Planning for success in 2025!

As someone who is both a self-help nerd and a project manager, it may not surprise you that I like to set formal goals for each New Year, to review on a quarterly basis (some of them in a spreadsheet).

On the one hand, you might say it’s not exactly spontaneous living. On the other hand, I tend to be more productive at work than home, so why not get professional about organising my private life?

Last week, as I did a final review of 2024 it struck me that several important items had remained unticked on the list. Some didn’t get completed, others didn’t even get started. A few got copied straight into this year’s list.

As there is nothing more depressing than having lost an entire year on something that felt important to you, I am now keen to think how to make these happen.

So this year, I went deeper into planning. I made my objectives SMART (if you work in corporate, this will be familiar) or at least approximately so – I set actual targets and deadlines for January and February.

As I went about breaking down each goal to small actionable chunks, there was something faintly depressing in realising that my ideals and dreams were in fact composed of basic to-dos, to be completed on a regular basis:

“Create a writing routine” boils down to writing every day, or posting every week.

“Stay in touch with friends” involves scheduling time for phone calls and actually calling, even when I don’t feel like it.

As it turned out, if you want good things to happen to you, life isn’t that glamorous – you have to work at almost everything.

In the words of self-help guru Mark Manson (author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck),

Achieving success is boring. It’s consistently doing the boring, mundane things everyone knows about but is too unfocused/undisciplined to do.

In previous years, I used to set an intention of how I wanted to feel for each New Year, but that got me nowhere (not to say that you shouldn’t, but some of us need more incentive to take action).

So this year, I split my goals over height categories which are all interconnected. These are not set in stone and might evolve, but they work well enough for my current focus.

–          Work life

–          Creative life

–          Couple/ Home life

–          Family

–          Friends

–          Body and fashion

–          Health/ mental health

–          Spirituality

For each area, I wrote down one or two main goals, which I then broke down into smaller actions to be added to my calendar.

As I was planning the next few weeks, I ended up with a silly number of tick-boxes, and I had to remind myself that life isn’t only about achievement. As the saying goes, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But I also think it’s nice to know you’re going somewhere.

So if you need a nudge, here are my suggestions for making a good year plan:

–          Pick your broad categories, reflecting areas of your life that are important to you now

–          Make a topline, vague goal, which resonates with you for each of them

–          Make sure to only pick things you want to do, not things you “should” (those probably won’t happen)

–          Break each topline goal down into smaller actionable steps

–          Set a timeline for completion and schedule the tasks in your week/ month, to make sure you’ll have time

–          Review progress monthly or quarterly, and set the next set of goals each time.

–          Repeat until the end of the year.

From there, the harder work starts. If you’re a control freak like me, the hard part is not achieving all the steps, it is resisting the urge to kick ourselves when we inevitably miss deadlines.

So a couple more points:

–          Remember that the goal is progress, not perfection.

–          Accept you can’t control everything, and don’t freak out if something comes in the way and derails your plan

–          Keep going, even if slowly. If you’re not reaching the set goals, make them smaller or easier

–          Course correct as you go

–          Be kind to yourself

If you follow those steps, most of the list will happen. Or not, but at least you’ll have tried new things – and hopefully had fun doing it.

Perfection isn’t all that important in the end, so let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Let’s enjoy all the good times that will come our way this year.

Have a great 2025 everyone!