confused regarding our next steps. Once a task is completed, it tell us what to do in the next one, immediately pulling our focus on that instead of losing creativity and momentum in trying to decide our next course of action.
Routine makes us feel more free, more in control of our lives. Unless we define what a productive day looks like for us, we’ll never feel like we’re doing enough. We need to find the routine that is perfect for us, to make the best out of every day. That’s how the future is built. With consistent efforts, day in and day out.
I think a lot of people have expectations from 2025, just like they did with 2024, just like they do for every new year that comes up.
And when they realize that a month or two have already passed and they haven’t been able to start the year with the right momentum, they feel a little distanced from their goals, a little hopeless, as if it’s really not meant to be, after all.
Somewhere, people are also a little hesitant to put in the actual work for it, because many of us feel like the plans we make in January are rarely the ones we actually fulfill by December.
But why can’t 2025 be your pivotal year? Why can’t you do what you’d wanted to do, why can’t this be the year when you finally do something, you finally be something, you actually begin something?
This is a post about setting goals in 2025 and not being disappointed in yourself when December comes.
In other words, this is a post about killing it this year.
Table of Contents
The Idea of Setting Goals
The process of setting your goals for the day is rewarding when at night you look at them again and tick off all the items you did, and postpone the ones you didn’t, if any.
The process of setting goals for 5 years is rewarding in the sense that it gives direction to your focused efforts, tells you where to move, in what speed, in what manner. If you’re into manifesting, your goals will show you what to manifest for.
When you don’t understand where to put in time and effort, your goals will show you what needs your immediate attention.
Setting your 2025 goals is all about telling yourself where you want to be by the end of this year. You can get a piece of paper right now and write it down. You don’t need anything else. Just a big huge idea and bigger confidence in yourself for this year is all you require.
Write Down Your 2025 Goals
Write down the steps you need to undertake to reach them. Write down how much time you want to focus on them. Write it all down.
Download a timer app, if you want, depending on the level of organization you want in your day. Or make things simple without any digital organizer. Assign time to each of your goals every single day. Don’t break the streak. Make repeating activities for things you want to focus on every day, every alternative day, and so on.
Set up reminders. Automate. Automate. Automate.
Then don’t spend too much time organizing your Google calendar.
Get started.
Stick to the Routine
Majorly.
And if, suppose, you don’t want to follow one task in your routine, you can refrain from doing it. No one’s stopping you. It’s fun breaking a few rules every now and then.
You can break the flow of your routine every now and then to focus on something else out of the blue. It helps you stay creative.
You’re doing play. Not prison time.
Take it as it comes. Time management is a real skill and can be learned.
Routine is what helps us in the long run. Fulfilling your routine seems satisfying on another level. Why can’t we work for that?
How to Set Goals for the New Year
You need some goals for 2025.
You need something you want to achieve, some place where you want to reach by the end of this 2025. And once you’re done setting goals for the new year, you want to redefine your daily routine to get the desired payoffs by the end of the year.
All of this is very simplified and blissful until the reality hits in, and you realize that just planning for your goals and making Pinterest boards isn’t enough.
All of this seems easy until January is over (as of today, it’s the third day of February) and you are hit with the sudden revelation that a year has got only 12 months and we spend the first one still basking in the optimistic and determined glow of the arrival of the next year, the second one coming to terms with the harsh reality, and the third one planning how to deal with this now. Time is running out all along.
If you’ve ever wondered how to set goals for the new year, you’re probably well aware of how utterly disappointing it is to not live up to the previous goals you’d set. Hence the hesitation and self-doubt. Once bitten, twice shy.
I once read in my business book—Failing to plan is planing to fail. We’re gonna listen to that advice and diligently plan for this new year.
Without wasting any time, let’s get right into your life and try to find out what it is that you actually desire by the end of the year.
What’s the main area in life you want to focus on this year? One thing you want to be proficient in by December? As for me, I want to be fluent in Japanese by the end of the year, which is a pretty ambitious goal to have because I’m self-studying and plan to continue doing that for the rest of the year.
I also want to publish a novel with a traditional publishing house, and take this blog to new heights and get it the attention it deserves. Those are my 2025 goals. I wrote them down on the 31st of December, 2024.
They are the most important ones in my life aright now. What are yours?
I was watching this video on YouTube the day I was writing my goals. Check it out.
What are your 2025 goals?
What’s it that matters to you the most? What’s it that would give you the most important satisfaction right now? Your career goals? Health and financial goals? Personal goals? What is it that your strive to achieve by the end of the year?
This will give direction to your process of setting goals.
Make sure the goals are SMART. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Timely.
You probably don’t want to set goals that are completely out of question, for example, suppose achieving fluency in not one, but 5 languages. Which is, technically, not that much of a far-fetched goal because I like to believe that nothing in the world is impossible.
But at the same time, you’ve gotta live your life too and not just focus on the end. Your 2025 goals should be ambitious, not unbelievable. Aim as high as you can, but make sure you aren’t disappointed by the end of the year.
Once you’ve set the major goals for this new year 2025, it’s time now to step-by-step revisit your goals and look at how you can make them a reality through consistent effort, persistence, patience and, of course, efficiency. Smart work, I believe, beats hard work. Always. いつも (pronounced, itsumo) (which is always in Japanese, and I just wanted to show it off right now.)
If you’re also planning to learn a new language this year, I’ve got a post that might get you going. How to Learn a New Language by Yourself This Year.
Make sure you’re 2025 goals are not standalone, though, like a lonely island with no way to reach it. The processes you need to undertake to breathe life into your 2025 goals is also very crucial to be discussed right now.
You’ve got the image of your higher self in your mind, the self that is unafraid, that is productive, and intelligent, and at the career position where you want to be. To become that higher self, you need to already start doing what that self does. You need to act like them, talk like them, construct your daily routine exactly like them.
Once you’re done with your yearly goals, make monthly goals. If you want to, make weekly goals. One benefit of weekly goals is that they help you in weekly roundups where you look over what went right every week and which task couldn’t be completed. It’s an amazing way to organize your life down to the minute.
Check out this post on tinybuddha.com about setting goals that you actually enjoy pursuing.
Goal Setting Worksheet
Now that we’ve looked over how to set goals for the new year, we can find our amazing goal setting worksheet below.
Here’s how to use the workbook.
The first page is for major 2025 goals. It’s the main things you want to achieve by the end of this year. Write down your wildest ambitions.
The next four pages in the goal setting worksheet are all about your individual goals. Here you can write down your particular aspirations, action steps, sub goals for each quarter, and finally, how you plan to avoid distractions and trivial work in between of your journey towards the completion of these goals.
Scroll down, you’ll find a section for monthly goals. Print this out for all months to plan for setting goals every month. In addition to this goal setting worksheet, there’s a habit tracker for all kinds of habits you want to foster. Make a to-do list too! Write down any notes you want!
Have fun getting your life together!
I hope this post helped you in learning how to set goals for the new year and getting clearer with how you want to proceed with this new opportunity.
See you in the next one.